spamandham

I have posed a similar question here http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...74#post3920074

Sadly, after 18 pages of commentary, I am only slightly closer to an answer than when I started. I thought it would be an easy question.

Josephus is probably irrelevant even if the pasage about Jesus was legitimately his. Such a passage only proves that Christianity existed at the time Josephus wrote - a point which is not generally contested.

spamandham

Although this is certainly interesting, I guess I dont see why you consider it evidence of anything. Were mystical anagrams common at the time?

Bodhi

No, but I do believe in Brahman (existence). I didn't mean that the Christian religion was evidence that Jesus the God was real, just Jesus the historical figure.

I agree.

Like I said, it makes sense that no one wrote about him when he was alive because at the time there were lots of faith healers, self proclaimed messiahs, and Rabbi's teaching the same things as Jesus. He didn't become a note worthy figure until after his death when he developed a rather large following.

I don't believe in the Christian heaven and hell, not literally anyway.

RAFH

Have they ever been common?

Gooch's dad

RAFH:

You ask me to "show you the proofs". The burden of proof is on you. The consensus among historians and biblical scholars is that Jesus existed as a man. YOU need to show me peer-reviewed literature that constitutes a historical study.

A pop-press book doesn't constitute solid scholarship in historical inquiry, any more than Behe's pop-press dreck constitutes actual evolutionary biology.

aa5874

If no one wrote about about him when he was alive, it is reasonable to think that every thing written about him was fabricated or based on rumors and speculation.

And if many persons were claiming to be messiahs, faith healers and Rabbis, it makes no sense to say that a relatively unknown person is Jesus Christ.

What you have overlooked is that the authors of the Gospels most likely knew that the acts claimed to have been carried by Jesus Christ could not have happened. These miraculous acts were never known to have actually occured at anytime in history.

The Gospels, although they refer to a name 'Jesus Christ', there is little indication that each author is actually writing about the same character. These authors have this figure saying and doing things in different order and are contradictory in key areas.

I have no reason to think that Matthew's Jesus Christ is Mark's, Luke's, John's or Saul/Paul's character. At best, all the authors seem to be refering to, or cpoying and advancing, the same speculation, rumour and fiction.

spamandham

...sorry, posted in wrong thread

Bodhi

So if something significant isn't written about you when your alive, it's reasonable to assume that you never existed? Have any historians written about you?

If people like that were common, why does it make no sense to assume that one of them inspired the gospel stories?

They could be metaphors, or maybe just elaborations that were added by the authors for various reasons.

There are contradictions, but they all seem to agree on what his basic teachings were, who he claimed to be, and how he died.

Steven Mading

I've heard this stance before and the problem with it is that the word "Jesus" is referring to two completely different things. The Jesus described in the bible is an entirely different hypothesis than "a mortal guy who got crucified and didn't do any miracles at all, and was not the son of god, and was just some ordinary guy." They aren't the same thing at all. And there is nothing wrong with expressing it as "the character in the bible is fictional and didn't exist. The fictional character was inspired by a real guy, but they are so different that it would be dishonest to call them the same person."

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, there were real world historical figures that were the inspiration for some of the named pigs on the farm. But that doesn't mean talking pigs existed, nor does it mean "historical talking pigs" existed.

Jesus Christ didn't exist. Some guy upon whom the story was very loosely based might have existed, though. Describing that stance as "the historical Jesus existed" doesn't adequetely get the point across that the guy who existed is someone entirely unlike the guy people think of when they hear "jesus".

I guess my point is that it's not even accurate to say the guy upon whom the religion was founded existed if what you actually believe is that the religion was founded after his death by people fabricating the story of what he did - if it's exaggerated to the point where it's not based on his life in the slightest, then he's not really the founder of the religion. The people that came a few centuries later and fabricated his life story are the founders.

The analogy you tried to make with Islam proving mohommed exists doesn't apply because of one very crucial difference - Jesus is not claimed to be the author of the bible. His alleged followers are describing him in the third person in the text. Mohommed is calimed to be the author of the koran, though. The existence of the religion proving the existence of the author of the religion would NOT prove Jesus existing in the case of Christianity because Jesus isn't the author of the bible.

RAFH

Yes, he's writing here and now. You are responding to him, so, I guess he does exist. This is a ridiculous argument.


Probably because those characters were scammers and frauds.

Now we are getting somewhere. This explains whatever parts do seem to agree. I mean, they had to get some parts right.


There are contradictions, but they all seem to agree on what his basic teachings were, who he claimed to be, and how he died.[/QUOTE]
See above. It would make sense to try to get some consistency. They just weren't very good at it.