spin

Where exactly is the evidence you refer to? Do you include the Testamentum Flavianum? Do you include the Suetonius passage about Chrestus in Rome?

If you want to believe in the veracity of any of the other pagan material, I challenge you to defend that belief.

When was the last analysis as to the existence of Jesus known to have been written using modern historiography? Can you name a scholarly historical journal that has published such an analysis? You need to look beyond popular literature if you want to get serious.

History is not democratic. It is a dictatorship of evidence. It doesn't matter how many hacks are working in the well-paying field of historical Jesus studies give their opinion, if they don't have any evidence, their opinions are nothing more than hot air.

You might believe that, but apparently the first person to know about the gospel of Mark was writing in the second century. The rest is conjecture. You (we) just don't know when Mark was written. But, but... it was obviously written before the fall of the temple... because the writers were incapable of writing about a pre-fall context.

You merely have this lovely rhetoric and no evidence to support your beliefs. You just reason that all the crap artists espouse a historical Jesus then it must be true. When are you going to think for yourself and show yourself that you can interact with the material you mention. It mightn't change your mind if your analysis were ahellovalot better than it currently is, but at least you'd know what you were talking about, rather than just playing the "me too" card.

Religious studies is a quagmire. Most of those in it are religious. How really does a believer contemplate something contrary to the belief? Their understandings no matter how reasonable will be infused by that belief. Read historical Jesus literature and you'll find that there is never an analysis of the fundamental question: "did Jesus exist?"

There may or may not be sufficient evidence to answer the question. I'm of the opinion, after having a look at what is available, that it cannot be seriously answered. I often ask people whether Robin Hood existed. Some people answer "yes" or "no", while others are happy to respond that there is insufficient evidence. Having also looked into the available information, I also think there is in sufficient evidence. He may or may not have existed and it's fine to sit on the fence: you don't need to be forced to have a position one way or the other.

How many people have looked into the evidence regarding the existence of Jesus? Ultimately the existing statements now in the pagan sources are too late to be relevant. The gospels are undatable and were frequently redacted. How can one extract historical information from them?

I frequently find people who won't go the whole nine yards on the historicity of Jesus.


spin

Steven Carr

Do those documents say this James was the church leader?

Steven Carr

That's strange.

Doherty regularly quotes the New Testament as evidence.

Are you convinced that Romans 10 is not evidence when it claims Jews can't be expected to have heard of Jesus, until Christians were sent to preach about him?

show_no_mercy

Papias, writing in the early 2nd century, doesn't seem like someone who knew a brother of Jesus:

For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice.

Why go to any of these people when you could go to the guy that Jesus grew up with?

judge

1.Eight in Galatians chapter 1 times Paul uses theos for god.These instances are in red

2.In verse 3 Paul refers to Jesus as lord. This marked in green

3.Then in verse 19 (again in green) Paul tells us of the lord.

How can we possibly think he means god in verse 19?

1Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2and all the brothers with me,
3Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be glory for ever and ever
6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
13For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother. 20I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24And they praised God because of me.

If paul meant god in verse 19 then that really would be confusing seeing as he uses theos 8 times for god in just that chapter.

Doug Shaver

I know Eusebius does. I'm not sure about any earlier sources, because it's been ages since I've read them. It just happens that I re-read Eusebius a couple of weeks ago.

jakejonesiv

Steven,

This is very much on the point! If someone wants to insist that James was the biological brother of Christ, they have do the same thing for the brothers of Yahweh in the OT. :rolling:

Jake

aa5874

The claim by Juststeve is fundamentally erroneous.

MJers must use the NT as EVIDENCE since it is a source which describes Jesus in a mythological way..

It is HJers who MUST reject the NT's EVIDENCE of Jesus.

HJers MUST claim that the EVIDENCE in the NT about Jesus is fundamentally FALSE or EMBELLISHED.

Now, whether the Pauline writer is claiming James was an actual brother of the Lord or not cannot override the fact that the Pauline writers themselves did NOT write that they SAW the LORD alive, except AFTER the resurrection, and that other Church writers claimed James the Just was NOT the son of the supposed mother of Jesus.

Juststeve

Steven Carr:

Sorry to be slow in responding to you.

No, I do not think Romans 10 can reasonably be read to suggest that Jews don’t know about Jesus the crucified man until Christians preach to them. In fact I think that is such a stretch that it would only be made by someone seeking to find evidence for a previously held opinion.

What I think Romans 10 does suggest is that Paul thinks the life and death of Jesus has a significance beyond the mere fact that a man named Jesus lived and was crucified. He thinks that ones knowledge of that additional significance and reaction to it determines your status with God. That is his preoccupation, not the details of Jesus earthly life which he may or may not know himself. Romans 10 is about Pauls theory of salvation, not the historical Jesus. He doesn't think the relationship of Jesus' death to their salvation will be apparent until someone preaches it to him. About that I think he's correct.

Steve

show_no_mercy

How could the significance of Jesus' death have been a mystery "for long ages past" (Romans 16:25, Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:26) if Paul is talking about a contemporaneous event?