Katastrophikus

If there are records, witnesses, and other factual support that confirm his existence outside of his own religious texts, then there is no reason to beleive that he didn't exist. The Christians themselves speak of Mormonism a lot, for example, and what they say (bias aside) supports the theory that he existed.

None of this is, from what I understand, exists when it comes to Jesus. I would have thoughts that at least one Pharasee would have mentioned a man that threatened to the point of having him put to death. Just look how much is being written about Atheists by Christians... Or just how much is written about Coulter and Hovind. You would think that one person outside of the bible would mention him... Just one...

jjramsey

Not necessarily. That would presume that Jesus was all that unusual from the Pharisees' standpoint. It is not as if there weren't other Jews who had gotten killed for being threats to the peace. If anything, Jesus was one of the more minor threats.

jgibson000

What doctrine ot MSS did Muhammed write?

Jeffrey Gibson

aa5874

Jesus Christ is potrayed in the Bible as extremely popular. The unknown authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John claim Jesus Christ was well known in the region, so much so that Jesus Christ had to take refuge in ships.

Look at Mark 3:7-10, But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre, and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him. And he spake unto his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude lest they throng him.

In the Bible, the Pharisees were constantly monitoring Jesus Christ, they perceived Jesus Christ as a real threat to their authority. Look at Matthew 12:14-15,' Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, how they might destroy Him. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed Him, and he healed them all.'

Are you now claiming that you reject the information from the unknown authors of Jesus Christ's popularity and the impact on the Pharisees, and have fabricated your own Jesus Christ, who, in your opinion, was virtually unheard of by any, including the Pharisees ?

It appears to me your argument is that the Bible is basically fictitious, but Jesus Christ is historical.

My argument is that the Bible is basically fictitious and Jesus Christ, the main character, must also be fictitious. Your HJ view has no basis, and appears to be pre-conceieved. How can a person regard the Bible as fiction, and still claim the main character, Jesus Christ, is historic, without solid corroborated evidence?

And even if you manage to show your insignificant Jesus lived, that is not the Jesus Christ written about in the NT. The Jesus Christ, I can not find, is written about in Luke 7:22, 'Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. So far no-one has been able to show me any evidence that this Jesus Christ ever lived.

Alf

Why? I have no problem believing that there really was a praetorian who testified as such under oath.

I have a problem believing said praetorian but that is a different issue.

In short - Suetonious is here unproblematic. The problem would arise if you were to accept as true what this praetorian testified under oath - he just seemed somewhat fanatic to me and I would pay no heed to his testimony. Suetonious on the other hand appear unproblematic. He just reported that some pratetorian testified as such under oath - something which is neither miraculous nor hard to explain - the guy was just a big fan of Caesar!

As I pointed out above, Suetonious did not make any miraculous claim, he just reported someone else making one.

The problem here is that one cannot put too much reliance on "brother of". It is a phrase that might imply kinship and that is the urual meaning but - and in partucular - in religious texts might also simply mean someone who is either a fellow believer or someone who has a special position within the cult of believers - especially when used in the form "brother of the lord" - that smacks more like a title than an actual description of someone being the brother of someone referred to as "the lord". It could be that they had this religious brotherhood and someone in a special leader position was referred to using such a title.

So, although it might be taken as an extremely weak form of evidence for a HJ it is very far from conclusive and by itself is simply worthless as evidence for HJ.

Problem with this is that "James" when tracked back to the original name (James is not a jewish name and is the name used in english language versions of the bible) is a common jewish name. Thus, there are potentially many different people with the same name which all got their name translated to "James". True, ancient people often used names to distinguish people who had the same name thus you get John the Baptist as different from other Johns. However, they only did this if they knew it was different people - if the storyteller himself confused one James with another James he would assume they were the same people and would convey this to the next and so on.

The problem here is of course that all the gospels stem from oral traditions and how reliable they are in details of this nature is highly questionable. It would be very easy to confuse one James with another James - simply because the stories were not written down yet but were oral traditions. Later when they were written down, the gospel writers simply continued such a confusion.

