Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Butters · 10-22-2002, 03:27 PM

Posted by Bede,

Quote:

From the historical evidence. Lots of independent attestation and the unprecedented idea of a prophet being honoured by his followers for dying like a slave.

Why not read a basic book like Crossan's Revolutionary Biography. He explains stuff, and there are lots of textbooks by noted scholars.

What historical evidence? You guys drive me crazy with this crap!
You have ONE piece of historical evidence for the cruifixion of Jesus, and that consists of;

Four stories.
Four authorless stories.
Four authorless stories that no one can agree on where or when they were written.
Four authorless stories that tell a story that could not have happened. (Disregarding the miracles here, I mean the manner of his trial.)
Four authorless stories that are copies of copies.

THAT is your historical evidence, and no more.
While it IS evidence, it is NOT creditable evidence.

As for followers honouring him for dying as a slave, it may be unprecedented, but novelty is not evidence of truth.

It seems to me that Crossman also believes the whole thing was made up, only he feels it was made up to make a point. He also seems to believe that much of what is attributed to Jesus was inserted by the church to gain power over their followers.

No roman records.
No eyewitness accounts outside of the Bible.
No record anywhere exept what was written in a couple of authorless, anonymous books.

Right.

Kosh · 10-22-2002, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Butters:

No eyewitness accounts outside of the Bible.

Correction. No eyewitness accounts, period. None of the Gospels claim to have been eyewitnesses.

Layman · 10-22-2002, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Butters:
Posted by Bede,
Four authorless stories that tell a story that could not have happened. (Disregarding the miracles here, I mean the manner of his trial.)

What is your credible, historical, eyewitness, evidence of how trials were run during Jesus' time and who were the authors of it?

Ronin · 10-23-2002, 12:03 AM

Prove it.

Certainly ~ the gospels are not traceable to the purported evangelists themselves making them notably unverifiable.

Myth ~ a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence.

You would think that even indirect written testimony regarding the life of superman would have been highly cherished and tenaciously preserved in its original form.

10-23-2002, 12:44 AM

Layman gathered these quotes together of what some esteemed historians think of the Jesus myth. Some of the posters here should listento these guys, even though they won't listen sense.

Quote:

Most historians and NT scholars relevant to the topic think Jesus-Mythers are idiots and have better things to do with their time.

I. Howard Marshall points out that in the early-to-mid 20th century, one of the few "authorities" to consider Jesus as a myth was a Soviet Encyclopedia. He then goes on to discuss the then recent work of G.A. Wells:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is said to be a Russian encyclopedia in current use which affirms in a brief entry that Jesus Christ was the mythological founder of Christianity, but it is virtually alone in doing so. The historian will not take its statement very seriously, since ... it offers no evidence for its assertion, and mere assertion cannot stand voer against historical enquiry.
But more than mere assertion is involved, for an attempt to show that Jesus never existed has been made in recent years by G.A. Wells, a Professor of German who has ventured into New Testament study and presents a case that the origins Christianity can be explained without assuming that Jesus really lived. Earlier presentations of similar views at the turn of the century failed to make any impression on scholarly opinion, and it is certain that this latest presentation of the case will not fare any better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor Marshall was correct. Niether any earlier attempt nor Wells have swayed scholarly opinion. This remains true whether the scholars were Christians, liberals, conservatives, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, or Catholic.

Atheist historian Michael Grant completely rejected the idea:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This skeptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth.... But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. Certainly, there are all those discrepancies between one Gospel and another. But we do not deny that an event ever took place just because some pagan historians such as, for example, Livy and Polybius, happen to have described it in differing terms.... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serous scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' -- or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, at 199-200.

Secular scholar Will Durant, who left the Catholic Church and embraced humanism, also dismisses the idea:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion....
The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies--e.g., Hammurabi, David, Socrates--would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed--the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of th figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so loft an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, at 555.

Even the famously liberal Professor Bultmann, who argued against the historicity of much of the gospels, is quite adamant that Jesus-mythers are "insane."

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the Palestinian community.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rudolf Bultman, Jesus and the Word, at 13.

It is also obvious that the diverse and all-but completely unanimous opinion of modern Jesus scholars and relevant historians remain completely unconvinced by the Jesus-myth arguments -- whatever their background.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament, at 6, 14.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which as to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, at 140-41.

HelenM · 10-23-2002, 03:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ronin:
You would think that even indirect written testimony regarding the life of superman would have been highly cherished and tenaciously preserved in its original form.

Then what is the New Testament?

Anyway in those days - so I was told - oral testimony was used more than today. Maybe because they had no way of duplicating written stuff except rewriting it. So they were used to memorizing things. Who knows. That's what I was told. But anyway, it's not a problem to me to think that the life of Jesus wasn't written down for a while. One has to consider the culture then to know whether it's surprising or not, what was and what wasn't written down and what has and hasn't been preserved. But still, we do have the NT which surely is a remarkable record of preservation by any standards...

take care
Helen

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: HelenM ]

Ronin · 10-23-2002, 03:39 AM

Then what is the New Testament?

A complation of 'canonical' tales, favored among many others of equally ludicrous nature compiled and since edited and manipulated.

Have you read the Book of Mormon?

Is it a true account?

