gracebkr

Flavius Josephus

Biff the unclean

Yeah, these people speculate that there was an historic Jesus. So what?

Biff the unclean

Sorry Grace, the part about Jesus in Josephus was a fraud added in the mid 300's. A rather poor fraud at that.

Alf

They did? What are they?

This is probably true - did they have chance to read those same letters? Those letters were written to far away communities - by the time they came back to Judea there might not be many people around who could attest to the truth of them or not.

Even if some may have protested and said "but Jesus never said X or did Y" they might be silenced by zealous followers. Also note that even in the NT it is reported of disagreements between Paul and those apostles who appearantly followed Jesus and Paul proclaimed himself to know Jesus better than those who knew him personally!

Now you could argue that it is possible that Paul got it mostly wrong but at least there WAS a jesus since otherwise how could he have an argument with those who "knew him personally"?

Unfortunately Paul never actually says that the other party knew Jesus in person - it is possible he purposely left out that bit in order to not make his own claim appear ludicrous but the fact is that he never said so this is an interpretation based on the assumption that there really was a physical Jesus who those apostles followed. In other words, we are assuming what we are trying to show - that isn't a good start. If we then leave out that assumption there are other ways to interpret it. For example the cult in Jerusalem was an older Jesus cult and thus persumably knew Jesus better than Paul who are fairly new in the game. However, no physical Jesus is necessary to explain the disagreement and contention.

I wouldn't be too fast to conclude that Pauline letters support a real physical Jesus if I were you.

The NT - I presume you mean the gospels here - almost certainly was not written that recent. There are evidence in the gospels themslves that they were written much later - later first century and early second century approx.

For example the fact that Luke appear to have borrowed heavily from Josephus and therefore must have written his gospel afer Josephus wrote his books. There are numerous other pieces of evidence such as writing style, facts included, manner of the story telling etc which reveal it to be of later date than shortly after Jesus supposedly died. The genuine pauline letters are the earliest christian writings we have and as already noted, Paul himself never actually met Jesus so he cannot possibly testify to a physical historical Jesus. The fact that he never actually claims that Jesus was a physical historical person is also relevant here. If he had made such a claim it would probably be reasonable to accept it even though he personally never met the guy but he persumably met people who had. As it is, he never did, so the question is open when reading only the genuine pauline letters.

This is most uncertain. Several of these early christians may or may not have met any actual apostles in person who in turn had may or may not have met a real actual Jesus. However, it is far from certain that this is so. If there was a physical Jesus it is most likely that at least some of the early christians had met him but again, we cannot assume what we are trying to show so this line of logic doesn't fly.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
it seems unlikely that these sources, if falsified, could have remained unquestioned. In fact, the last point here is very suggestions: "The information in the NT about Jesus is not credible... miracles as described are not true... etc. etc." Essentially, what this writer says is: "I don't believe this, therefore historians can say nothing about it." I disagree. The NT stories of Jesus are credible IF he was the Son of God - certainly they are not credible if he was not.
[/quote]
You are again assumign what you are trying to show - and it still doesn't fly.

Yes, IF we accept that there is a god and that Jesus is the son of this god fellow THEN we can accept that the miracles are credible - in fact then he should be able to do better miracles than just copying some OT miracles and do regular faith healings which was 13 a dozen back in those days. Of course, the christians claims that Jesus unlike the other 13 of the dozen was genuine and didn't fake the miracles but there is no way to verify such claims so they simply remain assertions.

However, the problem is that you have to presume the very thing you want to conclude, if we do not accept that big IF in previous paragraph the conclusion does not at all follow.

What we do know for a fact is that there are reports of miracles a plenty back in those days. People were gullible and they believed pigs could fly if you were a good con man and was able to convince people of seeing things the way you wanted them to see.

We also know of people who claimed to be healed by people who did so reluctantly. People who themselves did not believe they had healed anyone. So reports of miracles are not worth buying into. Thus, there is no need to make all those presumptions as you do and so there is no need to accept your conclusion.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
2. "In the second place, supposing that the Jesus story is false, why would your teacher think that the Disciples would know that it was false? Why couldn't they believe it was true but be wrong? I don't know why your teacher would say that at all. Do you?"

