Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Peter Kirby · 12-07-2006, 09:05 AM

I want to play a game of sorts, with a purpose. I want to collect as many possible arguments to the effect of "Therefore, Jesus did not exist." Here are the rules:

1. No rebuttals.
2. No parody posts, please. Serious arguments only.
3. One argument per post.
4. A maximum of 500 words per argument. (You shouldn't need more; you can use citations to support points that are developed in the literature.)
5. The conclusion must be "Therefore, Jesus did not exist."
6. You don't have to be a logician. However, you may submit revisions of previously made arguments that attempts to put them in a logically valid form.

When we've collected them, I will perform my own arbitrary ordering of them, and start new threads for the top 10, or fewer, depending. If you want to start a thread on any given argument, you are free to do so at any time.

When we're done, we will have a good base for an achristology.

NOTICE to the mods: If anyone starts doing rebuttals in this thread, please farm them out to their own separate threads.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

Malachi151 · 12-07-2006, 09:35 AM

Well, I'm not sure about this exactly, but I don't think that any one argument can reach the conclusion that "Jesus did not exist", it takes a collection of arguments, so asking for single arguments to this effect I think will not work.

Nevertheless, here is my list of arguments to this effect, from a paper that I am currently working on:

Quote:

The gospel of Mark was the first story of Jesus that was written, and all others are dependant on it.
The gospel of Mark shows very clear signs of being written as an allegorical fiction.
Virtually every detail of the life of Jesus comes from "Old Testament" scriptures.
Some of the details of the life are Jesus are based on mistranslations of the Hebrew scriptures.
Jesus' crucifixion on Passover defies historical believability given the practices of the Jews at that time, yet makes perfect sense metaphorically.
The earliest writings about Jesus, from Paul and others, contain no details of his life at all.
Many statements in the letters of Paul only make sense if Paul does not view Jesus Christ as a historical person.
There is not one single writing from or about Jesus during his supposed lifetime.
Philo, a prolific Jewish writer who lived from 20 BCE to 40 CE (spanning the time in which Jesus supposedly lived), wrote extensively about the political and theological movements throughout the Mediterranean, and his views foreshadowed Christian theology, yet he never once wrote anything about Jesus. Not only this, but he actually wrote about political conflicts between the Jews and Pontius Pilate in Judea.
All of the non-Christian references to Jesus can be shown to have either been introduced later by Christian scribes or were originally based on Christian claims.
The gospels make many claims that are contradicted by the historical record.
There were many conflicting beliefs about who Jesus Christ was in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries, including beliefs that he had never existed on earth "in the flesh".
The Catholics made purely theological arguments as to why Jesus Christ had to have existed "in the flesh".
There is no evidence of any worship or knowledge of a tomb of Jesus (empty or occupied) prior to the gospel stories.
There are many other stories similar to the story of Jesus about other mythical heroes from the same time period.

I'll go ahead and just paste in a section from my paper on what I think it the most important argument:

Quote:

Virtually every detail of the life of Jesus comes from "Old Testament" scriptures

Many people ask, "if Jesus didn't exist, then where did these stories come from?" "How would these stories emerge if someone did not in-fact inspire them?"

Pretty much every detail of the life of Jesus as presented in the gospels relates back to some prior Hebrew scripture, mostly from the scriptures that we now call the Old Testament, and some elements of the gospels appear to be based on other non-scriptural works as well. The life of Jesus is a story that was created by combining elements from many other Hebrew stories to create a pseudo-proto-typical savior figure. Christians have traditionally used the parallels between the story of Jesus and the Hebrew scriptures to claim that Jesus fulfilled many prophecies from the "Old Testament".

There are several problems with this. First of all, even if every parallel between the story of Jesus and the Hebrew scriptures related back to a Hebrew prophecy, there would still be nothing to show that the authors of the gospels didn't simply base their stories on the prophesies, they would have known exactly what to write in order to "fulfill" the prophecies and we have nothing independent of the gospels to account for any of this.

Secondly, many of the parallels between the story of Jesus and the Hebrew scriptures don't relate back to prophecies, they simply relate back to other stories about different people, or simply to songs and poems.

Thirdly, as we will discuss later, some of the key elements of the Jesus story are based on mistranslations of the Hebrew scriptures, showing clearly that the authors of the gospels were basing their accounts of Jesus on other texts and that there is no way to call those accounts "prophesy fulfillment".

Lastly, I call the Jesus Christ of the gospels a pseudo-proto-typical savior because the story of Jesus is defiantly based on the Hebrew scriptures, but it is based on a misunderstanding of them.

{Here I am breaking from my origional text to draw an early conclusion tothe above}

The fact that virtually detail of the life of Jesus in the gospels comes from extant materials, yields the conclusion that these materials are the basis for the Jesus story. If there were other sources of information about a real live Jesus, then why was there such a need to rely on existing scriptures? The best explanation for the reason as to why the existing scriptures form the base of the gospel material, is that the scriptures are the basis of the Jesus story in the first place, thus a historical Jesus did not exist.

I kind of just threw that last bit in to summarize my point quickly, take it as you will.

Peter Kirby · 12-07-2006, 09:37 AM

1. Josephus did not mention Jesus.
2. If Josephus did not mention Jesus, Jesus did not exist.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

Boro Nut · 12-07-2006, 09:42 AM

1. 15.27 metric tonnes of true-cross fragments exist.
2. But not one true coffee table.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist.

kind regards,
Boro Nut

skinumb · 12-07-2006, 10:06 AM

If Gospel Jesus did exist we'd expect to find some mention of him somewhere in contemporary secular records, or in later non-Christian written history.