Anyway in those days - so I was told - oral testimony was used more than today. Maybe because they had no way of duplicating written stuff except rewriting it. So they were used to memorizing things. Who knows. That's what I was told. But anyway, it's not a problem to me to think that the life of Jesus wasn't written down for a while. One has to consider the culture then to know whether it's surprising or not, what was and what wasn't written down and what has and hasn't been preserved. But still, we do have the NT which surely is a remarkable record of preservation by any standards...

Not really that remarkable.

We also have the Vedas, The Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, The Tales of King Arthur, etc.

Great old and musty works of fiction all.

Yet, nothing to claim is the true foundation of the infinite universe.

HelenM · 10-23-2002, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ronin:
Then what is the New Testament?

A complation of 'canonical' tales, favored among many others of equally ludicrous nature compiled and since edited and manipulated.

Have you read the Book of Mormon?

Is it a true account?

I was focusing on the 'remarkably preserved' part of your other post. I can't prove to you whether remarkably preserved texts are true or not.

Quote:

Anyway in those days - so I was told - oral testimony was used more than today. Maybe because they had no way of duplicating written stuff except rewriting it. So they were used to memorizing things. Who knows. That's what I was told. But anyway, it's not a problem to me to think that the life of Jesus wasn't written down for a while. One has to consider the culture then to know whether it's surprising or not, what was and what wasn't written down and what has and hasn't been preserved. But still, we do have the NT which surely is a remarkable record of preservation by any standards...[/b]

Not really that remarkable.

We also have the Vedas, The Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, The Tales of King Arthur, etc.

Great old and musty works of fiction all.

Yet, nothing to claim is the true foundation of the infinite universe.

So, perhaps they are all remarkably preserved.

They are not all as old as the NT. The older, the more remarkable.

Anyway what's with 'the tales of King Arthur'? Do we have texts of those going back to within 100 years of when King Arthur reigned? I'm not aware of those but maybe we do.

take care
Helen

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: HelenM ]

Ronin · 10-23-2002, 04:22 AM

They are not all as old as the NT. The older, the more remarkable.

<a href="http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/India/RigVeda.html" target="_blank">For your consideration and enlightenment</a>

King Arthur is a myth ~ probably based on some vague figure who surely did not have a wizard casting spells for him.

The Arthurian mythic image does have excellent pathos and tragedy ~ the Once and Future King ~ very familiar plot, but with superior romance.

Butters · 10-23-2002, 04:24 AM

For Kosh,
I stand corrected. You are right that even the writers of the gospels don't claim to be eyewitness.

For Layman,
There are ample records of how Rome conducted trials, and how they ruled subject nations. If you're really interested, look into it.

For Bede,
You continue to trot out the opinion of "scholars"
But of the last ones you listed, only one gave a reason for believing Jesus existed, and he relied on the argument by embarrassment.
But really, I should not be the one to argue this point with you, as I tend to believe that a man called Jesus did exist, just as a man called Confuciusexisted, a man called Buddah existed, and many others. The kernal around which the myth was built. Of course our discussion did start with the Crucifixion of Jesus, which no one can prove happened.

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10-23-2002, 12:03 AM	#64
Ronin Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Mississippi Posts: 5,047	Prove it. Certainly ~ the gospels are not traceable to the purported evangelists themselves making them notably unverifiable. Myth ~ a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence. You would think that even indirect written testimony regarding the life of superman would have been highly cherished and tenaciously preserved in its original form.

10-23-2002, 03:39 AM	#67
Ronin Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Mississippi Posts: 5,047	Then what is the New Testament? A complation of 'canonical' tales, favored among many others of equally ludicrous nature compiled and since edited and manipulated. Have you read the Book of Mormon? Is it a true account? Anyway in those days - so I was told - oral testimony was used more than today. Maybe because they had no way of duplicating written stuff except rewriting it. So they were used to memorizing things. Who knows. That's what I was told. But anyway, it's not a problem to me to think that the life of Jesus wasn't written down for a while. One has to consider the culture then to know whether it's surprising or not, what was and what wasn't written down and what has and hasn't been preserved. But still, we do have the NT which surely is a remarkable record of preservation by any standards... Not really that remarkable. We also have the Vedas, The Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, The Tales of King Arthur, etc. Great old and musty works of fiction all. Yet, nothing to claim is the true foundation of the infinite universe.

10-23-2002, 04:22 AM	#69
Ronin Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Mississippi Posts: 5,047	They are not all as old as the NT. The older, the more remarkable. <a href="http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/India/RigVeda.html" target="_blank">For your consideration and enlightenment</a> King Arthur is a myth ~ probably based on some vague figure who surely did not have a wizard casting spells for him. The Arthurian mythic image does have excellent pathos and tragedy ~ the Once and Future King ~ very familiar plot, but with superior romance.

10-23-2002, 04:24 AM	#70
Butters Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Houston Texas Posts: 444	For Kosh, I stand corrected. You are right that even the writers of the gospels don't claim to be eyewitness. For Layman, There are ample records of how Rome conducted trials, and how they ruled subject nations. If you're really interested, look into it. For Bede, You continue to trot out the opinion of "scholars" But of the last ones you listed, only one gave a reason for believing Jesus existed, and he relied on the argument by embarrassment. But really, I should not be the one to argue this point with you, as I tend to believe that a man called Jesus did exist, just as a man called Confuciusexisted, a man called Buddah existed, and many others. The kernal around which the myth was built. Of course our discussion did start with the Crucifixion of Jesus, which no one can prove happened.

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