aa5874

Anyone who claims that Jesus Christ is historic, and still claim that his birth, baptism, temptation, life, death, resurrection and ascension are mythical or fictional, have put themselves in a box. It is beyond me, that in an ocean of fictitious events regarding Jesus Christ, that a person, without evidence, can claim they know or believe Jesus Christ is real.

In the Bible, Jesus Christ is regarded as a God, all Gods are known to be mythical. Followers of Jesus Christ regarded the Gods of all other religions as mythical, the followers of other Gods regard Jesus Christ as mythical. The followers of all Gods are, in effect, followers of myths, by their own words.

There are no original documents of the Christian Bible, the writings about Jesus Christ are unreliable. Jesus Christ is not known outside the Christian Bible. There is no record to show that Jesus Christ wrote one single word of doctrine or teaching to his disciples. I repeat, not one documented word from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was reported to be brilliant at about the age of 12 yrs old, yet from that age to his death, an 'historic' person, the Messiah, the Annointed One, the founder of the so-called Greatest Religion did not have the time to write a word, however Jesus Christ did blind Saul/Paul from heaven to preach the Gospel. The Christian Bible is absurd rubbish. Jesus Christ is paper and ink. Only blind belief can bring Jesus Christ to life. There is no basis for his historicity.

Mythra

That does seem to be a pivotal question here, doesn't it?

To say that most scholars ascribe to a historical Jesus - yet he bears little or no resemblance to the Jesus Christ detailed in the gospels - is not radically different than the Jesus myth concepts.

Most of the discussions I see here are related to "gospel mythicists" vs. "jesus mythicists".

Is that because gospel literalists have already been defeated?

How many scholars believe that the gospel story itself is historically accurate in all of its details? (aside from those whose faith confirms it to their hearts)

jjramsey

Who says that one is believing Jesus of Nazareth was real without evidence? Quite simply, the contents of the New Testament and the few extra-biblical references are trivially explained as an outgrowth of a real Jesus of Nazareth whose story had been embellished. You can see the arguments on this in several places on the boards. Full mythicism requires explaining away references to Jesus apparently having brothers, or to his hometown being the not-so biblically correct village of Nazareth, or the spin that Mark 6 appears to put on a failure of Jesus, and so on. When both full historicity (that is, Jesus being exactly as the NT says) and full mythicism (that is, Jesus never existing at all) require a lot of explaining away of the texts that we have, where that leaves us is somewhere in the middle.

Yet you don't even acknowledge that this middle exists.

Doug Shaver

There is evidence, notwithstanding your irrational denial.

aa5874

Where is your evidence? I have been asking the professional historians for evidence, so far speculation and conspiracy theories.

I have essentially grouped the NT in two sections. The 'Gospels' and the 'Epistles'. The Gospels appear to be a story copied from some unknown source or sources. I have refused to use any information in those books to corroborate any information in another. There is evidently no attetion paid to accuracy, both in chronology and the contents of events. The underlying theme of the Gospels is that Jesus Christ is a believeable story, that's all. Nothing else matters.

Even if we were to disregard the miraculous birth, life, ressurection and ascension of Jesus Christ, we would still be left with serious problems of chronology and the events as written. Before, Jesus Christ can be regarded as historic, it is essential that we can determine that he was born.

The book called Matthew claims Jesus Christ was born when Herod was king of Judea and being angered by the non-return of the wise men he killed all the babies in the region. Matthew also claims that Jesus Christ's birth was an exteremly secretive event, so much so that Jesus Christ was virtually in exile in Egypt.

The book called Luke carries a different story. Luke claims that Jesus was born during a census and was circumsized shortly afterwards. And a major diversion, normally overlooked, but has serious implication, is the fact that Luke claims Jesus Christ's birth was not secretive but a joyous, publicly witnessed event. According to Luke, there were a multitude of heavenly host and numerous sheperds, who went abroad and told others of Jesus Christ.

Now I ask the professional historians when was Jesus Christ born, where was he born and where dd he live as a child? I need these problems to be resolved in order to proceed any further.

jjramsey

And I gather that you have refused to look at tensions and oddities in the texts, such as Mark 6:1-6 or how Matthew claims that the prophets predict that Jesus will be born in Nazareth despite there being nothing of the kind in the OT. This is remarkably ham-fisted.

More likely than not, he was born and raised in Nazareth. The birth narratives appear to be trying to force Jesus' birth to be in Bethlehem, while remaining consistent with previous knowledge that Jesus was a Nazarene.

Amaleq13

I believe your puzzlement is the result of misunderstanding what I've been saying. Have you found any source that applies "christ" to an individual as though it was a name?

I haven't been able to find the thread but, IIRC, Peter Kirby indicated that the use of "Christ" as applied to Jesus by Christians is unique.

Don't we have enough contenders here for Most Pedantic Quibbler?

aa5874

Are you aware that there might not have been a place name Nazareth in the 1st century, as described in the NT? Archeaologist cannot confirm that a place name Nazareth existed when the NT claimed. And there is also a major contradiction of the location of Nazareth, the present day Nazareth is not on the brow of a hill, however, Luke 4:28-29, 'And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and led him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong'.
There is also a descrepancy in the words ' from Nazareth', it may have been confused with the word 'Nazarite' which has a different meanig to 'from Nazareth'. It is not necessary to come 'from Nazareth' or 'live in Nazareth' to be a 'Nazarite'. See Judges 16:17.

The authors of the NT appear not to have any regard for accuracy or detail, that is an historical fact.

Jayrok

Luke 1:2, The author of Luke claims his gospel story was handed down from eyewitnesses to Jesus and the events.

2 Peter 1:16 -- We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

The author of 2 Peter claims he was an eyewitness of Jesus' majesty.

Jayrok

Do you believe Jesus was a real person but stories of miracles and his other supernatural exploits were legendary additions?

If you believe some of the events are legendary, but others are historically true, how do you decide which is which?

The resurrection is the cornerstone of christianity. If you believe this is an historical event and really happened, why wouldn't you believe the other stories, that are equally supernatural, literally happened?

Which is truth and which is fiction?