For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

But did they survive "intact?" Were they later forgeries? How do we know that they were not edited to reflect the doctrinal views of later redactors?

It's the best anyone can do under the circumstances. Eusebius's view of the Son's status didn't get adopted as the official Roman religion, for example.

The Nag Hammadi Texts provided further information.

The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. This immensely important discovery includes a large number of primary "Gnostic Gospels" -- texts once thought to have been entirely destroyed during the early Christian struggle to define "orthodoxy" -- scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.

The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library, completed in the 1970's, has provided impetus to a major re-evaluation of early Christian history and the nature of Gnosticism.

It is, in fact, the one thing which convinces me that the Pliny correspondence is genuine. No xtian forger would have included the bit about how xtians said "Fuck Christ...Hail Trajan" when confronted. That is completely opposite to the martyrdom scenario being pushed in later times.

I wonder if anyone made a list of martyrs from Bithynia when Pliny was in charge. I can only find reference to Paramonus, Philumenus and 370 companions being martyred there in 250 AD. They seem to be connected with the Greek Orthodox chruch but I haven't a clue where they got the their information from.

[The Grand Nudger]

Getting to be an impressively beefy thread, the only thing that's missing.....a "historical jesus"

[Confused Ape]

Getting to be an impressively beefy thread, the only thing that's missing.....a "historical jesus"

I don't think he's going to post anything in this thread.

Minimalist found an interesting article which he posted in another topic but I think it fits in this one as well. Did Jesus Exist by Emeritus Professor Philip Davies

But one should not argue from these, as do Thompson and Verenna, that Jesus was invented. The use in this particular case of such mythic types ought to have been provoked by something, and the existence of a guru of some kind is more plausible and economical than any other explanation—which, by the way, does not necessarily make it the right one, but historian’s rules apply: plausibility and economy are the trump cards. How quickly stories about a guru can be manufactured, and how the outline of a possibly historically figure can be obliterated by all kinds of creative ‘memory’ is clear from the Qumran allusions to the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’. Awareness of such types and tropes should inform the historian how easily traces of historical reality can be painted over in the colours of myth and the conventions of storytelling.

That's about the best we'll ever get where a real man is concerned. It's fun figuring out how Christianity could have got started with a purely mythic Jesus though.

We need not (and should not) trust everything S/Paul says or accept what he believes, but explaining Christian origins without him is even more difficult than explaining it without some kind of Jesus.

Who took the new cult to the Gentiles if Paul didn't exist either?

[Minimalist]

But one should not argue from these, as do Thompson and Verenna, that Jesus was invented.

The problem there is that jesus IS the magic tricks. Without them he is just some guy who got himself killed. Either he DID come back from the dead or xtianity is just a pile of shit. There is no escaping that simple fact and trying to hide behind "well, he might have been a teacher" is pointless.

They don't worship the words...or particularly follow them. They do all profess to believe in the bullshit.

[traveller]

There are many references to both Jesus and Christianity in ancient texts, not just religious ones, the problem being is that they are two hundred years earlier than the current Gregorian calendar i.e 200 BC. Ok I hear you say just a mix up with the calender changeover?
But, the other things to remember when quoting bible extracts is that there are so many versions, UK even have their own (King George Bible) where King George broke all relations with the Church and the papal teachings in 1769, and had his own version written, omitting over 60% of previous versions.
But really should we be discussing quotes from the bible as proof of a historical Jesus? Surely for an atheist the question should be is there a god, if not all other stories are irrelevant as without a god, Moses did not receive the ten commandments, which in older texts were many more than ten! Read book of the covenants.
Muslims, Jews and many more all have bits of stories quoted in Christianity, so was the Christian bible just plagiarism of older religions, but picking the stories they liked the most, after all, there is nothing mentioned in the Christian Bible from Jesus Birth until he was around 34 years old, surely if the birth was recorded, the rest of his growing would have been?
I'm sorry to ramble on but I feel so strongly, that all religions are all based on the same historical events, try reading the Koran or the Tanakh, or come to that any of the religions. (To quote from the world Christian encyclopedia There are 19 major religions, 270 large religions and many smaller ones) You may have gathered I do not believe there was a god, but I am not an atheist, I believe in scientific fact and have recently converted to Creatoism. see creatoism.com

[EGross]

Heres the ultimate division: I don't have a problem believing in God. And, that He is the answer to everything! My father (waning as he ages) is
an atheist, and my kid brother an agnostic. They, on the other hand just have a [control problem]! Meaning they just can't believe.