Scholars, historians and archaelogists have scoured where you'd expect to find contempoary evidence and there is none considered reliable...no grafiti, no busts, no idol worship, no record of a young lad confounding the Pharisees etc, nothing recorded by his followers or onlookers.

Some writers such as Josephus and Philo wrote extensively about events and people in the Jesus era, but make no mention of him or any events that suppossedly surrounded his life, which makes the absence of evidence more likely evidence of absence.

What evidence has been found is obvious interpolation/forgery that suggests back then it was recognised there was nothing of substance, so 'substance' had to be invented.

gstafleu · 12-07-2006, 10:56 AM

There is no evidence for the existence of Jesus outside of religious documents.
Christianity and Jesus fit well into an established set of myths/religions, all of which are acknowledged to be "unreal".
The most parsimonious hypothesis is therefore that Christianity and its Jesus is such a myth: arguing--without evidence, see 1--that Christianity and Jesus are some sort of exception violates Occam's Razor.
Therefore we have to assume that Jesus did not exist.

Gerard Stafleu

yummyfur · 12-07-2006, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boro Nut

1. 15.27 metric tonnes of true-cross fragments exist.
2. But not one true coffee table.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist.

kind regards,
Boro Nut

I made a table out of Kentucky Coffeetree wood, Does that count? Does that mean I'm Jesus?

DAZ · 12-07-2006, 01:28 PM

Premisse 1: Jesus is the Son of God.
Premisse 2: Jesus expected to find figs out of season.

Conclusion: Jesus did not exist.

Ben C Smith · 12-07-2006, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Kirby

1. Josephus did not mention Jesus.
2. If Josephus did not mention Jesus, Jesus did not exist.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

To expand this beyond Josephus:

1. If, among contemporary or near contemporay documents, only Christian or Christianized documents mention Jesus, then Jesus did not exist.
2. Among contemporary or near contemporary documents, only Christian or Christianized documents mention Jesus.
3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist.

Ben.

aa5874 · 12-07-2006, 02:46 PM

Josephus mentions the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essennes. He never mentions the sect called Christians who are supposedly followers of the Messiah.

I conclude, therefore that Jesus Christ does not exist.

12-07-2006, 09:05 AM	#1
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	Therefore, Jesus did not exist I want to play a game of sorts, with a purpose. I want to collect as many possible arguments to the effect of "Therefore, Jesus did not exist." Here are the rules: 1. No rebuttals. 2. No parody posts, please. Serious arguments only. 3. One argument per post. 4. A maximum of 500 words per argument. (You shouldn't need more; you can use citations to support points that are developed in the literature.) 5. The conclusion must be "Therefore, Jesus did not exist." 6. You don't have to be a logician. However, you may submit revisions of previously made arguments that attempts to put them in a logically valid form. When we've collected them, I will perform my own arbitrary ordering of them, and start new threads for the top 10, or fewer, depending. If you want to start a thread on any given argument, you are free to do so at any time. When we're done, we will have a good base for an achristology. NOTICE to the mods: If anyone starts doing rebuttals in this thread, please farm them out to their own separate threads. kind regards, Peter Kirby

12-07-2006, 10:56 AM	#6
gstafleu Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,719	There is no evidence for the existence of Jesus outside of religious documents. Christianity and Jesus fit well into an established set of myths/religions, all of which are acknowledged to be "unreal". The most parsimonious hypothesis is therefore that Christianity and its Jesus is such a myth: arguing--without evidence, see 1--that Christianity and Jesus are some sort of exception violates Occam's Razor. Therefore we have to assume that Jesus did not exist. Gerard Stafleu

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12-07-2006, 09:37 AM	#3
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	1. Josephus did not mention Jesus. 2. If Josephus did not mention Jesus, Jesus did not exist. 3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist. kind regards, Peter Kirby

12-07-2006, 09:42 AM	#4
Boro Nut Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Middlesbrough, England Posts: 3,909	1. 15.27 metric tonnes of true-cross fragments exist. 2. But not one true coffee table. 3. Therefore, Jesus did not exist. kind regards, Boro Nut

12-07-2006, 10:06 AM	#5
skinumb Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Bedford, England Posts: 34	If Gospel Jesus did exist we'd expect to find some mention of him somewhere in contemporary secular records, or in later non-Christian written history. Scholars, historians and archaelogists have scoured where you'd expect to find contempoary evidence and there is none considered reliable...no grafiti, no busts, no idol worship, no record of a young lad confounding the Pharisees etc, nothing recorded by his followers or onlookers. Some writers such as Josephus and Philo wrote extensively about events and people in the Jesus era, but make no mention of him or any events that suppossedly surrounded his life, which makes the absence of evidence more likely evidence of absence. What evidence has been found is obvious interpolation/forgery that suggests back then it was recognised there was nothing of substance, so 'substance' had to be invented.

12-07-2006, 01:28 PM	#8
DAZ Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Dar al-Harb Posts: 16	Premisse 1: Jesus is the Son of God. Premisse 2: Jesus expected to find figs out of season. Conclusion: Jesus did not exist.

12-07-2006, 02:46 PM	#10
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	Josephus mentions the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essennes. He never mentions the sect called Christians who are supposedly followers of the Messiah. I conclude, therefore that Jesus Christ does not exist.

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