Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Julian · 01-11-2006, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

There are sources from as early as AD 52 which to Jesus.
http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...HistJesus5.htm

Now, if we are to assume the empty tomb was simply a myth and it never existed and it was just added into the Gospels at a later date, wou would honestly believe this? Let's say right now soemone comes to you and says that 50 years ago there was an empty tomb and someone rose from the dead, you would not believe this. Even if you looked for older people from 50 years ago they would say they don't remember any such thing and nobody would believe it. What mad epeople start believeing the empty tomb?

Why is this so hard to accept? You believe it, and almost 2000 years have passed. Also, there very few witnesses so who would you ask that would have seen it? In other words, it is a claim with no witnesses but since believing it made you part of a nice community and could give you enternal life, why not believe it? People believe all sort of strange stuff, when you can answer why then you will have answered your own question.

Julian

hatsoff · 01-11-2006, 08:22 AM

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Originally Posted by Half-Life

There are sources from as early as AD 52 which to Jesus.
http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...HistJesus5.htm

But those sources are clearly embellished and therefore suspect.

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Now, if we are to assume the empty tomb was simply a myth and it never existed and it was just added into the Gospels at a later date, wou would honestly believe this?

No, the resurrection story was probably included in the Gospels from the beginning. As for the oral tradition on which the Gospels were based, well, who can say?

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Let's say right now soemone comes to you and says that 50 years ago there was an empty tomb and someone rose from the dead, you would not believe this.

I wouldn't, no, but there are a lot of morons out there who would.

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Even if you looked for older people from 50 years ago they would say they don't remember any such thing and nobody would believe it. What mad epeople start believeing the empty tomb?

That argument doesn't hold water. You're assuming that people will be rational and logical, and that's just not the case. Consider the case of Joseph Smith, who looked deep into his hat for the words of God--and people believed him! Or L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer who claimed the evil alien Xenu used airplanes to transport imprisoned souls to earth millions of years ago--and people believed him! Or Marshall Applewhite, who claimed we must all kill ourselves in order to board a cosmic spaceship--and people believed him! The list goes on and on and on.

Half-Life · 01-11-2006, 08:40 AM

But those beliefs don't have 2 billion followers worldwide. Think of all the myths like the god Poseidon and Hercules from the olden days. We have no historical documents to prove these guys existed. But, we do have writers who say Jesus existed. The real question is why would anyone believe Jesus is the Messiah? Were the people awaiting one and just believed Jesus for no other reason than "just because?"

Random Evil Guy · 01-11-2006, 08:41 AM

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Originally Posted by Asha'man

Your sources are lying to you again, Half-Life.

The Jesus story changed a great deal, and many variations existed. However, at a certain point in time, all the Christians got together and threw away all the variations, agreeing to pretend they never existed.

However, even that effort failed. Jewish writings exist that imply that Jesus was stoned and hung from a tree according to Jewish law, and then stayed dead. Some NT writings still use the language 'hung from a tree', which is not a euphemism for crucifixion but a literal reference to the Jewish law (Deut 21:22-23). I'm less familiar with them, but there may also be Greek writings that claim Jesus was hanged on a pole (not crucified), which was a Greek form of execution.

To me, it seems quite clear that the story did change over time. An early version probably did have Jesus stoned by the Jews, and pieces of Mark still reflect that. The trial by the Sanhedrin where the crime of blasphemy is pronounced, Jesus was dead on the first day (crucifixion victims took days to die, not hours), and the burial on the first day according to Jewish law. All of these are possible echos of an original version.

Over time, the audience changed. A Jewish stoning was not an effective sales pitch, but a Roman crucifixion was. So the story was changed, to place both the mode of execution and the blame into Roman hands.

More time passes, and the audience changes yet again. As more Romans are being targeted with this sales pitch, blaming the Romans for killing Jesus starts to be a poor choice. The story is altered yet again, but this time only the blame is shifted back to the Jews, not the mode of execution.

