Apostate1970

It never ceases to amaze me how a lack of reference to Jesus by Josephus, or by any other comparable historian, indicates that Jesus simply didn't exist. All it would indicate is that Jesus didn't, in his own day, rise to the level of reknown that other "messiahs" did (such as those that Josephus does refer to). Have there been Christian interpolations to a multitude of texts? Are you kidding?! Of course! But I see no reason whatsoever to disbelieve that there was, in fact, some historical person that "Jesus" refers to (whether his name was Emmanuel or what the hell ever). The existence of suppressed sayings gospels like Thomas and the profound similarity of them with the synoptics, the staggering evidence for the existence of at least most of his contemporary followers (however many there were and whatever their names were ... maybe there was one Jude maybe there were three; Mary's? Don't even get me started! But for goodness sake there surely was at least one James!), the documented lack of agreement between the earliest followers on various topics; and the clear existence of a multitude of rival Christologies dating back at least as far as early 2nd century ... these and more all are exactly what we would expect if there was really some sort of initial guru-figure whose followers schismed after his death. Could the guru have been a complete fabrication? Could the "guru" have been just some sort of sayings body invented by early "Christian" leaders and a spiritual metaphor sort of like, say, how the Guru Granth Sahib is counted as being a genuine "person"? (no disrespect intended to the GGS there) Yes, of course. But is this the most likely scenario? No, not at all. We have essentially no grounds for such an assertion.

In summary, I think that the skepticism regarding the mere existence of Jesus is wholly misplaced and should instead be directed in a more traditional way at the truth or worth or sheer literal sensibileness or intelligiblity of Christian doctrines. It's my personal suspicion that the attack on the historicity of Jesus is part of a strategey designed to sow skepticism but that it will backfire in that result. That is, it has the potential to only make Christians dig themselves in deeper by thinking along these lines "Ah-hah! This atheist was trying to deceive me into thinking that Jesus never even existed and I see now he's wrong! Therefore he must be wrong about all the rest too!". That would be a sad result.

mountainman

Well it would be nice to have one citation with some form of positive historicity. Do you happen to have one? In fact I'll make it a little easier. Do you happen to have just one positive citation for the existence of Jesus prior to the Council of Nicaea? If you do, would you mind sharing it?

And since Eusebius sat at Constantine's right hand at this council of Nicaea, I do not feel inclined to take anything Eusebius tenders as gospel truth, if you get my drift. So please do not bother to cite Eusebius. Over.

Best wishes,



Pete

aa5874

But you have now made an assertion that cannot be proven to be true.

Tell me what is known to be true or credible about Jesus of the NT?

A lack of reference to Jesus by Josephus cannot ONLY mean that Jesus did not rise to the level of other "messiahs", it MAY ALSO mean that Jesus of the NT did not exist.

And once no mention of Jesus of the NT is found, then it is perfectly reasonable to considered Jesus of the NT as non-existent or to have NEVER existed.

You cannot just assume that Jesus of the NT did live because the NT says so.

Apostate1970

This is in regards to mountainman's and aa5784's posts:

Yes, I can produce the reference that mountain man asks for and yes I can "just assume" that Jesus of the NT and of other noncanonical books did really live precisely because the NT and those other books say he did and have the features they have.

Specifically, that the synoptics and other sayings gospels all show a very high degree of agreement on not only the gist of teachings but on the precise wording of a large number of distinctive sayings. If there had not been an actual individual who said these things but, instead, there had just been certain general moral teachings agreed to by a sect, then this word-by-word agreement would not exist or would not be as marked as it was. What is really distinctive here is the word-by-word agreement not only of canonical teachings, which could be explained by careful later editing, but of noncanonical, suppressed, and heretical teachings as well. Why should there be any reason for them to show such agreement? When your enemies say the same as you then something is going on ... your points of agreement are more likely to be true. Call this "agreement of differents".

Secondly, even in the NT, and still moreso from other texts, we see that there were very significant early disagreements about doctrine and about the identity of believers' and about their future. This is exactly what we should expect from a people relying on and disagreeing about the meaning of the oral sayings of a now-dead teacher. We should not expect it from a cabal which got together and fabricated a doctrine and history from scratch. From that we should expect greater agreement. When you openly disagree with your friends, then something is going on ... your remaining points of agreement are more likely to be true. Call this "disagreement of sames".

These two features are hallmarks of truth in disputed histories, religious or otherwise.

Lastly, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with relying on the writings of the religious about their own history unless and until we find some reason to think that they've misrepresented a point. We can frequently do that, but there's little to no reason to think that the Christians have misrepresented this fact of the bare existence of a certain person. That it hasn't been refered to by nonChristian historians is of no importance except to establish that Jesus wasn't the phenomena that the Christians claim him to have been. But that should hardly surprise us! What is there about religious writers that renders them incapable of having any historical value whatsoever? Nothing! What is it about secular writers that renders their silence on a matter proof that the matter never occured? Nothing! I would say that you've made a basic confusion between lack of evidence and evidence of lack. But, in fact, we do have evidence ... just evidence that you seem to be biased against.

