What evidence do we as Christians have that Jesus is real?

The Righterzpen

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Is there any ?

Also depends on what type of "evidence" you are looking for. If you want historical evidence that a guy who was called Jesus of Nazareth lived in the 1st century and was crucified by the Romans; there's plenty of that; even from outside of the Scripture.

Now as far as what people believed about Him; that becomes a different subject. Did he rise from the dead? There's no evidence to prove that he didn't! And if He really had done all the things the gospels recorded He did; those alive would have no reason to believe He didn't come back from the dead; even if they didn't see Him physically resurrected.
 
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Jonaitis

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Also depends on what type of "evidence" you are looking for. If you want historical evidence that a guy who was called Jesus of Nazareth lived in the 1st century and was crucified by the Romans; there's plenty of that; even from outside of the Scripture.

Now as far as what people believed about Him; that becomes a different subject. Did he rise from the dead? There's no evidence to prove that he didn't! And if He really had done all the things the gospels recorded He did; those alive would have no reason to believe He didn't come back from the dead; even if they didn't see Him physically resurrected.

Our morning studies have been focusing on the other kind of evidence that people question. I was trying to find the papers I kept regarding manuscripts, resurrection, etc. Great stuff.
 
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Presbyterian Continuist

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Jesus is very real to those who are genuinely converted to Christianity. They have the Holy Spirit within them Who has revealed Jesus to them. If Jesus is not real to a person, then they need to look to the state of their soul before God. It is possible to have all the trappings of the Christian religion but not know Jesus as a real Person. This is because they have a religious spirit in them and not the Holy Spirit.
 
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Maria Billingsley

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Is there any ?
This is a good book to read. THE CASE FOR CHRIST. There is also a good documentary you can watch on You Tube that goes through all the reasons why Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.
 
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The Righterzpen

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This is a good book to read. THE CASE FOR CHRIST. There is also a good documentary you can watch on You Tube that goes through all the reasons why Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.

"Case For Christ" by Lee Stroble is very well done and easily understandable to laymen!
 
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Jude1:3Contendforthefaith

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I think he means outside of the Bible.


• Tacitus (56-120 A.D.)
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”

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• Mara Bar-Serapion (70 A.D.)
“What benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as judgment for their crime. Or, the people of Samos for burning Pythagoras? In one moment their country was covered with sand. Or the Jews by murdering their wise king?…After that their kingdom was abolished. God rightly avenged these men…The wise king…Lived on in the teachings he enacted.”

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• Pliny the Younger (61-113 A.D.)
“They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.”

pliny_younger_360x450.jpg






• Lucian of Samosata: (115-200 A.D.)
The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account….You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.” (Lucian, The Death of Peregrine. 11-13)

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• Celsus (175 A.D.)
“Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands.
His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra (i.32)]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to *****. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god.”

53c3c32685b8b8eda90ce9c54da498717c3a3b5cd244d4c7f5021e620884e967





• Josephus (37-101 A.D.)
“Now around this time lived Jesus, a wise man. For he was a worker of amazing deeds and was a teacher of people who gladly accept the truth. He won over both many Jews and many Greeks. Pilate, when he heard him accused by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, (but) those who had first loved him did not cease (doing so). To this day the tribe of Christians named after him has not disappeared” (This neutral reconstruction follows closely the one proposed by John Meier,

Josephus.jpg




Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible? | Cold Case Christianity




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SayaOtonashi

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That Jesus was a real person. Sorry it's just often people say the bible contradictions itself. I don't see it like that.


