ApostateAbe

Yeah, if you think those unique qualities of Jesus cause Jesus to break the pattern with other cult leaders enough that the pattern no longer fits, then Jesus-skepticism wins the argument. I don't see those unique qualities as carrying much relevance, like any other arbitrary uniqueness of Jesus, but I guess it is sort of a subjective judgment. I have often heard evangelists tell me that Jesus is better than all the other competing religious figures, because he was the only one who sacrificed himself to save humanity, or he was the only one who said X, or whatever. OK, that may matter to you, buddy, but not to me, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to resolve that issue on one side or the other.

show_no_mercy

What irks me about this question is that naive Christians say things like "the evidence for Jesus is more than Caesar!111!!!". When we point out the overwhelming evidence for Julius Caesar they retreat to the more logical position: we shouldn't even see the same type of evidence for these two characters; they lived in two totally different sociological contexts.

It's simply not an apt comparison.

And unlike leaders of state, it shouldn't be such a radical, unthinkable crime to question the existence of such people who left scant evidence. Evidence is evidence, regardless of the millenia of baggage associated with the consequences of the initial myth.

ApostateAbe

You are absolutely right.

bacht

Christian literalists have backed themselves into a corner by insisting on the historicity of the gospel story. They want to have it both ways: a unique manifestation of God's power on earth that was completely ignored.

I don't know if Mark would be laughing or crying if he knew the trouble he started.

show_no_mercy

That is probably his biggest irony!

bacht

Maybe there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can understand poetic devices like metaphor and allegory, and those who read everything like literal prose.

Personally I'm thankful I'm not restricted to one kind of language, it would be like being colourblind, or being deaf in all but one frequency.

aa5874

You simply cannot substitute EVIDENCE with PATTERN.

There is SIMPLY NO EVIDENCE from historical sources external of the Church writers that JESUS CHRIST did exist and was worshiped as a God by Jews and was given a name ABOVE every other name in Judea before the Fall of the Temple.

The JESUS stories ARE just backdated MYTHOLOGICAL FABLES.

And the MYTH JESUS fits the PATTERN of other MYTHOLOGICAL entities.

Perseus was born of a Virgin in Greek MYTH FABLES.

See "Dialogue with Trypho"

And see "First Apology"XXI by Justin Martyr. Jesus fits the pattern of mythological gods.
"First Apology" XXI JESUS FITS A MYTH PATTERN PERFECTLY.

brianscott1977

First let me say that it is easier to prove the existence of a political/military leader than any other kind of person.

Also, I think that there is more evidence supporting the existence of Julius Caesar than any other person from antiquity.

However…

If the standards of skepticism sometimes applied to Jesus on this forum were applied to Caesar, I don’t think Caesar would make it. For instance:

1. Someone was emperor of Rome at this time – why not call him Julius Caesar?

True, but how do we know it was Julius Caesar? Perhaps 10, 20, or 100 years later someone created a character that they thought embodied the greatness of a Roman leader and called that person Julius Caesar. Someone started the Christian religion – why not call that person Jesus?

2. There are coins bearing Caesar’s image

True, but there are coins bearing the image of Romulus, Remus, Zeus, or Apollo. Do we think that they are all real people? The coins showing Caesar could just be another example of a fictional character engraved on a coin. Or after time people started to believe that Caesar was a real person and put his image on coins. For instance, one of the coins posted of Julius Caesar was not minted until 40 years after his supposedly died.

3. There are ancient statues of Caesar.

The argument above applies again. Just a few weeks ago I saw a statue of Alice at a tea party with the Mad Hatter (from Alice in Wonderland). Are we suggesting that these were real people? The world is filled with statues of fictional characters.

4. We have writings by Caesar.

We have dozens if not hundreds of examples from the ancient world of people using a nom de plume – crediting a writing to a fictional or historical character. Someone did have to write the works credited to Caesar, but then someone had to write the Sermon on the Mount.

5. Other people wrote about their encounters with Julius Caesar.

These accounts could have been created after fact as means of improving the Roman reputation. Plus, there were centuries of redactors who came along to add information about the fictional Julius Caesar, either by creating new accounts or by adding mention of Caesar to existing accounts. Certainly none of the writing about Caesar were unbiased – they were all strongly in favor or strongly opposed to Caesar/Roman rule. The fact that these redactors added names to their writings (be they historical or fictional names) does not improve the likelihood of such references being true. If anything, I would think that someone trying create/improve the story of a fictional character would be all the more likely to add names to their writings. Someone writing about a historical person who was alive within the memory of their first readers would care far less about attributing the works written about that person. Also, we have far more copies of writings concerning Jesus from antiquity than we have copies of writings concerning Julius Caesar.