So, it is quite possible that the James referred to by Paul is a different James from the James referred to in gospels but that they got confused into one individual and this served the church's purpose just fine because that gave legitimacy to Paul which is the side they followed and so they saw no reason to question that they were the same James.

Of course, this does not at all prove that there were different James around, it could well be the same person but it does prove that using this as evidence for a historical Jesus doesn't quite work. It is very weak evidence at best - if it can be considered evidence at all.

Since they are so weak and demonstrates just about nothing at all that doesn't help much however.

They do demonstrate that it is POSSIBLE that there was some historical Jesus behind it all but that is the best it can do. It is nowhere close to prove that this is the way it happened.

Sorry but this is at best wishful thinking by historians if this is what they buy into. True, it cannot be dismissed offhand that it is possible that such a figure existed. Howver, it is nowhere close to be shown that it is the best possible explanation.

Another problem is that even if we for the sake of argument accept that such a Jesus existed, how much of him is left in the Gospel or Paul's writings? Nearly nothing at all. In particular if we are to take Paul as our foundation who essentially dismissed any historical figure and instead took it all from "revelation" and preferred his own revelation over that of the presumed eye-witnesses (the disciples of Jesus) who he barely bothered to meet and whenever they said anything he disagreed with he was right and they were wrong.

To tacle the first problem; What really IS the best explanation? What is meant by "best"? I will presume "the one that require the fewest assumptions". However, it is not a simple count of assumptions, for example assuming a man named Jesus (or rather Yechu) existed in the region at that time is unproblematic - it was a common name. Assuming that one such person may have been a form of rabbi - a teacher - is likewise unproblematic - there were lots of those around. Assuming that some people thought he performed miralces is again unproblematic - superstition was rampant and people believed they saw miracles everywhere. Assuming that he might have gotten crucified is also unproblematic. If you were a rabbi and if you had some followers and you made anything that smelled of riot near easter festivals, you probably would get some form of reaction both from the roman occupants as well as from local religious leaders who didn't like your teaching - especially if you rebelled against some of the teaching which was important for their basis of power. It is very possible that a rabbi from out of town who entered Jerusalem might teach stuff that if it gathered large following would undermine local religious leaders and so would create enemies.

For some, this is all they require for a historical Jesus. If so their historical Jesus possibly existed and we can accept it as a simplest explanation. How much of him has survived the Gospels or Paul's writing is another issue.

However, for some the above is not enough. To take the other extreme it is the believer who believe that this individual was Son of God and God incaranated and got crucified and resurrected and he really did miracles. While everyone else was faking it, this guy really did them for real.

I don't know of any historian who hold such a view that such a Jesus is historical and I wouldn't take one seriously if he did try to make such a claim. That would be a claim from faith and not from history.

So, a historian can fall back to the "minimal Jesus" I described first - if so it is really a weak claim and as I also have already said - it is highly debatable how much of this minimal Jesus survived through Paul's writings and the gospels. Thus, while there may have existed such a historical Jesus it is nowhere close to the jesus presented by the church or the bible.

A more reasonable view in some ways would be to require some more link between Paul and gospel's Jesus to some historical person. It is this link that is sorely missing and which compell us to say that the historical Jesus is largely non-existent and what is left is a mythical Jesus partly cooked up by Paul based on his "revelation" - i.e. his fantasies. and partly embellished by oral tradition which has been expanded upon until it got written down in gospels and partly by a power struggle and scheming and politics of the early church when forming the bible as we know it today by selecting which books to keep as "official declaration of faith" and which books to burn as heresy.

Maybe true but your description here is faulty. Although he was charged as a criminal if one is to believe the gospels, it is also obvious that the gospel writers themselves were convinced that he was not only innocent but that he was blameless or sinless.

