Toto

I don't know of any who were dismissed as frauds. The Jewish Messiah would be known because he successfully liberated Israel. Would-be messiahs who failed were executed by the Romans, and that's how the Jews knew that they were not the true messiah.

Sven

I did not ask for which texts you mean, but for references which show that these texts are from the 1st century.

Sven

Sorry, got a reference?`I don't know about him.

I at least know that they were written in Greek originally - that's the scholary consensus. Why write something in Greek, supposedly addressing Jews, while being in Judäa?

How do you know that no one questioned the story?

And Christianity only "took off" after Konstantin made it the state religion abotu 200 years later - that is, due to a lucky coincidence.

mikem

This line of reasoning seems to come up fairly frequently. Lack of scientific knowledge and illiteracy are one thing, and credulity quite another. People had a pretty shrewd idea about conception and birth, and bodies staying dead. If you check Matthew's gospel, you find that Joseph was sceptical about virginal conception, and wanted to divorce Mary quietly, without putting her to shame. At the end of the same gospel, Matthew 27: 62 - 66, and 28:11 - 15, you see scepticism at work again, firstly to prevent the disciples stealing the body, and then buying off the guard at the tomb to keep quiet. So I don't think that prospective converts would be won over by a simple assertion of resurrection. It would take more than that.

Amaleq13

Simon bar Kochba

Malachi151

I don't believe in a historical Jesus.

My point on the resurrection is this:

If there was a historical Jesus, and he was crucified, then his crucifixion and resurection would be central aspects of all Christian belief, just as they are the central aspects of Christian belief today.

If Jesus was killed in a public display and described in the Bible, and thousands or at least hundreds, of people, witnessed a human being literally come back from the dead and ascend into the sky as described in the Bible, then this would represent the first time in human history that anyone had ACTUALLY witnessed such as event.

As such, this would have become major news, and it would surely have been the main piece of information and central to the beliefs of the early Christians.

What we find, however, is that many of the early Christians had no idea of this event at all, which would seem quite absurd if it had actually happened.

If, on the other hand, Jesus was a human being, and he really was crucified, but he was simply buried and never came back to life, then the people who witnessed his burial would never have believed that he came back to life, and many of his followers would have continued to pay homage to his grave site.

At teh very least, when later skepticism of his existance was noted among Christians in the 2nd and 3rd century, there would have been an effort to locate and mark his grave site, and if he had really existed and was really as important and well known as the Bible claims he was, then people would have known where his grave site was some 50-100 years later.

So, the whole story does not add up in any fashion, other than adding up to the conclusion that there was no historical Jesus at all, and the whole story is myth.

Thomas II

The resurrection never happened.
Either the person died on the cross, or was not dead when was taken down from the cross and survived,later disappearing from public life just as fast as he had appeared three years earlier...
I personally find interesting that there seems to be a Centurion "partial" to Jesus during the whole thing...Maybe even the same centurion who's servant Jesus had saved some days before, a centurion believing so much in Jesus' healing powers that he was convinced that Jesus could save his servant from a distance. In any case, that centurion "owed" Jesus for saving the life of his servant, so he might have arranged for Jesus to be brought down from the cross ALIVE,as indicated from the fact that blood and water streamed from the body when a soldier pierced his lung...
He also placed some of his soldiers guarding the "tomb" where Jesus was recovering for three days...and then took care of placing Jesus on a type of witness protection program...
All that seems more plausible than saying that Jesus resurrected and then 40 days later flew up into Heaven taken the third cloud to the left and away...

Zeichman

But why? At least give me something arguing that. Most liberal scholars DON'T Believe that Jesus' disciples knew where he was buried, if he was at all. (Cf. the Jesus Seminar and the writings of its Fellows)

What evidence is there for this? There is silence on his historicity from many sectors, but I know of nothing denying it.

And for those of us who believe he was marginal figure, this argument is meaningless. You're trying to appeal to non-supernaturalists by appealing to a literalist interpretation here.

Malachi151

Here is my position:

I don't think that ANY bit of the Jesus story is based on reality, its ALL myth. There was no one at all that the Jesus story was based on to any meaningful degree. In some degree, yes every story is based on someone, even the the character of Darth Vader, but I think that Jesus was as real as Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

The story of Jesus wasn't based on any person, it was based on preceeding myths.

There was no crucifixion event in the first place, much less any resurrection. Its all just a story.

Why do I think this?

Several reasons:

> There is no first hand account of Jesus, nor any record matching "his" trial and crucifixion in the records of the Romans or the Jews.

> There are many preexisting myths about saviors of humanity who were unjustly killed and then resurrected 3 days later.

> There are many different versions of the story of Jesus supposed death, including a story that he was stoned to death and then hung in a tree, that he was hung from a pole, and lastely that he was crucified on a cross. The Bible states both that he was "hung from a tree" and that he was crucified. Apologists claim that "hung from a tree" means crucified. I am not convinced of that at all, especially since the Talmud?Torah? SAYS that he was hung from a TREE.

> The image of "crucified Jesus" does not appear until the 7th century.

> There is record of worshiping the cross before the story of Jesus even existed, and there are several early Christian accounts explaning worship of the cross that never mention Jesus, showing that worship of the cross had nothing to do with a story about crucifixion.

If Jesus was in fact crucified then the early Christians surely would have listed this among the reasons why they worshiped the cross.

> There is no known burial or body. If Jesus was a real human, then when he died there would have been a body. If he was indeed crucified as claimed, then his body would have been buried somewhere. I find it hard to believe that none of his followers, if he really existed, would have known where he was buried or cared where he was buried.

All of this adds up to the view that no historical crucifixion of "Jesus" ever took place at all, much less a resurrection.

Sven

Thanks! (I was just to lazy to try wikipedia )

Unfortunately, the article does not say anything about him being rejected as a fake messiah or something along this line.