Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[FallentoReason]

That's easy, the holy spirit is the spirit of God at work in the world God so if you believe, as in acts, you are by definition not sinning against the Holy Spirit.

Where does it mention 'sin' in the verses? You haven't clarified why one tells me I can be forgiven from anything while the others say I can't be forgiven from all things.

[King_Charles]

I'm not gonna insult your intellect by pointing out that this is a particularly weak argument, considering Jesus and certainly the authors of the synoptic gospels knew their Torah backwards...

Funny you say that. Considering the Gospel is mere hearsay I'd say the anonymous authors literally worked backwards and forced this supposed messiah to fulfil all the prophecies. A classic example is the birth of Jesus where Luke invented a census which would make it plausible for Jesus to have been born in Bethlehem. I wouldn't say this author lied, just wrote down the rumours going around.

Um, yeah that's my point, why it is a very weak arguement.

You actually might want to check out mithras: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries a religion that was basically coterminous with early Christianity that went on similar lines. There was also the cult of Isis that also dealt with the theme of resurrection and was, like Christianity, very popular among the Roman masses, and is often seen as a precursor for the madonna cult of the Christian era.

And don't let's get started on the possible Gnostic/Zoroastrian influence...

Yes, I'm well aware of all this. I'm just surprised that your argument hinged on the fact that it should be ridiculous that a religion was formed out of someone 'non-existent'. So what? Nothing new to see here.

The point I was making with Heracles was that this myth was already around for 2500 years prior to Jesus. Why don't you believe in good old 'Hercules'? Why Jesus?

The myth about Hercules grew over millennia, the Christ myth grew to fruition in thirty years. There simply isn't the timescale for there not at least to be a real historical figure to act as the kernel.

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That's easy, the holy spirit is the spirit of God at work in the world God so if you believe, as in acts, you are by definition not sinning against the Holy Spirit.

Where does it mention 'sin' in the verses? You haven't clarified why one tells me I can be forgiven from anything while the others say I can't be forgiven from all things.

Blaspheme then, you know what I mean.

[FallentoReason]

I'm not gonna insult your intellect by pointing out that this is a particularly weak argument, considering Jesus and certainly the authors of the synoptic gospels knew their Torah backwards...

Funny you say that. Considering the Gospel is mere hearsay I'd say the anonymous authors literally worked backwards and forced this supposed messiah to fulfil all the prophecies. A classic example is the birth of Jesus where Luke invented a census which would make it plausible for Jesus to have been born in Bethlehem. I wouldn't say this author lied, just wrote down the rumours going around.

Um, yeah that's my point, why it is a very weak arguement.

So... You agree with me?

Yes, I'm well aware of all this. I'm just surprised that your argument hinged on the fact that it should be ridiculous that a religion was formed out of someone 'non-existent'. So what? Nothing new to see here.

The point I was making with Heracles was that this myth was already around for 2500 years prior to Jesus. Why don't you believe in good old 'Hercules'? Why Jesus?

The myth about Hercules grew over millennia, the Christ myth grew to fruition in thirty years. There simply isn't the timescale for there not at least to be a real historical figure to act as the kernel.

History would have given us the proof of this person who publicly preached and healed to thousands. Nothing to be found though, so I just don't see how it's reasonable to say there actually was said person.

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That's easy, the holy spirit is the spirit of God at work in the world God so if you believe, as in acts, you are by definition not sinning against the Holy Spirit.

Where does it mention 'sin' in the verses? You haven't clarified why one tells me I can be forgiven from anything while the others say I can't be forgiven from all things.

Blaspheme then, you know what I mean.

Do you not see the contradiction in the verses? One speaks of absolute forgiveness while the other mentions something that cannot be forgiven. Being a believer or not doesn't come into this because the whole point of Jesus is that he is the redeemer and cleans up the mess that is humanity. Oh, except if you blaspheme against the holy spirit. See what I mean?

[King_Charles]

certainly the authors of the synoptic gospels knew their Torah backwards...

The author of Matthew most certainly didn't have anything but a passing familiarity with the Septuagint and even then he made up a prophecy. Here is a quick and dirty way to show none of the authors that wrote "Jesus of Nazareth" were not familiar with Hebrew. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament yet supposedly it says the messiah shall be from Nazareth (and Bethlehem but that is a clan not a geographic location). The Old Testament does say...

