Juststeve

Selsaral:

It really won't do for you to begin by defining the Gospels as mythological texts. That should be your conclusion, not your premise.

My question is what reason do we have to doubt that among the people living in Palestine in the first century was a guy named Jesus who preached, had followers and got crucified?

Steve

Selsaral

Well that is actually a bit to the side of my point. I could just have easily have said 'the OP seems to imply that you can take any story filled with magic and legend, remove the magic and legend, and be left with history', which appears to be a similarly effective point.

However when I look up myth on the internet, that appears to perfectly match the gospels.

I get stuff like: a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.

James The Least

What reason do we have to doubt that there was a guy named Jesus who was born of a virgin, was tempted by the Devil, brought eyesight back to the blind, and was raised from the dead on the third day so that the sins of mankind could be atoned? Because that is the "Jesus" that the evangelists were actually interested in. His supposed biography was only relevant to the polemical value that it provided for the church, not for any intrinsic documentary purposes.

aa5874

Juststeve, It won't do for you to PRESUME Jesus was historical --that should be your conclusion, NOT your premise.

It is just so absurd that you have PRESUMED your Jesus existed and have the boldness to criticise people who REJECT your presumption.

Why Must people here accept your Imaginative Presumptions???

It is PERFECTLY reasonable and logical to REJECT your presumptions. After all, there are at least TWO sides to an argument.

Now, tell me, Why is it NOT reasonable to doubt that there was a 1st century named Jesus who preached, had followers and got crucified when there is NO credible evidence of his existence???

sotto voce

What value was that?

Toto

Wrong. There is no reason to assume that there is some historical basis for any given story. That's not how historians work in any other field.

All you are doing here is shifting the burden of proof to the other side.

We have no reason to doubt that there was some guy named Jesus who preached and had followers. But we have no credible evidence for him either.

We also have no particular evidence that this hypothetical person had anything to do with the origins of Christianity. No one has ever provided a good reason why such a person would be crucified by the Romans, or why his followers would start a religion based on these events that was invisible to history until several generations later.

sotto voce

Why is it that most of the world's population believes that he existed?

James The Least

It supposedly demonstrated that the Jews had killed the final prophet that God had sent them, thus giving Gentiles a justification for stealing their religion and using it against them.

Selsaral

That sounds a lot like the 'appeal to belief' fallacy. It also seems to be ignoring the fact that humans are known myth makers and love things like astrology, scientology, etc.

sotto voce

Why would they want to do that?