Existence of Jesus

[Kyuuketsuki]

Actually nothing short of Jesus decending from the clouds in all his heavenly glory will prove that he exists.

If God or Jesus descended from clouds in a flaming chariot surrounded by seraphim and cherubim I'd still be the guy at the back saying, "How frakking cool is that? Where's the strings?"

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

hahaha!

And if not that - I'd be the one thinking I was hallucinating or in a mass hallucination.

Like that mass hallucination in Fatima in Portugal that Dawkins mentioned in TGD - where 70,000 people hallucinated (or claimed to, or half and half lol) the sun crashing down to earth in a ball of flames (obviously lol, its not a ball of ice now is it?).

EvF

[chatpilot]

The fact that it ended in a conviction of death and that he was supposedly crucified would have made it an official case and would have warranted its appearance on Roman records.There was also rumours of Jesus being convicted of sedition but none of this is evident in the historical record.

[Mark]

The fact that it ended in a conviction of death and that he was supposedly crucified would have made it an official case and would have warranted its appearance on Roman records.There was also rumours of Jesus being convicted of sedition but none of this is evident in the historical record.

Well as I pointed out, the vast, vast majority of Roman legal records have been lost. Only very isolated examples have survived. Also it is not clear that Jesus was tried in a Roman court, which would have been quite unusual for a non-citizen outside of Italy, during this particular time. There were local, Judaic courts in which any trial of Jesus would probably have taken place. The account only says that at some point, he appeared before the Prefect. If this happened it was probably an interview for possible lenience. There is indeed evidence that a man named Pontius Pilatus, or possibly Pileatus, was Prefect of Judea at this time.

Personally I doubt that Jesus ever did appear before the Prefect, which would have been quite an honor, but perhaps it did happen. Jesus during his life would have been a significant figure for Jews, a nonentity to Romans. More likely, if Jesus saw a Roman official at all, it was a clerk.

Death was not a particularly unusual punishment in Roman law, by the way. It was the punishment for most serious crimes. There was no regular prison system. Crucifixion was a standard punishment for sedition, which appears to have been Jesus' alleged crime.

[chatpilot]

It is pretty hard to crucify someone who did not exist.As a matter of fact crucicixion was the popular method of execution by the Romans,so this was not exclusive to Christ.I think I have presented plenty of reasons in this forum to soldify my belief that Jesus the man or the historical Christ whichever you prefer to call him did not exist.If you have not done so already take the time to read some of my earlier posts in this forum.I argue not from arrogance but from knowledge that I feel is sufficient enough to myself to determine that Jesus and the entire system of christianity is a myth.

[Kyuuketsuki]

It is pretty hard to crucify someone who did not exist.As a matter of fact crucicixion was the popular method of execution by the Romans,so this was not exclusive to Christ.I think I have presented plenty of reasons in this forum to soldify my belief that Jesus the man or the historical Christ whichever you prefer to call him did not exist.If you have not done so already take the time to read some of my earlier posts in this forum.I argue not from arrogance but from knowledge that I feel is sufficient enough to myself to determine that Jesus and the entire system of christianity is a myth.

I'm pretty much with you on this one ... I see no particular reason why there had to be a literal Jesus Christ at the root of the Christian myth. For much the same reasons I reject current claims to deity (an utter lack of validatable evidence) I reject the physical existence of Jesus Christ.

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes I can understand that.

But of course no evidence of a NON-supernatural Jesus while being a very good reason to not believe in one. A NON-supernatural Jesus - Jesus as 'just a man' - is still a LOT more probable than a supernatural one! Or a God like Yahweh or Allah of course!

EvF

[Mark]

It is pretty hard to crucify someone who did not exist.As a matter of fact crucicixion was the popular method of execution by the Romans,so this was not exclusive to Christ.I think I have presented plenty of reasons in this forum to soldify my belief that Jesus the man or the historical Christ whichever you prefer to call him did not exist.If you have not done so already take the time to read some of my earlier posts in this forum.I argue not from arrogance but from knowledge that I feel is sufficient enough to myself to determine that Jesus and the entire system of christianity is a myth.

Well, I did read and if I'm not mistaken, you said that the absence of a written record was the biggest obstacle to your acceptance that the man Jesus existed. For the time being I am not debating across the whole front of your belief about Jesus, just that one point. As I have said, it would be rather remarkable if a written record did exist, given how very, very few Roman state records actually have come down.

Also Jesus was mentioned by the classical historian Josephus, who was not a Christian. It is not impossible of course that a person would be mentioned by a historian of that day and not exist, but considering how very few people of ordinary birth get named in Roman histories (Caesar for example mentions a few common soldiers in connection with extraordinarily brave deeds during his campaigns), it would be just a little strange if someone was mentioned who did not, in fact, exist.

I didn't say that crucifixion was exclusive to Jesus, but that it was the usual punishment for sedition. Personally I don't refer to Jesus as the Christ, since that is a religious belief that I don't share.

Quite honestly I fail to see why the question of the existence of this certain man should be a particularly important one for atheists, but I am suspicious that what should be a cold question of fact is often tinged with atheist belief and a distaste for Christianity.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Also Jesus was mentioned by the classical historian Josephus, who was not a Christian. It is not impossible of course that a person would be mentioned by a historian of that day and not exist, but considering how very few people of ordinary birth get named in Roman histories (Caesar for example mentions a few common soldiers in connection with extraordinarily brave deeds during his campaigns), it would be just a little strange if someone was mentioned who did not, in fact, exist

The Josephus quote(s) tends to be regarded as a later interpolation (in effect a fake).

Kyu

[Mark]

Also Jesus was mentioned by the classical historian Josephus, who was not a Christian. It is not impossible of course that a person would be mentioned by a historian of that day and not exist, but considering how very few people of ordinary birth get named in Roman histories (Caesar for example mentions a few common soldiers in connection with extraordinarily brave deeds during his campaigns), it would be just a little strange if someone was mentioned who did not, in fact, exist

The Josephus quote(s) tends to be regarded as a later interpolation (in effect a fake).

Kyu

Well actually if you read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , you will see that while what is today in Josephus almost certainly is an emendation by later scribes, it is considered likely that Josephus did say something about Jesus, which was probably the basis of this emendation. Most probably what he wrote is something like this, which is a paraphrase by one Agapius of what would seem to be an unmodified, earlier and not lost edition of Josephus:

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders"

---

Further Origen, a Christian author writing around 240 (Josephus wrote around 70 or 80), said that Josephus did not recognize the divinity of Jesus. This would be a rather odd thing to say if Josephus had not written something about Jesus, and what he wrote could well be lost text paraphrased above, and which does bear resemblance to the presumably amended text now found in Josephus.

All this is debatable, I readily concede. But it is misleading to say that the text in Josephus is "fake."

Further it is worth noting that the historicity of Jesus is not widely doubted among historians of the classical period. Why would it be? There is some presumption that he lived; there is on the other side mere doubt that he did not. But how much evidence could possibly come down from A.D. 40 clearly demonstrating the existence of any particular non-patrician Roman, indeed a non-Italian and non-citizen? It's worth noting that to Romans, Jesus would have been a nonentity during his life; only much later, as Christianity spread, did he become a figure of any significance to Rome (by then a historical one, of course).