We also have evidence of other changes, separate from the crucifixion. How can Davidic ancestry (required for the Messiah) possibly be proved by a genealogy that stops at Mary's husband Joseph? It cant. At one point in the evolution of the stories, the virgin birth didn't exist. Mark certainly didn't mention it. I'm confident it was added to Matthew after the genealogy of Joseph was written, and that genealogy originally went all the way to Jesus. (In fact, we have at least one manuscript where that's exactly the case.) Again, strong likelyhood that the story changed over time.

The only story that we have now is the final product of hundreds of years of this process. All other variations have simply been destroyed by time and the deliberate actions of Christians. But saying that the story never changed is simply laughable.

wouldn't you say the 'myth' has changed even up to our time. even though the bible remains, at least for the most part, unchanged. there are hundreds of different christian denominations. from jehova's witnesses to the catholic church. all with, more or less, their own view and interpretation of the bible.

doesn't jehova's witnesses say that jesus was the archangel michael?

Julian · 01-11-2006, 09:14 AM

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Originally Posted by Half-Life

But those beliefs don't have 2 billion followers worldwide.

Logical fallacy: Argument from popularity. Again!

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Think of all the myths like the god Poseidon and Hercules from the olden days. We have no historical documents to prove these guys existed.

We have documents that show episodes from their existence. According to you, that is good enough. All hail Zeus!

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But, we do have writers who say Jesus existed.

So if I write a document that says that Zeus exists, would you accept it?

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The real question is why would anyone believe Jesus is the Messiah? Were the people awaiting one and just believed Jesus for no other reason than "just because?"

Logical fallacy: Argument from incredulity. Just because you don't understand how it happened doesn't mean you can appeal to superstition.

Why do you keep repeating the same tired, old arguments again and again? You have been thoroughly rebutted many times now, yet you continue to post the same fallacies. Either learn and grow, or give up.

Julian

Amaleq13 · 01-11-2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

Had it been common custom for crucifixion victims to always have been left on the cross for several days and finally to be thrown to dogs, one can scarily see how anyone would not know this. Knowing the fate of crucifixion victims to always been lack of any real burial, who in Jerusalem would be convinced by the stories of Jesus and the empty tomb?

Anyone who was willing to accept as history the sudden appearance in the story of Joe from Arimathea.

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The very fact of the contradictory nature of the story would turn off any interest in the group from the beginning. It would have been known to most people that crucified and empty tomb just don't' go together, so who would have believed the story?

It was not impossible for a crucifixion victim's family to be allowed to take the body for a proper burial. IIRC, Josephus tells us this.

Again, if an individual was willing to overlook that Joe appears out of nowhere in the story and disappears after serving his purpose and is connected to a town whose existence cannot be confirmed and whose name appears to translate to "best disciple", they could hold this belief thinking it was entirely reasonable.

Amaleq13 · 01-11-2006, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

The real question is why would anyone believe Jesus is the Messiah? Were the people awaiting one...<snip>?

Yes but, subsequent to the apparently endless domination of Rome, I think some (many?) were starting to question the traditional expectations and looking for new interpretations to salvage their faith.

Toto · 01-11-2006, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

...
Before you go off and say "Oh no, he's linking to Metacrock again, I'd like to say that he makes some very good points. I am really interested in debating this.

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...s/versions.htm
This is a good argument

I'm going to bed now and will respond in the morning. Looking forward to it.

Metacrock posted this on II and got a response from Peter Kirby that knocked him out of the waters and eventually off these boards.

You can read Peter's rebuttal of this on his christianorigins site here.

Metacrock tries a surrebutal here and copied here (with a picture of Meta), but I think you can see why Meta resigned from these boards, admitting that his skills were not up to internet debating.

So this is why we say "no, not Metacrock again."

Doug Shaver · 01-11-2006, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

There are sources from as early as AD 52 which to Jesus.
http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...HistJesus5.htm

If there are, that link does not produce them. Neither Thallus nor Phlegon mentions Jesus.