The key issue here is what the apostles say and do. They say they saw Jesus resurrected, they spoke with him, they touched and ate with him..
[/quote]
Err...no. The GOSPELS claim that the apostels saw Jesus resurrected, that the apostels spoke with him and touched and ate with him.

The apostels never wrote a single line of text that is kept until today. Paul doesn't count, he never met Jesus. Peter doesn't count, the letters from Peter in NT is most certainly forgeries and not from the Peter described in the gospels.

We do not have a single statement from any of the apostles except from the gospels. The gospels should therefore be our focus. How trusttworthy are they?

We have discrepancies between Matthew and Luke - who was Joseph's father? Joseph here is husband of Mary. Who was his dad? Matthew and Luke disagrees.

What about Luke? He is supposedly the most "historical" of the gospels. Borrowing heavily from Josephus one can see that Luke is of fairly late date. One can also see that he has problems with a census. He claimed that Augustus proclaimed a census for the whole world - i.e. the whole roman empire. However, the first such empire wide census was held in year 80 or so. If Jesus was around 30 when he hang on the cross that would bring us to the second century for the resurrection! There must have been christians before Jesus hang on the cross! No, the most likely explanation is that Luke got it wrong and it is a Judean only census held in 6 AD he is referring to. However, such goofs does not indicate a person who consider it important to get the historical facts right.

So what else did Luke get wrong?

It is obvious that all the gospels are theological documents describing faith and that they have nothing to do with historical recording of actual historical events. What was important for the author of Luke etc was not if what they wrote were historically correct but if what they wrote described properly the christian faith and could be a guide for people who wanted to convert to this new faith. They were never meant to be read as historical documents - modern christians got it all wrong. Consequently it is a big mistake to attempt to gleam anything historical from the gospels - they are worthless as historical documentation.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
. their experience of the resurrected Jesus was something true for them.
[/quote]
We don't know that. We know the gospels claimed the resurrection was true and it was most likely true for the gospel writers. How far removed from the actual apostles following any possible historical Jesus is hard to say. I will give you a hint: The gospel of Luke etc was NOT written by Luke. For example we know that the gospel of Mark was written by a person who had never set foot in Judea. There are simply too many geographical errors lack of understanding of Judean culture etc in that gospel to make any sense if it was written by a jew or someone in contact with jews.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
And, it is important, that this was no hallucination. The way Jesus's resurrection appearances are described in the NT suggest a real flesh and blood person - not a ghost. In fact, his resurrection actually validated his claim - a claim the apostles believed was wrong after his execution. The apostles died for what they had seen, not for what they believed.
[/quote]
We don't know that. The stories of the apostles deaths are lost in myth and legend. We have no historical account of any of them.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
3. "The premise of the proof is far too simplistic to make a compelling evidential argument. The psychology of belief, knowledge, and sincerity is a lot more complicated than the teacher assumes."

I disagree. I do not think that stubborn, cynical fishermen who saw a man they followed for three years executed as a criminal, shunned by his own people and cursed by God, would be likely to believe they saw him resurrected, ate with him, touched him too, and then risk their lives and souls to preach his message. I think it even less likely that his enemies (like Paul) or family (like James) would be likely to follow him unless he appeared to them as is claimed. Yes, psychology of belief, knowledge and sincerity is complicated but psychological explanations for incredible historical phenomena, especially when they don't take account of the phenomena, the historical evidence and other pertinent events, are unconvincing.
[/quote]
There are things about 1st century Judea you appear to not be aware of. Shortly after the supposed events of the gospels there was heavy unrest in Judea. War etc. Jews were dispersed and the temple destroyed. Even assembling anyone who was a witness to the events around 30-40 years earlier would be difficult and assembling a group large enough to debunk the claims would be impossible. In addition the christians didn't go to Jerusalem and make their claims, they went to Greece, Rome etc far away and told about this guy who got crucified in the far away city of Jerusalem only to be resurrected 3 days after. It was next to impossible to debunk their claims. In addition few people cared. The early christians was a small group of radical fanatics who preached among the poor, the uneducated and the disposessed. The educated rich people couldn't care less about a fringe cult and their claims.