Angela Walker I'll go to my favorite. It is actually a chronological analysis of several stories.
1. Story of the Slaughter of Innocents - Supposedly, Herod the Great heard about the newborn Jesus and sent his army out to kill all the children in the land, assuming Jesus would be among them, but the family got a divine warning and left the area. A miracle that Jesus survived, although every other child was slaughtered. Some miracle, right. Anyway, it gives us a date to work with. Herod died in 4 BCE, so the birth of Jesus was before that. 2. Census story - When Mary was near due, Joseph and Mary had to travel to Jerusalem al Judea for the census. This was big, because prophecy said that the Messiah would be born in Judea, and this move for the census seemed to answer the prophecy. The NT mentions the name of the Governor who ordered the census - Quirinius - and this gives us another date. Quirinius was made Governor in 6AD, so the census, and the birth, must be after that. Analysis: How can a child born after 6 AD be pursued by a jealous king who died more than 10 years earlier? Chronologically speaking, both cannot be true, so one of them must be false. 3. Jesus ministry - NT says that Jesus was at least 30 when he began his ministry, and ministered @ 2 years before his death, making him at least 32 when he died. 4. Crucifixion - NT claims that the crucifixion was ordered by Governor Pontius Pilate. Pontius left office in 36 AD. Analysis of 2,3,&4: If Jesus was born after 6 AD (census) and died before 36 AD (Pontius left office), then he could not have been AT LEAST 32 when he died, and that is assuming that Quirinius ordered and completed the census on his first day as governor (impossible) and Pontius held the execution on his last day in office (highly unlikely). Add to that, biblical scholars, using New Testament references, determined that the crucifixion was April of 30 AD, making Jesus age at time of death to be less than 24 (more likely 22 or 23), not greater than 32, as the NT claims. One or all of those stories must be false, because it is chronologically impossible for them to all be true. The main reason that Christians don't spot these obvious flaws is that they don't examine these stories as a chronological whole. Trying to create a timeline of biblical stories is impossible, because so many of them are clearly conflicting, timewise, and therefore chronologically impossible when taken together. There is more than one account in the NT of Jesus last words as he died on the cross, and they aren't even remotely close. Only one account of the last words could be true, because last words are a one time deal. The rest must be false. I could go on, but you get the point, right?

What do you guys think about these historical inaccuracies?


Is there any want to debate this?
 
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Eklypised

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Lucian of Samosata
The Talmud
Pliny the Younger
Tacitus
Suetonius
Celsus, the Platonist philosopher, considered Jesus to be a magician who made exorbitant claims
Mara bar Serapion
Thallus
Julius Africanus who writes about Phlegon
Hadrian
the Toledoth Jesu
guess we can put Josephus here too

If you put it all together you can gather this about Jesus from non-Christian sources:

Jesus existed and founded the Christian sect.
He gained disciples from among both Jews and greeks.
He was tried and executed by crucifixion during the reign of Tiberius under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, some of the leading Jews apparently helping to gain his condemnation.
He was buried and his tomb was later found empty, but the body had not be stolen or moved
His followers reported various supernatural things about him, including that he was seen alive the third day after the crucifixion and that some thought he was the Christ/Messiah.
The Christian sect was still in existence in the early 2nd century
 
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The Righterzpen

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That Jesus was a real person. Sorry it's just often people say the bible contradictions itself. I don't see it like that.


Angela Walker I'll go to my favorite. It is actually a chronological analysis of several stories.
1. Story of the Slaughter of Innocents - Supposedly, Herod the Great heard about the newborn Jesus and sent his army out to kill all the children in the land, assuming Jesus would be among them, but the family got a divine warning and left the area. A miracle that Jesus survived, although every other child was slaughtered. Some miracle, right. Anyway, it gives us a date to work with. Herod died in 4 BCE, so the birth of Jesus was before that. 2. Census story - When Mary was near due, Joseph and Mary had to travel to Jerusalem al Judea for the census. This was big, because prophecy said that the Messiah would be born in Judea, and this move for the census seemed to answer the prophecy. The NT mentions the name of the Governor who ordered the census - Quirinius - and this gives us another date. Quirinius was made Governor in 6AD, so the census, and the birth, must be after that. Analysis: How can a child born after 6 AD be pursued by a jealous king who died more than 10 years earlier? Chronologically speaking, both cannot be true, so one of them must be false. 3. Jesus ministry - NT says that Jesus was at least 30 when he began his ministry, and ministered @ 2 years before his death, making him at least 32 when he died. 4. Crucifixion - NT claims that the crucifixion was ordered by Governor Pontius Pilate. Pontius left office in 36 AD. Analysis of 2,3,&4: If Jesus was born after 6 AD (census) and died before 36 AD (Pontius left office), then he could not have been AT LEAST 32 when he died, and that is assuming that Quirinius ordered and completed the census on his first day as governor (impossible) and Pontius held the execution on his last day in office (highly unlikely). Add to that, biblical scholars, using New Testament references, determined that the crucifixion was April of 30 AD, making Jesus age at time of death to be less than 24 (more likely 22 or 23), not greater than 32, as the NT claims. One or all of those stories must be false, because it is chronologically impossible for them to all be true. The main reason that Christians don't spot these obvious flaws is that they don't examine these stories as a chronological whole. Trying to create a timeline of biblical stories is impossible, because so many of them are clearly conflicting, timewise, and therefore chronologically impossible when taken together. There is more than one account in the NT of Jesus last words as he died on the cross, and they aren't even remotely close. Only one account of the last words could be true, because last words are a one time deal. The rest must be false. I could go on, but you get the point, right?

