Rusting Car Bumper

There are two questions when considering the Jesus story: His historical existence and the claim of miracles and the divine.

Even without this burial box his existence is still not an unreasonable hypothesis by any stretch.

However, the claim that he is divine or preformed miracles is the real question. We know of the existence of all sorts of religious figures: Mohammed, Joseph Smith, David Koresh, and so on. However, this mere existence gives us no evidence of their religious claims.

In the end even if they show its genuine, it wont say much.

DC

Krieger

All it means is that this "James" guy was a dwarf.

Gregg

I have no problem with the IDEA that Jesus was a historical figure, a regular human being, who was mythologized. That was my position before I encountered the mythicist (as in, Jesus is an ENTIRELY mythical figure) case. Therefore, my skepticism regarding the authenticity of the James ossuary is not based on an unwillingness to accept that Jesus actually existed. I simply have found the mythicist case so overwhelming, so in tune with all the currently available facts, that I'm going to take any archaeological find that purports to prove Jesus' historicity with a very large grain of salt.

I'll go back to being a historicist if I have to, but it's going to take a bit more than this box to convince me.

Gregg

Brewmaster

I appreciate everyone’s responses. I am always pleased with the level of acumen on this website. My own opinion concerning the casket is that it is interesting at best. Archeology is important in verifying the historical veracity of Scripture, but is still boils down to an issue of faith. In actuality, my greatest fear is that the casket could become an object of worship itself, which is never a good thing.

I would like to comment on a few of your statements:

Debbie T: I did a search on the Internet in reference to what you posted, which was quite interesting. Anyway, I found just as many articles that referenced scholars refuting the claims in the article you sited. It seems that everyone is coming at this with an agenda. It may be years before we know the truth, or it may be relegated to the status of the infamous Shroud.

Goliath: Were you trying to articulate that the historical figure of Jesus did not exist? I find this statement quite incredulous. Hardly any modern day scholar, whether Christian or non-Christian, would doubt that Jesus of Nazareth actually and truly lived.

Simian: I am not sure that your categorization of Christianity as mythology is valid. Would religion not be more accurate a term?

Hobbs: Where do I begin? First, Jesus did not see Himself as a Messiah in the typical Jewish sense as you stated. In fact, he avoided the term Messiah when speaking to Jewish audiences because it conjured up too many political connotations. Second, Jesus was not interested in political reform. Instead, his mission was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. His words and actions point to a heavenly purpose. Third, you raise a good point that the teachings of Jesus were carried on because the disciples believed in his ideals, or believed that he was spiritually resurrected. This is a good beginning. But, I would argue that the Apostles willingness to further his teachings and all die brutal s (except John) on his behalf was because they believed he was actually, physically raised from the . How else can you explain the movement that followed? Fourth, in reference to the quasi-Christ myth arising from Greek thought, I would suggest to you Dr. Ron Nash’s book The Gospel and the Greeks. It would answer many of the questions you’ve raised here.

Digital Chicken: I think you have hit the hammer square on the head of the nail. Yes, the true question here concerns the divine nature of Jesus’ and his miracles. You have successfully whittled away the excess getting right to the heart of the matter.

simian

I find the tall tales in Christianity every bit as (un)believeable as the tall tales in all other religions/mythologies. I see no reason to classify Christian mythology as any different than Greek Pantheistic mythology (or any other religion that you would likely label as mythology). Likewise, I use the word magic to describe supposed supernatural events both inside and outside Christianity. Yes, I know Christians find it insulting when I use the term magic to describe their holy events. I have offered to use another term, if they can find one they would also use to describe the golden fleece, translating stones, statues of Hindu gods drinking milk, etc. - so far I have not seen a response. It could be because Chirstians like to think that their stories in their religion is somehow more true than the stories in other religions. I refer to the greek stories as mythology, I refer to the Christian stories as mythology. I see no difference between them (except that more people currently believe Christianity's mythology is "true").

Simian

Goliath

Brewmaster,

No. I merely don't believe that such a historical figure did exist. Please, pay attention.

Argument from authority. Have any of these "bible scholars" produced a proof of Jesus' alleged existence? No? Then I will continue not to believe, thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Goliath

Hobbs

How do you know? How do you know any of this? Do you have any of his writings? Do you have the writings of eyewitnesses? All we have are anonymous "gospels" written at least several decades after the alleged events by people who were not there. These gospels were later attributed to various people in the stories, but they aren't written as eyewitness accounts, they conflict on many points. You have no first-hand reports of the deaths of the apostles; all you have are later anonymous traditions, which again conflict on many points (Matthew died in so many ways in so many places, he had more lives than a proverbial cat). If you doubt this view of the origin of the gospels, you have an enormous weight of New Testament scholarship by Christians of many different stripes (other than a minority of scholars consisting of those who have been able to maintain their previous commitments to theological conservatism in spite of the evidence to the contrary) as well as non-Christians.