I stand by my assertion that the ahistoricists are doing skepticism and secularism a bad turn.

show_no_mercy

At the least this probably means that Jesus never did any of his "incredible feats" like feeding thousands with a loaf of bread or raising people from the dead. Also Josephus never mentions the thousands of converts and resurrections described in Acts of the Apostles even though such a feat would surely catch his eye as a historian of first century Judaism.

rlogan

You made a pretty vague strawman out of your opposition.

In the first place we know of many Jesus' who were relatively minor historical figures, leading bands of fishermen and rabble against the Romans, a son of a high priest, etc. Plenty of persona, even with the name Jesus serve as potential fodder for distortion into superhero status. My favorite is the one who went around yelling "woe unto Israel". Pilate tortured him but released him as a harmless fool. He was killed by a Roman siege weapon.

Plenty of historical Jesus'.

But nobody like the Jesus in the Gospels existed. He has superpowers and that's comic book stuff.

More precisely it is obviously lifted out of the Hebrew Bible in pretty sloppy but relentless fashion. No reason to make up a story about where it came from when the perpetrators stapled the two together and called it "The Bible"!

So we can see where the "New Testament Jesus" came from.

Well the very core is unintelligible, so there's no sense working around the edges of it.

Science seems to work pretty well for mankind. I mean, if you want to measure it by advancement for humans as opposed to misery and death.

Bible Criticism, or critical thinking about it, is more a social science where we ponder what these bronze age goat-herders were up to.

arnoldo

Considering that the a large portion of bible history occurs in the Iron Age (1200 BCE to 586) and then after that Israel's history is closely intertwined with the history of Babylon, Persia, Greece, then Rome - - - you may need to re-examine the stereotype that the OT was written entirely by bronze age goat-herders. If you want to find out what was going on in Israel besides goat-herding check out The Israeli Museum: Jerusalem.

spin

You seem both easily amazed and misguided as to the burden of evidence. I don't have a clue whether there was a Jesus (figure at the core of the christian religion) or not and, having looked at all the evidence available, I cannot see how anybody could be more sure than me either way based on the evidence.

The onus is on -- and has always been on -- the substantive position to show who is claimed to have existed to have existed, ie to get beyond the claim to the demonstration.

You don't need to believe or disbelieve anything. The job is to show that there was a historical person, so your beliefs are a hindrance to this process. Forget them and get on to the evidence raw and dirty.

Where exactly? What evidence would you like to bring to bear for "most of his contemporary followers"? When were they written? By whom?

It might be a good idea to get you started. You might actually take out the evidence rather than pretend that you know it exists.

And so? The Satyricon talks about Augustus, but what does that show about the rest of the content of the Satyricon? Your job is to deal with Jesus, not this other stuff that clogs your thought.

As a matter of fact they are totally irrelevant to the job of showing that Jesus was a historical person. Just because religions are productive doesn't make them true.

What you expect at the beginning of the 21st century has nothing to do with reality in the middle of the first century. Give that thinking up as a waste of time and try to get the facts out in the open which bear on the existence of Jesus and stop the crapping on.

That's the task for you to get real about.

You are still shirking your job. Here now you are musing on probabilities of strawman constructions. If you want to deal with the existence of Jesus, all you have to do is get out the evidence.

I often ask people who waffle on about the obvious existence of Jesus without any evidence, what about Ebion, the eponymous founder of the Ebionite movement. The Ebionites clearly existed and both Tertullian and Epiphanius knew information about Ebion, but he was non-existent. The Ebionites didn't get their name from a person called Ebion, but from the fact that EBYWN was the Hebrew word for "poor" and that was the source of the name. Blessed are the poor, etc. Still Tertullian wrote about Ebion, so did Hippolytus. Having information about Jesus is not sufficient evidence to show that Jesus existed. You have to do much more than this sort of thing.

You have said nothing substantive on the issue you were trying to talk about, so how do you summarize nothing?

If you cannot start with first principles and work from there, especially considering that the people who should have been starting there are/were incapable of doing so because of the burden of their beliefs and/or acculturation, you will never be able to say anything meaningful in the subject.

I have listened to various sides of this argument and I've seen no-one get beyond the dearth of evidence. Expectations and other rationalizations are no substitute for evidence.


spin

renassault

You're the one who's misguided. You're asserting something as well, thus you must prove it. Yes, if you deny the person's claim that they have an invisible lepercon you need to prove that he doesn't exist until you can claim with the certainty you seem to have that it doesn't.

Maybe if you started arguing with the intent of showing what's most plausible instead of trying to say argue just to make your view right you'd learn something.

Plenty of sources mention Jesus. Talmud, Josephus, Paul.

spin

Utter rubbish. I do not deny that Jesus existed. I haven't got to that stage. Please read more carefully before you start blabbering.

Seems you need History 101. I have lots of sources about Pinocchio, but that doesn't prove he existed. You need to validate your sources.


spin