By the time the christian cult had moved up in the hierarchy and reached the richer and more influential people any persons left who could debunk their claims was long gone and if one long lived person stood up and said "I was there, I never saw this Jesus fella do those things as you said" the christians would simply ignore him.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
4. "If Jesus existed and were crucified (and I see no reason to doubt either), the most likely reason would be because he was the leader of what the Romans would have considered a "terrorist" organization. Which also explains why he allegedly instructs his disciples that if the shit hits the fan, they should all leave their women and children behind and run like cowards and how they would be "persecuted" for knowing him. Of course they would be; they were seditionists.
[/quote]
"Terrorist" is a modern word, but yeah the romans did try to uphold law and order and if someone were a "troublemaker" they would deal with them accordingly. So yeah, some people named "Yeshua" was probably crucified. It is the resurrection part we have problem with.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
That's the most likely, reality version of why any "followers" of Jesus might have been hunted down and killed, though, again, as others have pointed out, we have no reliable confirmation that this actually happened.
[/quote]
Well, someone did survive the persecution or else there would be no cult afterwards. However, how historically accurate the "facts" that that cult was based on is highly questionable. It is not uncommon throughout historiy that a cult has been based on various claims by founder which we later find questionable. And that was claims made while the founder was still alive and made those very claims and there were people around who could in theory debunk them.

The point is that many cult members ignore any outsiders who debunk their leader's claims - no matter how well proven the debunking is. Also, in older days they didn't really bother to provide sufficient evidence when debunking claims. They typically only asserted the opposite and then people who believed them would consider the original claim debunked while people who rejected their claims would consider the original claim to still be true. The idea that you must verify your claims or show evidence is a modern thing.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
It also would explain, however, why they might have been killed "for their beliefs;" because what they believed in was sedition against their oppressor, so the first question I guess I would ask your teacher is what did a first century Roman think one of Jesus' alleged disciples was? A Jew? Certainly, no questioning that. A Jew who believed that Jesus was God? No evidence in the gospels that I know of confirms this, but even if it were true, why would any Roman kill a Jew who thought another Jew was their God? "
[/quote]
The roman empire was back in the days quite unique as far as religious tolerance goes. Most rulers in those days had some favorite religion which they followed and then they wanted all their subjects to follow the same religion. However, the roman empire was huge and had many cultures within their borders and so religious tolerance was the norm. However, they did require one thing: That people publicly honored the roman gods. What people did in their own house was their business but publicly they had to at least honor the roman gods even if they did not worship them.

The christians however, had a tendency of showing disrespect to the roman gods and all religions and gods except their own and that caused the romans in general to consider them traitors to rome and prosecute them. However, only a few were prosecuted and only because they had been exremely vocal in their disenunciation of the roman gods. Some christians considered it an honor to die in the games and actively sought such a punishment thinking their ticket to heaven was assured. However, we don't know any of that about the apostles. We do know of an syrian bishop who went to Rome to feed the lions and on the way he was allowed to visit christians and speak with them so obviously christians in general was NOT prosecuted.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
This is highly problematic. Firstly, we do have historical evidence that the apostles were executed for their beliefs. Josephus, Tacitus, the NT, archaeological evidence from the catacombs in Rome, and other sources, evidence this.
[/quote]
They do? I am unaware of any such evidence. I do know that there were christians who were prosecuted but as noted above we don't know of any apostles and we know for certain that christians in general were NOT prosecuted. I.e. simply being christian was not enough to get you in jail or executed.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
Was Jesus's claims a form of sedition? In a sense yes, and that explains the response in John, where the Jewish leaders say that Jesus claims to be king and that there is no king except Caesar, so that Jesus was setting himself up as his rival. Other Gospel sources show Jewish leaders claiming that Jesus told Jews not to pay tax. So, Jesus was being set up as a seditious leader by the Jewish leaders.
[/quote]
We cannot trust too much in this. It is well known that the gospel writers had their own agenda and one in particular purposely tried to show jews as dim and mean people for whom we need not have much sympathy. Christians has through the years used this anti-jewish sentiment of some of the gospels to support anti-semittism - Martin Luther for example. Later Adolph HItler also built on the same tradition.

QUOTE=jonathan_hili;4417000]
No evidence in the Gospels suggests that Jesus thought he was God??? Please, read the Gospels again... "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..." and many others.[/QUOTE]
This is the gospel of John. Many consider John to be the latest gospel and also the one that is wholly different from the others. It is obvious that the author of that gospel had his own agenda and historical correctness was not among them.

