Whatever. I think this thread probably leaves few in any real doubt to your motivations anymore, As such its probably not necessary from my point of view to deal with you further.
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How I lost my Faith; through study of Early Christian History...
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Whatever. I think this thread probably leaves few in any real doubt to your motivations anymore, As such its probably not necessary from my point of view to deal with you further.
In other words you have no point to make and cannot counter any of the arguments...my motivations are transparent; I want to know if we have good evidence for a historical Jesus of Nazareth; I haven't found any and you claim to have some, which you refuse to post...hmm...
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You haven't countered any of our arguments, other than by saying; the Bible's nonsense, "experience" of Jesus is just emotion, miracles did not happen and because Jesus didn't write a book, we cannot believe he existed.
That doesn't mean we haven't any, it just means we are fed up with arguing with someone who's starting point seems to be; Jesus doesn't exist, and if you say otherwise, I'll dismiss it because I don't believe. Your position isn't even that consistent. First you say you have lost your faith and are happier without it. Then you praise the authors of websites who have "proved" that Jesus did not exist at all. Then you say that you are an agnostic about the existence of Jesus - meaning you don't know - and scholars do think that he existed, they just don't accept that he was God and performed miracles. Many people don't believe that Jesus was who he said he was; that is completely different from saying that he never existed, everyone is lying when they say otherwise, and the whole of Christianity is built on a delusion or someone's subjective emotions, which they somehow seem to have passed on to people who were born hundreds of years after them.
You don't know that Jesus didn't exist; you have lost your belief. You said so yourself.
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jckstraw72
Doin' that whole Orthodox thing
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2000 yrs of Christianity is pretty good evidence that Christ lived. no one doubts the existence of Buddha or Mohammed, so why are you doubting Jesus?
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I agree, it's hard to believe that so many are following a 2000 year old hoax. Just doesn't make sense. Seems to me most skeptics can only produce some sort of doubt in which to draw conclusions.
Billy <><
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I severely doubt that Buddha existed as biographies if you want to call them that were written centuries after the fact and all we have are magic stories about the guy. Mohammed likely existed...we have more direct evidence for him...
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A hoax? Not a hoax but a mythic divine Christ who likely never existed as a human being. What is so strange about that? Religions existed for thousands of years based on that principle, why not Christianity? Mithraism was based on that principle and could have won over Christianity in late antiquity...they were neck and neck...no, not a hoax but all critical scholarship agrees that the NT Gospels are not eyewitness accounts of anything and are almost entirely literature...listen to Bart Ehrman talk about how stories were added and removed from the Gospels through copiests...for example...
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Once again, probabilites; it is improbable that there was a human Jesus; no one can prove it one way or otherwise decisively...
The bible is not a book of history; it is a book of stories, many of which are symbolic and some of which are total nonsense...ever read Finkelstein and his archaeology? No Moses, no Exodus, no nothing...
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YoungJoonKim
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I think I'm too* young to speak to this lol.
I will be back after graduating from university
I will be back after graduating from university
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Anyeoung Haseyo....I think I'm too* young to speak to this lol.
I will be back after graduating from university
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Mobiosity
American by birth; Southern by the grace of God.
You are using your limited reasoning abilities to understand an unlimited entity. As it is said, lack of evidence is not evidence that it doesn't exist. What you and other humans have been able to glean from ancient history is limited to what has been discovered so far.
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So I repeat, you don't know. You once had some sort of belief; you've now lost it. (And obviously don't wish to get it back or consider arguments that might cause you to get it back.)
So there's not much point discussing it.
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Oh, I do want to discuss; in particular I want evidence for the existence of the human Jesus of Nazareth that isn't anecdotal...
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disasm
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Okay, so this guy Jesus never existed, this group of apostles completely made him for their own fame and glory? Then these apostles and the other witnesses were crucified, stoned, burned, for claiming this guy not only existed and died, but rose from the dead, yet they knew deep in their hearts that it was all a lie? And this makes more sense than this guy Jesus walked the earth and was born in 6 AD and died 33 years later?