I love them both dearly, and it's hard for any of us to bridge that division. Especially because it gets emotionally charged in debates.

But...I'll tell you this: We still love each other and respect each other as people. And in the end? That, and loving Him are all that God really wants from us!

So yes, there are things that we both don't see. And we "can" agree on that! It's just "what" it is that we can't see, that we are divided on.

Christians want to see God. Agnostics can't see God. Atheists won't see God.

I certainly won't argue that last point.

To compare, I live in a community where one cannot avoid speaking of a deity, if one says hello (מה נשמה?), the expected response is a blessing to god (ברוך ה). If you ask the dry cleaners if your black suit will be ready by Friday, he will say "with God's help" (בעזרת ה). It never ends in an town where the only home owners are Jews and the majority of the people are either Orthodox or greater in their dogma.

I was requested to give a talk about the meaning of the holiday of Purim today. I am, after all, still a knowledgeable person and a member of the community.

So, at the designated time, I braced myself, and I recited the various Rabbinical sources that they would all know, or not question, but asembled the story in a different way that they hadn't thought of before. It was an original piece, and one that I could tell caused everyone to have to think.

It almost got away from me, but I reigned in my own issues. Or so I had thought. (My wife only mouthed the word "apikoris" once). While walking home, someone began with complimenting my learning, followed it with a "but...", and indicated that I seemed a bit too sarcastic at the end. And feared that it might indicated that I might be having a faith crisis. I told him I wasn't having a crisis at all (which is true in most respects), told him the store of Elisha ben Abuyah, the famous heretic from the Talmud, but never related it back to myself and he was satisfied.

I do respect the people I spent time with today. I love my wife and family here. And I will not intentionally say anything to hurt or dismiss them. I use this forum as an outlet for that. But today reminded me that I have to keep conscious of my words because what might sound reasonable to me can outrage those around me. And tommorow I will dance and sing with them (well the guys, anyhow. Guys don't dance with women here )

And to return to the original point of this thread... Jesus never existed, and I am probably also a minority here in my town on that topic as well (they consider him an evil historic character and usually say the hebrew phrase "may his name be eresed forever" after speaking it. In that respect, my disbelief in him is a lot more rational!

[Minimalist]

There are many references to both Jesus and Christianity in ancient texts, not just religious ones, the problem being is that they are two hundred years earlier than the current Gregorian calendar i.e 200 BC. Ok I hear you say just a mix up with the calender changeover?
But, the other things to remember when quoting bible extracts is that there are so many versions, UK even have their own (King George Bible) where King George broke all relations with the Church and the papal teachings in 1769, and had his own version written, omitting over 60% of previous versions.
But really should we be discussing quotes from the bible as proof of a historical Jesus? Surely for an atheist the question should be is there a god, if not all other stories are irrelevant as without a god, Moses did not receive the ten commandments, which in older texts were many more than ten! Read book of the covenants.
Muslims, Jews and many more all have bits of stories quoted in Christianity, so was the Christian bible just plagiarism of older religions, but picking the stories they liked the most, after all, there is nothing mentioned in the Christian Bible from Jesus Birth until he was around 34 years old, surely if the birth was recorded, the rest of his growing would have been?
I'm sorry to ramble on but I feel so strongly, that all religions are all based on the same historical events, try reading the Koran or the Tanakh, or come to that any of the religions. (To quote from the world Christian encyclopedia There are 19 major religions, 270 large religions and many smaller ones) You may have gathered I do not believe there was a god, but I am not an atheist, I believe in scientific fact and have recently converted to Creatoism. see creatoism.com

[EGross]

There are many references to both Jesus and Christianity in ancient texts, not just religious ones, the problem being is that they are two hundred years earlier than the current Gregorian calendar i.e 200 BC.