Here is an excerpt from a critique I wrote a few years ago of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ.

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Yamauchi and Strobel then talk about Thallus, whose writing has not survived but was allegedly referred to by Julius Africanus, a Christian historian of the third century. According to Africanus, Thallus testified to the occurrence of a period of darkness at the time of the crucifixion. Africanus goes on to say that Thallus attributed the darkness to a solar eclipse. Africanus disputes the eclipse theory on grounds that the crucifixion occurred at Passover, which is celebrated only during a full moon, at which time eclipses cannot occur. The point being made by evangelicals who cite the testimony of Thallus is: (A) the sun did darken during the crucifixion; (B) the darkening could not have been due to an eclipse; (C) therefore, it was a miracle corroborative of the gospels.

Now, did Thallus actually say that the darkness was coincident with either Jesus' crucifixion or a Jewish Passover? Not so far as we can tell. Africanus does not actually quote Thallus, but paraphrases him. Here, in context, is all we know about what Thallus said:

On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. (Julius Africanus, A History of the World,5.50.)

Now, we do not get this from any extant manuscript by Africanus, either. The passage is a quotation attributed to Africanus by a ninth-century monk named George Syncellus. Thallus's testimony therefore is second-hand hearsay.

In any case, if there was any eclipse visible in the eastern Mediterranean anytime during the early first century, it should stretch nobody's credulity to suppose that it got worked into stories of Jesus' death. Strobel has not yet uncovered any evidence that the gospels themselves contain any information from eyewitnesses. The gospel authors say that Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover. We do not know that this actually happened. We know only that they say it happened. The authors say that there was a mid-day darkening during the crucifixion. We do not know that there was. We know only that they say there was.

Thallus was perhaps not the only person to report a Mediterranean solar eclipse. According to Yamauchi, other witnesses included Tertullian and a Greek writer named Phlegon.

Tertullian was a Christian theologian born in the latter second century. He could hardly have been a witness to an eclipse in 30 CE. What he does is attribute testimony of an eclipse to a Greek writer named Phlegon, whose writings, like Thallus's, have not survived.

But Phlegon could not have been a witness, either, since he did his writing around 140 CE.

Yamauchi now comments: "So there is . . . non-biblical attestation of the darkness that occurred at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. Apparently, some found the need to try to give it a natural explanation by saying it was an eclipse." (p. 85)

Notice the dig at skeptics. Evangelicals can rarely discuss the evidence for Christianity without sooner or later impugning the motives of people who find the evidence unconvincing.

The "attestation" that Yamauchi is claiming might well be non-biblical, but it is not independent of the Bible. The testimony he cites is from Christian sources who manifestly were reaching for evidence to support their belief in literal truth of the gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

Let's say right now soemone comes to you and says that 50 years ago there was an empty tomb and someone rose from the dead, you would not believe this.

You're right. I would not believe it. But some people would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

What mad epeople start believeing the empty tomb?

I don't think anybody had to be mad in order to believe the story. I think they had to be ordinary people with ordinary credulity.

Doug Shaver · 01-11-2006, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

Think of all the myths like the god Poseidon and Hercules from the olden days. We have no historical documents to prove these guys existed. But, we do have writers who say Jesus existed.

You're assuming your conclusion. There are documents affirming the existence of Poseidon and Hercules. You don't think they are historical documents, and neither do I. There are documents called the gospels affirming the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. You do think they are historical. I do not. I think they are as fictional as the ones about Poseidon and Hercules.

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01-11-2006, 08:40 AM	#13
Half-Life Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: A place in the Northern Hemisphere of Planet Earth Posts: 1,250	But those beliefs don't have 2 billion followers worldwide. Think of all the myths like the god Poseidon and Hercules from the olden days. We have no historical documents to prove these guys existed. But, we do have writers who say Jesus existed. The real question is why would anyone believe Jesus is the Messiah? Were the people awaiting one and just believed Jesus for no other reason than "just because?"

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