So, while the "official" rome may had written little, his followers would have every reason to write down immediately - as soon as they could - everything about his biography and document his innocence. Why then wait until people had forgotten the possible historical circumstances around his existence or non-existence before writing down the gospels?

Could it be that it is just a mythical story that may have had a seed of truth from start but that seed is long lost and what is left for us is pure myth? That is exactly what the MJ people think. HJers have a problem here. On one hand is a guy who his followers is convinced is innocent - but they do not write or declare that anywhere - they just keep it as oral traditions within their cult and then only after a few decates or many has past do one of them write down the events as he has heard them from this oral tradition.

It does not make sense! If you were an actual eye-witness and knew the historicla Jesus and you believed of your whole heart that he was innocently crucified and that he arose from the dead as proof that he was God's chosen or God incarnate, then if you were at all able to scribble you would write it down or you would find someone who could write it down, perhaps collect money among your fellow believers to get money to hire someone to write it down if nobody in your cult knew how to write. Thus, the gospels should appear like within 5-10 years after the events and while some fundamentalists believes that is exactly what happened, most of us do not believe the gospels appeared so shortly after the events. Indeed, most of us believe they appeared long after the events they supposedly describe and that must puzzle a HJer. It doesn't make sense.

Alf

aa5874

You cannot just fabricate your own scenarios for the cause of Jesus Christ's death. What evidence do you have that Jesus Christ actually did smash up all the business' around the Temple, couldn't that have been an embellishment?

If smashing of the business' around the Temple led to the death of Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ would have died before he even began to preach, his only miracle would have been turning water into wine, according to the book called John, and Jesus Christ would have died as early as chapter 2 of John.
Are you saying that the events leading to the death of Jesus Christ as recorded in the NT are false, and you know the most likely circumstance that led to his death?

Your HJ position is unwarranted.

jjramsey

So, if I don't believe that Alexander the Great is the son of a god, then I am fabricating my own Alexander? Since when is accounting for exaggeration in historical sources "fabrication"? What kind of Bizarro logic is this?

Actually, my point has been that the Bible is more easily explained as a mixture of legends, exaggeration, and fact rather than as solely fictional.

Yeah, yeah, the "false-in-part, false-in-all" canard. Here's a hint for the day: A fallacy repeated over and over is still a fallacy.

I'm sorry for being cross with you, but while there are a lot of people on IIDB who I think are wrong, at least they put some effort into their arguments, and they can lead me to understand the grounds for why I think something is true. I have yet to see you at least be productively wrong.

aa5874

I view the Bible as basically fiction, especially in respect to the birth, life, death and ressurection of the character called Jesus Christ.

Come on, don't take this so serious. I'm having a lot of fun posting to you guys, I enjoy the discussions. I have learnt so much since I have been on IIDB. I am not one bit upset or cross with anyone on IIDB, I really appreciate the exchange of ideas.

Anyhow, back to the thread, IMO, the story of Jesus Christ is fiction, there is no supporting evidence to support his historicity.

jjramsey

People who blatantly cheat in an otherwise friendly game tend to spoil the game. Repeating an obvious fallacy over and over is spoiling this particular game. If you want others besides you to have fun, I'd suggest trying to play by the rules by bringing some serious attempt at rational argument to the table.

aa5874

You appear to be confused, I am just exchanging ideas or informatiom on IIDB, this cannot be cheating. I am not preventing you in anyway from making any input to IIDB. Disagreement with someone's views is not cheating, please check your dictionary.

My view is that Jesus Christ is fictitious, the unknown authors of the NT contradict each other when they describe the chronology and events of Jesus Christ, in addition, there is no extra-biblical corroborated evidence that Jesus Christ ever lived. There is no documented evidence to show that any contemporary historian has actually seen Jesus Chst, have spoken to him, can identify exactly where he was crucified or the tomb from which he was resurected.

The NT claims that Jesus Christ was well known throughout the region, yet that claim has been very difficult to prove. Those are some of the reasons why I regard Jesus Christ as fictitious.

Do you call that cheating?