So now lets go into why things were recorded when and how they were.
Well, lets begin with the mix-up of dates listed. You seem to be under the assumption that it was common knowledge when all this was recorded that 0 started at 0 AD and being off by 6 years is proof the guy never existed. Well, it wasn't till in the future when 0 AD was considered the year of our lord, and everything backdated as best as possible at that time.
Now, the apostles. They witnessed him die. They were at a loss of hope. They though the story was over, and then 3 days later the guy comes back to life. A while later, Pentecost comes, and from there they go baptizing others and witnessing about the Messiah. They dedicate their lives to doing this, and you expect them to keep a detailed journal of what they did, how they did it, and so forth. That's just plain ridiculous. So, they are getting old and nearing death. Some of their letters to other Christians are still preserved, like Peter and Paul's as well as some others.
St. John the Theologian particularly starts writing things down. St. Luke the Physician, watching over Jesus Christ's own Mother, the virgin Mary, also starts writing things down and gets the perspective of Mary, explaining why things in a society never spoken of except by the women when the women were alone are suddenly being mentioned in his gospel.
Our records are still found few and far between at this time with very few of the Church members have written records. The vast majority have only heard the message, not seen it's written form. The Church is still going strong, persecution gets very great, St. Peter and St. Paul are martyred, yet this group of people called Christians still proclaim this message to their death. Nero comes along and kills Polycarp. His gardens are mentioned in writings as gardens of burning Christian human torches. Yet this belief in this Christ who came less than a century prior is still heavily confessed publicly when Romans try to force these Christians to make sacrifices to pagan gods as a show to denounce their "atheism", as the Romans referred to it. The church fathers write vast amounts of letters and apologies that remain preserved.
I'll end hear before we get to Constantine, but you can honestly without a doubt in your mind say that all this doesn't make you the slightest bit skeptical about your opinion of Jesus being a myth?
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Not wishing to get into a discussion about the finer points of the word ‘hoax’ but if copyist added and removed stories, taking into account that they had an agenda, then wouldn’t that be participating or perpetuating a hoax? I haven’t read Mr. Ehrman but I have read others that probably have like opinions and to be honest, I think that they make some pretty good points. But on the other hand just because there may have been some historical, allegorical, or literary complexities, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Jesus was a myth. But lets say for a minute that Jesus came only in spirit and was, as some have suggested, only raised in the hearts of believers, which in turn could have possibly generated the myth idea. Would your opinion about Him change? Would you even be open to an idea like that? And I’m curious about something, lets say for instance that Jesus came back and introduced Himself to you. How would you know if it was really Him? What proof would you ask for?
Billy <><
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Brennin
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1. John did not rely on Mark.
2. The Testimonium has been tampered with but it has an authentic nucleus. There is also Antiquities 20.9.1
3. Tacitus has not been tampered with.
4. Mark was written in the 60s CE
2. The Testimonium has been tampered with but it has an authentic nucleus. There is also Antiquities 20.9.1
3. Tacitus has not been tampered with.
4. Mark was written in the 60s CE
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Mark, the 60's? How about 70 CE at the earliest...
Of course with regards to John you are right, likely composed in the 90's or even in the 2nd century CE it is independent of Mark and so fantastical and ficticious as to be dismissed in its entirety as mere fancy and story telling...it's about as historical as the Lord of the Rings.
The Testimonium does not have an authentic nucleus and has been tampered with by Christian apologists over and over. It is not mentioned until the 3rd century. Antiquities is likely also an interpolation. Never mind the fact that they are not eyewitness accounts and contain such minute specks of information...
Tacitus was likely tampered with as well; for one thing he calls Pilate a procurator, which was the title in his day but not in Pilate's day and he not name 'Jesus' by name, merely naming him 'Christ', simply repeating what Christians in his day were saying, writing in ca. 115 CE, almost a century after the 'fact' from hearsay, the passage, whether interpolation or not is worthless....
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