From a jesus freak site on Van Voorst:

Quote:In Jesus outside the New Testament, Robert Van Voorst gives 7 reasons why historians are confident Jesus lived:

The Apostle Paul did not say a lot about Jesus (an argument sometimes used by sceptics, but this is an argument from silence and therefore invalid without positive evidence). But Paul did know about Jesus, and was unlikely to write a lot of historical detail in letters.

The gospels are too early for invention (too many people would have remembered the real facts), and their accurate references to Palestinian geography would not have been possible if the stories were invented later.

The development of the early christians' understanding of Jesus which can be seen in the gospels (another argument sometimes used) is not sufficient to justify the belief that they were inventions.

No early opponents of Christianity, whether pagan or Jew, ever denied that Jesus truly lived, or even questioned it.

Scholars are generally agreed that references to Jesus in the Roman historian Tacitus (early second century) and the Jewish historian Josephus (late first century) are both genuine, though some parts of Josephus appear to be later additions.

Most arguments that Jesus wasn't a historical figure have come from people opposed to Christianity and thus not unbiased, whereas scholars of all viewpoints from atheists to Christians accept the historicity of Jesus.

Proponents of the mythical Jesus view have not been able to offer any credible hypothesis that explains the stories of Jesus and the birth of Christianity.

This is apologetic nonsense.

1 - Paul seems as phony as "jesus." He does not appear even in the xtian record until the 2d century and that is a big fucking problem.

2- The "earliness" of the gospels is part of the story...like Luke Skywalker being born on Tattooine. We have no evidence at all of this claim..which does not prevent jesus freaks from regurgitating it relentlessly. Nonetheless, the earliest fragments of copies are also 2d century.

3- Not evidence. Merely a baseless assertion.

4- Why would there be early opponents if the story itself is not early?
We see xtian dogma fleshed out - more or less - in Justyn Martyr c 160 AD and almost immediately we have Lucian of Samosata making fun of it and 20 years later Celsus is blasting the living shit out of it.
But if there is no "jesus" in the first century how could anyone "oppose" it?

5- Xtian wet dream. The evidence for Tacitus is mainly wishful thinking and Josephus is an obvious forgery. The 11th century manuscript of Tacitus' Annales shows under ultraviolet light that the word was "chrestianos" not "christianos." This puts Tacitus' manuscript more in tune with what his contemporary Suetonius wrote when he said that "Chrestus was causing trouble in Rome" during the reign of Claudius.
The Chrestus/Christos enigma is bizarre but the fact remains that neither Suetonius, Pliny nor apparently Tacitus ever heard of any fucking "jesus." Josephus was called a forgery by Bishop Warburton in the 1760s. It remained such until embarrassed fundie preachers decided to breath life back into the corpse by claiming that there was a watered down version of it....which they cannot produce anywhere except their own imaginations.

6- Most arguments that jesus was a historical person come from people with a decided bias...not to mention financial interest...in asserting that there was one. Add in the fact that for 1800 years these fine xtians would burn anyone at the stake who denied their godboy and point #6 fades into oblivion. Now that the church has lost its power to murder people they are losing control....as evidenced by the empty churches which are worrying them so.

7- Simply untrue. Stories of assorted heavenly horseshit fill the literature of the Hellenistic world...which jesus freaks might learn if they put their fucking bibles down long enough to learn something useful.

You'll have to do better than Van Voorst.

I think I'll have to borrow a phrase here; "What if you're wrong?" You wasted the only life you have worshipping something that isn't there, funding and supporting an institution of imaginary characters.

So... does His_Majesty have anything to add other than an appeal to ignorance?

The point that keeps being missed is that listing half a dozen or so names of people who agree with you =/= "the vast majority of historians". I mean, you may in fact be correct - I'm not for a nanosecond saying you are - but you're doing a piss-weak job of demonstrating that. That we now have the names is a good thing and what you've been asked to provide almost all along. It means, as I said, that we can assess their credentials and what you think they are saying.

Also that isn't the Euthyphro Dilemma. Do learn the basics; there may be a test.

Would Jesus shed skin cells scattered during his life around Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem and other locales still be alive today ??

Also, spittle contains the odd white blood cell among others, would they persist in the environment too ?? (recall the poultice Christ made for the blind man's eyes)

I'm sorry, I only read the first six pages before hrm started out-and-out lieing before skipping here to see him being ridiculously stupid. So I am browsing and not seeing any argument or evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Just him saying "I provided good evidence he existed!" while everyone else says no he didn't.

Let me just state I actually do think there was a historical person at the beginning of the cult which became Christianity. There were several such figures who started cults in the area at the time. I think that Paul used one of these as the basis for what we today call Christianity.

I would like to move past the "Jesus existed" part and come to the evidence that exists for the resurrection. If it has already been presented I apologize, but it doesn't look like it.

(November 29, 2014 at 5:09 am)His_Majesty Wrote: 1. Bart Erhman
2. Robert Price
3. Michael Grant
4. Will Durant
5. James Tabor

1, I assume we all know about Bart Ehrman.

2, Robert Price, a theologian, mind you.

Quote: In books like The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man and Deconstructing Jesus, Price challenges biblical literalism and argues for a more skeptical and humanistic approach to Christianity. He questions the idea of a historical Jesus; in the documentary The God Who Wasn't There, Price supports a version of the Jesus myth hypothesis, suggesting that the early Christians adopted the model for the figure of Jesus from the popular Mediterranean dying-rising saviour myths of the time, such as that of Dionysus. He argues that the comparisons were known at the time, as early church father, Justin Martyr had admitted the similarities. Price suggests that Christianity simply adopted themes from the dying-rising god stories of the day and supplemented them with themes (escaping crosses, empty tombs, children being persecuted by tyrants, etc.) from the popular stories of the day in order to come up with the narratives about Christ.[citation needed] He has argued that there was an almost complete fleshing out of the details of the gospels by a Midrash (haggadah) rewriting of the Septuagint, Homer, Euripides' Bacchae, and Josephus.

A good man obviously, but not exactly making the case for you.

3. Michael Grant, died 2004, historian. I guess it's about "Jesus: An historians Review". His take on the gospels.

Quote: They do not fit into any known genre of literature, ancient or modern., ... the writers of the gospels, their aims being what they were , had no intention of limiting themselves to these facts of prosaic history. For they interwove them with a great deal of other material as well. But so did ancient pagan writers on historical subjects.

4. Will Durant. 1885 to 1981. It's important to know that his works were mainly written in the first half of the 20th century when historical wasn't as advanced as it is now. Durant also argues for Genesis to be taken as a historical fact, barring the supernatural.

Quote: The discoveries here summarized have restored considerable credit to those chapters of Genesis that record the early traditions of the Jews. In its outlines, and barring supernatural incidents, the story of the Jews as unfolded in the Old Testament has stood the test of criticism and archeology; every year adds corroboration from documents, monuments, or excavations... We must accept the Biblical account provisionally until it is disproved.

5. James Tabor. A real quack, arguing for a Jesus dynasty. It's important to note, that not even theologians agree with him.

Quote: Darrell Bock, professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, writing for Christianity Today (May 2006) has said "Four major historical problems exist with Tabor's portrait beyond the mere worldview issues that drive his portrait. "

Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte from the Theological University of Kampen writing in the Society of Biblical Literature Review of Biblical Literature (June 2007) was highly critical of the book saying, "Some books are written to spread knowledge, others to generate controversy. This book falls into the latter category. In his Jesus Dynasty James Tabor presents a reconstruction of the Jesus movement from a perspective that purports to be a neutral view at the facts. Unfortunately, Tabor’s view is not neutral and his “facts” are not facts."