I am not certain which works that you may be referring to. If you are speaking of the Talmudic texts, they were written long after the year 200CE. Any reference seems to either be a later polemic insert, or and edit, and not from anyone who would have met him. It was either a modified quote from someone who died before he would have lived, or from someone who was born after he would have died. Changing "talmid" (student of...) to "Yeshu" (which really is an acronym for "yimach shemo vezichro" - may his name be obliterated does not mean that there wass a belief in a historical Jesus - just that such a character deserved to be ridiculed. (For more fun, I refer you to Toldot Yeshu, a Spanish document of about 100CE or later, but is the one that most folks like to quote)

But the Church also saw any reference to Bilaam or Gechazi as also being Jesus, having special powers and deserved of death, but that wasn't him either. If you love a god, you get to see him everywhere.

There really are only 8 places in the Talmud where there is an inferred or inserted reference, which historically was done much, much later, by so many centuries, and certainly not by anyone who know of actual history. And there is only one reference which certainly was designed specifically for him to explain why such a person deserved to die, rather than just inserting "Yeshu". But is a play on the Aramaic terms and requires a lot of understanding. (I wrote a tretise on the lack of a historical Jesus in the Talmud many years ago, and I am typing from that memory).

So, no, had there been any real Jewish source for a Jesus. And as far as I know, had there been any true source, you know, like the Letter to Esubius where Jesus wrote a response. But then, they sort of lost that.

How irresponsible of them!

[Confused Ape]

The problem there is that jesus IS the magic tricks. Without them he is just some guy who got himself killed.

If Jesus did exist he was just some guy who got himself killed.

Either he DID come back from the dead or xtianity is just a pile of shit.

That's not the subject of Davies's article.

There is no escaping that simple fact and trying to hide behind "well, he might have been a teacher" is pointless.

You originally posted a link to the article here and said he's one of the more respected Minimalist Old Testament scholars. He's not trying to claim that the Christian religion is true - he's just saying that there might have been some kind of guru who got obscured by myths but there's no evidence for anything else.

They don't worship the words...or particularly follow them. They do all profess to believe in the bullshit.

What's that got to do with Davies's article? He's criticising the way some scholars behave where the question of whether Jesus existed is concerned.

surely the rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear, or even to work out what kind of historical research might be appropriate. Such a normal exercise should hardly generate controversy in most fields of ancient history, but of course New Testament studies is not a normal case and the highly emotive and dismissive language of, say, Bart Ehrman’s response to Thompson’s The Mythic Past shows (if it needed to be shown), not that the matter is beyond dispute, but that the whole idea of raising this question needs to be attacked, ad hominem, as something outrageous. This is precisely the tactic anti-minimalists tried twenty years ago: their targets were ‘amateurs’, ‘incompetent’, and could be ignored.

I don’t think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a consensus that Jesus did not exist, or even possibly didn’t exist, but a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability.

[Simon Moon]

I'm sorry to ramble on but I feel so strongly, that all religions are all based on the same historical events

'Ramble' is a understatement.

How is there references to Jesus in nonreligious texts from before he was supposed to have existed?

What historical events are you referring to?

You may have gathered I do not believe there was a god, but I am not an atheist, I believe in scientific fact and have recently converted to Creatoism. see creatoism.com

If you don't believe in the existence of a god, then you are an atheist. Why do people make this so difficult?

What 'scientific fact' are you referring to? Because there is no demonstrable evidence in any field that studies the origins of the universe and life on earth for creationism. All evidence points to natural processes.

If you don't believe that a god exists, what is responsible for 'creationism' ?