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots

Branch in Hebrew is the word Netzer which has the same consonants as Nazareth and that is why the gospels made such a dumb mistake.

Bethlehem was deffo a city, it is mentioned a few times in the OT, and the Romans sacked it during the Jewish war. Pretty hard to sack a tribe.

As for Nazareth, the point that the author was making was relating back to the suffering servant prophecy. "The stone that the builders rejected shall become the cornerstone..." and all that. Nazareth was the Jewish equivalent of wales, very bad reputation, collaborators, looked down upon by the rest of the nation. A whole stream of OT prophecies emphasize the Messiah's lowly origins, calling him the Nazarene feeds into all of that.

---

I'm not gonna insult your intellect by pointing out that this is a particularly weak argument, considering Jesus and certainly the authors of the synoptic gospels knew their Torah backwards...

Funny you say that. Considering the Gospel is mere hearsay I'd say the anonymous authors literally worked backwards and forced this supposed messiah to fulfil all the prophecies. A classic example is the birth of Jesus where Luke invented a census which would make it plausible for Jesus to have been born in Bethlehem. I wouldn't say this author lied, just wrote down the rumours going around.

Um, yeah that's my point, why it is a very weak arguement.

So... You agree with me?

Yes, I'm well aware of all this. I'm just surprised that your argument hinged on the fact that it should be ridiculous that a religion was formed out of someone 'non-existent'. So what? Nothing new to see here.

The point I was making with Heracles was that this myth was already around for 2500 years prior to Jesus. Why don't you believe in good old 'Hercules'? Why Jesus?

The myth about Hercules grew over millennia, the Christ myth grew to fruition in thirty years. There simply isn't the timescale for there not at least to be a real historical figure to act as the kernel.

History would have given us the proof of this person who publicly preached and healed to thousands. Nothing to be found though, so I just don't see how it's reasonable to say there actually was said person.

---

That's easy, the holy spirit is the spirit of God at work in the world God so if you believe, as in acts, you are by definition not sinning against the Holy Spirit.

Where does it mention 'sin' in the verses? You haven't clarified why one tells me I can be forgiven from anything while the others say I can't be forgiven from all things.

Blaspheme then, you know what I mean.

Do you not see the contradiction in the verses? One speaks of absolute forgiveness while the other mentions something that cannot be forgiven. Being a believer or not doesn't come into this because the whole point of Jesus is that he is the redeemer and cleans up the mess that is humanity. Oh, except if you blaspheme against the holy spirit. See what I mean?

Simply: To blaspheme against the holy spirit is to refuse to believe in Jesus. Therefore there is no contradiction between saying that "all that believe are justified " and that to blaspheme against the holy spirit is unforgivable. Clear now?

I mean it's not like there aren't enough genuine contradictions in the bible for you to nitpick over....

[Phil]

Bethlehem was deffo a city, it is mentioned a few times in the OT, and the Romans sacked it during the Jewish war. Pretty hard to sack a tribe.

Comprehension isn't your strong suit. I never said Bethlehem wasn't a city. In the "prophecy" of Micah 5:2 it is called Bethlehem Ephrathah which is a clan and the verse even continues with though you are small among the clans of Judah. Kind of weird how that was intentionally lied about in the gospels.

As for Nazareth, the point that the author was making was relating back to the suffering servant prophecy. "The stone that the builders rejected shall become the cornerstone..." and all that. Nazareth was the Jewish equivalent of wales, very bad reputation, collaborators, looked down upon by the rest of the nation. A whole stream of OT prophecies emphasize the Messiah's lowly origins, calling him the Nazarene feeds into all of that.

Calling him Jesus of Nazareth is a misreading of Netzer by the idiots who wrote the gospels. There is no possible way you are going to justify that fuckup with the bible but your welcome to try (it will be a waste of your time).

[DeistPaladin]

So nothing. Are you posting in the right topic? I thought we were debating on whether or not there was a historical Jesus?

I've said before and I'll post again, someone needs to define for me what "historical Jesus" means before I can comment on whether or not I think it's likely he existed.