It is also obvious that he was drawing upon a theological tradition that is rather different from the other gospels. Yet, probably a sub-cult within christianity which was growing. Putting the 4 gospels together was simply a way to reconcile different factions whtin the church who each adhered to their way of understanding the tradition. This gospel of John was one such faction and it is obvious that that faction considered Jesus to be God - it is not so obvious if Jesus himself or if any of the apostles did consider him to be God.

In short - it is quite possible that there was one or more guys named "Yeshua" running around Judea and preaching and one or more of them could get in trouble with the romans and get themselves crucified.

It is also possible that one or more of those had some followers. Not necessarily 12 but 12 is an important number in Judean tradition so he could have had exactly 12 or he could have had more or less and later tradition turned it into exactly 12.

It is a completely different matter with a genuine miracle worker who was the Son of God and God all rolled into one who had a virgin birth, resurrection and ascencion. Those things are far more uncertain and we have no reason to believe any of it to be true.

Alf

gracebkr

There is evidence that Jesus existed, not proof. There is a difference. "Mere speculation"? How about using logic. (Speculation is there is a planet 20.6 light years away, that orbits a dwarf sun, that has gases so thick the surface cannot be seen, but it is earth like.) Logically a conspiracy of the magnitude you claim it be about a man named Jesus who never existed, would not stand. Logically. The bigger the conspiracy, the more likely someone in it will cave and the whole thing will come crashing down. Let's use probability now, what is the probability that one "mythological" character from that time who was invented from that time would still be talked about as real for 2000 years? You say there was many myths of men rising from the dead in that time. Many myths from that time. Can you please give me a name of one of them that rose from the dead, other then Jesus? If there were many myths such as this and based around people who didn't exist, maybe you can give me evidence of an account of these myths that so closely resemble the Jesus "myth.

gracebkr

I never read anything like that. Please give me a reliable source.

RPS

There you go again, Biffy. The majority of scholars (per Fredriksen's Jesus of Nazareth -- note that Fredriksen is not a Christian) accept the Testimonium as basically authentic with interpolations, thus providing an extra-Biblical source and putting the lie to your fraud claim. Moreover, there is no evidence that the Josephus "brother of James" reference is not wholly genuine, providing another extra-Biblical source. So on the one hand we have esteemed scholars, Christians and non-Christians alike, who deny the fraud claim while, on the other hand, we have an animal trainer who says it is a fraud without supporting the claim. The lurkers should be able to make that call pretty easily....

Angrillori

Excellent point. Remember, the story we have was passed on by believers and followers. What makes a better story:

Disciple X resolutely clung to his faith as the Romans dragged him off.
-or-
Disciple X cried like a baby, wet himself, and recanted everything, begging for his life, and admitting everything was a lie as the Romans dragged him off to execute him anyways.

If I were a (remaining) follower of Jesus, I know which one I'd put into my book when disciple X got offed, regardless of what might have actually happened.

But I still think the most important part is that people can sincerely believe wrong things with enough ardent fervor to die for them. Koresh-ies, Heaven's gaters, etc. all believed in their leader enough to die for him, and that's just in the last couple decades. It makes it not so unlikely that 12 dudes a couple thousand years ago could have been similarly devoted to a cult leader as well.

decalog10

It is also possible that the apostles were genuinely convinced of his resurection after some type of experience of him after being raised from the dead. They then went from denying Christ to death defying confessors of Christ.

Koyaanisqatsi

Once again, the only thing that matters is what the Romans thought when/if they were hunting down and killing Jesus' alleged disciples.

Did the Romans kill any of Jesus' disciples just because the disciples "professed their belief in Jesus"? The answer would unquestionably be, "No." Why? Because if you believe the NT, the Romans had just heard their own leader (Pilate) declare that Jesus had committed no crime, was innocent of all wrongdoing and was a free man. It was the ever fickle, easily manipulated "crowd of Jews" who somehow threatened Pilate into killing Jesus.

So why would any Romans hunt down any disciples of a completely innocent man, let alone kill them for "professing their beliefs in him?"

:huh:

If you can't answer that question, then all cult claims of disciples being hunted down and killed "for their beliefs" must be little more than cult mythology (and rather poorly thought out cult mythology at that).