What do you guys think about these historical inaccuracies?


Is there any want to debate this?

First off (hopefully you understand) the calendar goes like this:

BC -------------------->1BC 1AD----------------> (there's no year "0")
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

February 4BC - Herod the Great dies.

Jesus is 2 years old when the Magi come into Jerusalem. They come before Herod dies. This puts the Magi coming some time in 5 BC

This means Jesus is born in 7 BC


In the "Deeds of Augustus" Caesar himself records 3 empire wide censuses.
1st 28 BC
2nd 8 BC
3rd 14 AD

There was an inscription found in Antioch which states that Quirinius was governor in Syria twice. One in 7 BC and one in 6 AD

The Jury Is In: Luke and Quirinius

So Jesus was born in 7 BC. Most likely during the feast of Tabernacles (which would have been in the fall). This would have been the commencement of 7 BC of the sacred calendar. The Jewish new year started in the fall. The secular new year started in the spring.

There are only 2 possibilities for the year of His death. (30 AD and 33AD) In both of these years; Passover fell on a Thursday to a Friday.

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness in the commencement of "the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar." That would have been 30 AD, or 29 AD depending on if one was using the sacred or secular calendar.

So your only other option is Jesus died in 33 AD This would have made Him 6 months shy of turning 40.

Now the Scripture? Jesus is "about of the 30 years old". The phrase actually means "of (about) the middle" of 30 (or of (about) the middle of 30's). Which 7 BC to 30 (or 29) AD; which is 36 years. This means Jesus would have just turned 36 shortly after John appeared in the wilderness. Which would have been roughly July of 29 AD.

Now, the last thing Jesus said?

The last intelligible thing He said was "I thirst". "Into Your hands I commend my spirit." and "It is finished." are "interpretations / explanations" provided to the reader by the writer, because by that point; Jesus was beyond the point of those hearing Him actually being able to understand what He was saying.

The Greek conveys that He sounded like a screeching crow; so the order of the words in either gospel don't make it clear which phrase was actually the last one. We are provided with an account of what Jesus was trying to say; so in that sense we are left with an ambiguous answer. It makes the most sense to me that "it is finished" would be last.
 
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Yekcidmij

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The initial question is misguided since, for some reason or another, historical sources are excluded from the start. For some reason, Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, Q, John, Paul, James, Peter, and the author of Hebrews are excluded. One has to charitably assume the reason for excluding these is because of a theological bias (which they undoubtedly have). However, to completely exclude them from historical inquiry on this basis is to assume that because a source has theological bias, then they are incapable of relating historical facts. This seems a flatly indefensible postilion. If one wishes to go this route, than any historical source should always be excluded from historical inquiry since any author writes with a set of intents and biases about various things. On this view, it seems that in order to maintain consistency, history may be impossible. We can't accept Josephus as recording reliable history since he has a quite obvious bias.

It's possibly a sign of apathy as well since untangling theological bias from bland historical fact requires time and effort; it requires realistic assumptions about the world and human nature. Besides, the view that excludes them completely based on theological bias may itself be just an anti-theological biased view and so no better than the view it purports to be against.

A little more uncharitably, excluding them as sources could be out of sheer ignorance as someone less informed may be tempted to see "The New Testament" as one single source rather than a collection of multiple sources.

So when I hear someone asking for sources besides the New Testament, unless it's just a historical item of interest, I hear someone excluding sources based on [probably] flawed reasons. The New Testament sources are the best sources for Jesus and shouldn't be excluded a priori from reporting historical realities.
 
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