aa5874

It is not necessary for all eyewitnesses to be alive to deduce that Jesus never lived in Bethlehem. It is not necessary for there to be eyewitnesses alive to deduce that Abraham Lincoln, a former president of the USA, did not live in Jamaica in the Caribbean while he was President.

There are lots of people who know where Abraham Lincoln lived who have never seen him alive or dead.

On the other hand, people saw Jesus alive after he was suppoed to be dead. Paul and over 500 people even, though outside the Church, no-one did write about him alive and in Nazareth.

gdeering

Hi Donn10,

Count me as 1, C, II. I do not see any of these in conflict.

When I first came to the board I was a garden variety atheist who (never thought about it - so...) assumed that Jesus existed in history. After a while here and doing some reading I have moved into the Myth camp - predominantly because of the retroactive Biblical validation of divinity and ahistorical myth-making used in the Gospels. I see this as a device necessary to win converts among 1st/2nd century audience, not a way to document an individual.

Unlike many other atheists, I do think the question is extremely important for moving society along.


Gregg

Tom Sawyer

Neither do I. Nor do I see any value in not holding it. It's really not an important enough issue for me to put much care into either way. Whether Jesus was a real person or a fake person is fairly moot in regards to how Christianity was built around the story of the person. It being based on a template from a real person with the mystical shit added in seems more sensible to me than being wholey fabricated, but it doesn't matter in any essential manner one way or the other.

Petergdi

I've been in scary storms on much smaller lakes. What is your source for the complete absence of scary storms?

Peter.

sschlichter

It is quite a large lake in a valley surrounded by mountains and is known (even in modern times) to sport sudden storms. There is a boat there (the Jesus boat) in a museum managed by a kibbutz on the lake belevied to be from the time of Christ (the boat, not the kibbutz). I suspect if you get in that small boat in the Lake in a storm, you will be frightened to death. You can check a local weather report to verify whether there are storms on the lake.

A relatively shallow lake is going to have a more violent reaction to the wind that a deeper one.

http://www.tripwolf.com/en/guide/sho...Sea-of-Galilee

Petergdi

I don't think the kind of storm they have frequently would be likely to seriously frighten people who have fished on the lake for their livelihood. It seems to me that it would have to be rather worse than normal. The implied claim by Toto that there are never scary storms on Lake Kinneret seems to me to require more than assertion.

Peter.

aa5874

The crucifixion of Jesus was partly fabricated from the Psalms. The authors of the JESUS stories appear to have used Hebrew Scripture instead of historical sources.

The last words of Jesus on the cross as found in gMatthew and gMark can be found in Psalms 22.1. See Matthew 27.46 and Mark 15.34.

The last words of Jesus on the cross as found in Luke23.46 can be found in Psalms 31.5

The parting of his garments can be found in Psalms 22.18 and Matthew 27.35, Mark 15.24, and John 19.24.

The use of false witnesses against Jesus can be found in PSALMS 27.12 and Matthew 26.60.

The words of Pilate where he claimed to be innocent of the blood of Jesus can be found in Psalms 26.6 and Matthew 27.24.

It is clear that the fabricators of Jesus did not rely on historical accounts but merely used Hebrew Scripture to manufacture their Jesus.

spin

OK, so you stridently hold onto guesswork and don't have anything to offer beside naked opinion in trying to understand the birth of christianity. This certainly helps us get closer to why Paul was so interested in people's salvation, doesn't it?


spin

Donn10

It seems odd for an atheist to think something was divine. Could you elaborate?

gdeering

Sure, simple: Within the Christian myth-cycle of Jesus he is presented as divine, though manifest in the flesh etc......

Secondly - whatever the earliest conceptions of this divine Jesus were, they were corrupted and modified in ways we know and in ways people are trying to understand from the crumbs available.


Gregg