To me, it's like saying "historical Superman". Superman without the super powers? What's left? The powers are so interwoven into every part of his story that there's nothing left once you hollow out and remove all the super feats. Same is true with the "historical Jesus". So many of the episodes of his story are either punctuated by or revolve around the performance of some miracle. Take away the supernatural and many of these stories simply must be removed because there's nothing left.

So what do we have left? The ministry that spread far and wide to different provinces, that attracted followers from all over, that had even notables sitting up and paying attention? Yet there's nothing from either Roman or Jewish sources in the 1st century, barring the controversial TF by Josephus. This too must be discarded as exaggeration.

How about his teachings? What were they? We have nothing from him. There is no "book of Jesus" in the Bible. All we have are the Gospel accounts, and these are the same accounts we'd have to regard as questionable because we've agreed to reject the supernatural claims. Or should we accept their testimony of what Jesus said but reject the same testimony when it makes claims of what he did?

What do we have left? Some guy named Yeshua (common name) who was a doom crier (commonly found) of the early 1st century, regarded as the messiah (frequent claim) by his small group of followers? There were probably several.

[Phil]

As I said before and I will say again, there is no evidence (outside of the bible - but the bible is the claim not the evidence) for a historical Jesus. In the off chance there actually was a man, the bible has so much corruption, forgery, pseudonymity, mistranslation, contradictions, mythology, and errors that there is no way possible that anything can be known with any certainty about "Jesus". To me and to most critical thinkers, that is the equivalent of saying there is no historical Jesus.

[FallentoReason]

Simply: To blaspheme against the holy spirit is to refuse to believe in Jesus. Therefore there is no contradiction between saying that "all that believe are justified " and that to blaspheme against the holy spirit is unforgivable. Clear now?

How is a believer justified if they may have blasphemed against the holy spirit previously, which is unforgivable? Someone got it wrong. Contradiction.

[King_Charles]

Bethlehem was deffo a city, it is mentioned a few times in the OT, and the Romans sacked it during the Jewish war. Pretty hard to sack a tribe.

Comprehension isn't your strong suit. I never said Bethlehem wasn't a city. In the "prophecy" of Micah 5:2 it is called Bethlehem Ephrathah which is a clan and the verse even continues with though you are small among the clans of Judah. Kind of weird how that was intentionally lied about in the gospels.

As for Nazareth, the point that the author was making was relating back to the suffering servant prophecy. "The stone that the builders rejected shall become the cornerstone..." and all that. Nazareth was the Jewish equivalent of wales, very bad reputation, collaborators, looked down upon by the rest of the nation. A whole stream of OT prophecies emphasize the Messiah's lowly origins, calling him the Nazarene feeds into all of that.

Calling him Jesus of Nazareth is a misreading of Netzer by the idiots who wrote the gospels. There is no possible way you are going to justify that fuckup with the bible but your welcome to try (it will be a waste of your time).

Excuse me but there's no need to get personal, it is hard to convey meaning via text, and you were not explicit enough in your phrasing to avoid that confusion.

In any case... I'm not here to defend every OT prophecy or would I try, but clan/town/city, at the level of society we're talking about are kinda interchangeable.

As to the Nazerene, thing I think you should stop reading terrible biblical analysis written by people who think the world was created in six days as your basis for your disagreements with the bible. It is made explicit in John that Nazerenes were looked down on, ""Nazareth!" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" "Come and see for yourself," Philip replied.". All there is to it is that. Though I won't deny the authors of the synoptic gospels were sometimes over-eager to fit the OT prohecies to the story they were telling, what you're citing is a load of proverbial poop made up by Christian Fundamentalists to justify their reading of the bible in modern times.

[Cyberman]

Simply: To blaspheme against the holy spirit is to refuse to believe in Jesus. Therefore there is no contradiction between saying that "all that believe are justified " and that to blaspheme against the holy spirit is unforgivable. Clear now?

I would point out that not having such a belief (in Jesus or whatever else is used to fill in the blank) is not the same as a refusal to believe. My car could refuse to start for me because of some fault inherent in its operation or function, or sheer bloodymindedness. If I don't even own a car - which I don't - the reason for its refusal to start becomes blindingly obvious.