Obviously I do think that Julius Caesar was a real person. But I think that we if took the standard of skepticism sometimes applied to Jesus (just in establishing that he was a historical person) and applied it to any person in antiquity, then I don’t know of anyone who we could confidently say was a true historical person. Also, believing that Jesus was a historical person does not necessarily mean accepting that he was God or that he performed miracles any more believe that Julius Caesar was a historical person means accepting that he was a god.

spamandham

It's true that some will use arguments to the effect of "well, there's no good evidence for Jesus, so he didn't exist." But that *isn't* what mythicism is about. Mythicism is an attempt to reconcile *all* the evidence with the fewest complications. While it's possible that Julius Caesar was a myth, there is no explanatory power to that position. It's a complication rather than a simplification.

The same is not true in the case of Jesus. Positing a real human Jesus substantially similar to the gospels results in numerous complications:

1. Why did Paul, the earliest Christian writer, say that his knowledge of Jesus was obtained through scripture and revelation rather than from other Christians if Jesus was his contemporary?

2. Why does Paul refer to himself as one chosen by god to reveal that which had been hidden thorugh the ages? What secret if Jesus is a real human of history?

3. Why does Jesus just happen to live exactly 40 years prior to the fall of the temple...a theologically significant number?

4. What happened to Jesus' family? They simply fall off the face of the earth. This is very unusual for cult figures if we use experience from modern cults.

5. Why do the gospels appear to be constructed from pre-existing ideas both Jewish and Roman if they were written from first hand memory, or even 2nd or 3rd hand?

....and many more.

Kapyong

Gday,

So, applying the same levels of specticism to Julius as Jesus, OK, let's see...


Because of a vast interlocking sea of CONTEMPORARY evidence of many types.

It is inconceivable that Julius was not historical. I don't know of anyone that has ever claimed Julius did not exist, because the level of evidence is vastly different.

The level of scepticism required to argue that Julius did not exist is profound.

The level of scepticism needed to argue that Jesus did not exist is just the normal kind that is required to doubt Abraham, David, Moses, Osiris, Buddha, Krishna, Hercules, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Bacchus, Aesculapius, Dionysus, Attis, Tammuz....


Because the evidence argues against it, and instead for Paul and the authors of Mark and Q and Luke and Matthew etc.

Do you believe in other religious 'founders' such as Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Hercules, Bacchus, Osiris?


This level of scepticism is ridiculous - none of those mythical figures were Roman emperors who left a vast interlocking sea of contemporary, dateable, hard, and personal evidence.

There's you basic problem - you ARE not applying the same level of scepticism to Jesus as to Julius - this is applying a PROFOUND level of scepticism towards Julius.

While giving Jesus a free pass - "why not call that person Jesus?"

The second problems with your argument is that you are applying these varying standards to VASTLY different levels of evidence, without acknowledging this elephant filling the room.

These coins are very solid evidence indeed -
contemporary,
physical,
named,
dated.
And they are supported by a vast web of interlocking and supporting evidence.

There is NOTHING even remotely like this level of evidence for Jesus.



Do they fit an interlocking sea of contemporary hard and personal evidence?

You are applying a vastly different level of scepticism to a vastly different level of evidence.

While ignoring that we do not have any form of personal descriptions for Jesus, while we have many different forms, all consistent, for Julius. We know the guy was bald and had a 'Roman' nose from many different sources. We have NO IDEA what Jesus looked liked like, even though he supposed attracted many followers.



There is no doubt what-so-ever that the "battle notebooks" (can't quite rememember the Roman technical term, but Julius copied it from Marius the great) were written by Julius. It all ties in with the vast sea of other contemporary evidence - including actual archeological evidence that supports the books (Alesia.)

The level of scepticism required to doubt that is ridiculous.

Meanwhile, there are NO writings of Jesus to apply ANY level of scepticism to - Jesus did NOT write the Sermon on the Mount - the author of Matthew did. Meanwhile another author wrote a different Sermon on the Plain - the author of Luke. And various other authors wrote all sorts of stuff allegedly from and about Jesus - much of quite different from each other for transparent reasons that are religious, not historical.

There is only a modest level of scepticism required to doubt that any of that came from Jesus.


To claim that Cicero's many personal mentions of Julius, and the many many others, is forged - is a profound level of scepticism.

Meanwhile - the personal accounts of Jesus amount to :
* someone else writing 3 different versions about Paul having a conversion experience
* Paul claming Christ had "appeared" to him and various others
* some anonymous books from decades after the alleged events about others who met Jesus but didn't recognise him at first anyway...

To disbelieve all that requires only a mustard seed of scepticism frankly.

In short -
the amount and quality of evidence is vastly different.

If one applies reasonable levels of doubt - it is clear that Julius certainly DID exist, but Jesus is at BEST a maybe.


K.