And if the tall tales in the Bible were even remotely true, do you think it possible that there could have been a person who over the course of some three years attracted tens of thousands of followers and listeners from many nations, and performed those sorts of miracles with that many witnesses, and there wouldn't be a single first-hand account of any of it? How likely do you think it is that Herod could have killed all the infant boys in a town and not one of his enemies and detractors who carefully chronicled his many crimes, even quite trivial ones, would not have even hinted at this one? How likely do you think it is that zombies could have been walking through Jerusalem and no one at the time would have thought it worth writing about?

I think it is far more likely that "Matthew" and company made up such stories, or embellished oral traditions that had been developing for decades before being written down, than that such things would have gone completely unremarked on by the historians and chroniclers of the time.

Note that this is not an argument against the possibility, or even the plausibility, of miracles. I'll grant that if there is a god, such occurrences are certainly possible, and even likely. But even if there is a god, I don't see how it is possible, and certainly extremely far from likely, that nobody in Jerusalem (a large and literate town, in a time from which we have the writings of several contemporary and near-contemporary chroniclers) would have written about Matthew's alleged zombies, or at least mentioned that some crazies in town were claiming that they had talked with dead people who had gotten out of their graves. Or mentioned anything else from the later legendary accounts of Jesus. Not even a god could pull off a miracle like that.

In other words, if the Bible stories were true, they wouldn't be the only accounts of the events.

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Hobbs ]</p>

john_v_h

But not utterly incredible. See this <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.shtml" target="_blank">review</a> of one such theory.

Rusting Car Bumper

This presumes that all miracles of the Bible are claimed to be true. It is possible that the most fantastic claims for which there should have been external evidence are made up while lesser ones could be accounts that were believed to be true. (Walking dead as opposed to mere water to wine.)

Actually what your examples infer is not that miracles are not possible but that historical evidence that we would (or could) accept is not possible. This is a serious problem for Christians trying to claim that biblical miracles "prove" the bible.

DC

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: DigitalChicken ]</p>

Hobbs

I'm not saying that the historical evidence we would or could accept is not possible. I'm saying it's not there. In fact, I'm basing my argument on the assumption that the historical evidence is possible. And not that it is just possible, but that it would if not certainly then extremely likely be there if the Bible stories were true. If there were, as one would very reasonably expect given the stories, extrabiblical accounts to verify Bible stories, that would add weight to biblical claims. The more accounts from more sources, the better the support for the veracity of the stories. But the corroborating accounts that we should legitimatley expect are not there. Thus, we have good reason to doubt the Bible stories.

For another example, if there were independent accounts from Egypt, Persia, China, and other literate societies from the time of Joshua which claimed that the sun stood still in the morning or evening sky for a full extra day, or that the sun didn't rise one day and the stars stayed still for an extra night, and we could verify that the sources were all from the same time and were independent of each other, that would lend support to the Joshua story that the sun stood still to give Yahweh's people extra time to slaughter their enemies. That evidence alone would not prove that Yahweh was actually behind it (those other places would likely have their own reasons appealing to their own gods), but it would be some good evidence that something weird and way out of the ordinary may indeed have been going on. The lack of any corroborating accounts of such an incredible story that could not have been missed by everyone in all other literate societies is extremely strong evidence that the Joshua story is not true. A god could make the sun stand still for a day. But not even a god could keep the rest of the world from noticing it. That no one else would have seen fit to note such an occurrence would be, I think, a greater miracle than the occurrence itself.

So I'm not saying (as David Hume did) that the odds of historical accounts being false (whether deliberately false or not) always outweigh the odds of miracle stories being true. I'm saying that the historical evidence that one would expect if the miracle stories were true is not there, thus it is more reasonable to conclude that the stories are not true.

And, sure, this on its own is not necessarily a strong argument against minor miracles (water into wine rather than walking dead), but it is a strong argument that at least some of the gospel stories are far from historically accurate, which legitimately brings into question the rest of it, pending some independent verification. And since even believers in miracle stories will concede that miracles are at best rare, in fact far more rare than miracle claims (they don't believe any of the long lists of miracle claims from other religions, after all), it would take more than just a little independent verification to make it reasonable to accept any particular miracle claim.

I dont' believe any miracle stories are true, and, given my current understanding of the world and how it works, I don't think miracles are actually possible. But I freely admit that my current understanding of the world may be mistaken. If anyone can provide good evidence to the contrary (and I've outlined a possibility for what such evidence would look like), I'll change my mind.

The Bible stories are not good evidence: if they were true, there would be corroborating accounts. I think it is far more likely that the miracle claims, and even the nonmiraculous claims of thousands of people following Jesus for years and believing (though perhaps mistakenly) that miracles occurred, are false than that they are true but no one else noted their occurrence.