Hi, I'm a Christian. Help Me Disprove My Religion!

[Randy Carson]

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The documentary was by Bethany Hughes for the BBC not a production for the "history" Channel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettany_Hughes


The basic idea is that writings by other people are not evidence for the person but evidence that someone was writing. So for example it was possible that Plato was writing about a "type" of person and Socrates was a gestalt entity made of the figure and similarly the figure parodied in a play which mentions Socrates could be parodying the figure invented by Plato.

Personally I think there was a Socrates and so did Mrs Hughes BUT the lack of direct evidence for him makes it possible he was a fiction, this is a valid argument that was addressed in the documentary which covered all of Socrates life, research into him and debates about meanings of his work.

I also think there was a David Koresch type charistmatic charlatan who the "jesus" character was based on. But this my own opinion and the historicity of jesus is far from proven.
By the way is aligning of writings proof for or against a historical jesus? you are arguing both ways at the same time.

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Bethany Hughes has written books on Socrates, she doesn't doubt his historicity:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/be...62/?no-ist

I already pointed out to you there is evidence don't be disingenuous and say there isn't. Ancient writings by other people are evidence for the existence of the person they're writing about. You can build a strong case from such evidence.

In any case, the case for the existence of Jesus is much stronger than that for Socrates. As I've pointed out to you, scholars such as Ehrman and Hurtado have both said on multiple occasions there is direct evidence for the existence of Jesus. That's because Paul know the family of Jesus. It's one thing to say that the gospel writers didn't - but Paul did. He couldn't know the family of someone that isn't real.

By the way is aligning of writings proof for or against a historical jesus? you are arguing both ways at the same time.

Then perhaps you should understand the argument. James is, in my opinion, THE earliest Christian writing that exists in the New Testament. It is written before 50AD. Paul's writings begin around 52-54 AD, AFTER the Jerusalem Council. We know from both Paul and Luke that the council discussed theological matters - in particular whether Christians would need to keep the custom of circumcision, and they decided against it. James is writing before this - his Epistle is so Jewish that it could almost pass for being a Jewish text instead of a Christian text. Paul's theology is less directly based on Jesus's teachings, and for that reason it's more evolved. It started in 29AD with Jesus's teachings - by the time James writes his epistle it's clear from the content that the church is still following his theology quite closely. Paul's theology is different and moves further away from the church's theology of the 30-40's as the non-Jews have begun being converted, and after 50AD they are main people being converted to the religion.

So as you see the chronology agrees perfectly with a real Jesus who delivered the teachings recorded in the gospels. There are at least 16 direct parallels between James and the Sermon on the Mount (), and there are at least another 10 direct parallels to other teachings of Jesus. Sometimes what James says is nearly word-for-word identical to what Jesus is quoted as saying in the gospels. Yet the gospels hadn't been written yet - even by the earliest reckoned date - and James never directly quotes Jesus.

So the Sermon on the Mount already exists in 49AD for James to learn from. And not just that, but the other things Jesus said as well.

So again, how is this possible if someone simply invented what Jesus said in 85 AD? How does James have specific intimate detailed knowledge of the teachings of Jesus before they're written?

If Jesus didn't exist then who came up with the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of Good Samaritan, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

Aractus-

Do you think it is possible that Matthew, who was a tax collector, and possibly one or two other apostles may have been taking notes contemporaneously during Jesus' ministry?

Obviously, none of this has survived, but when Jesus sent out the 70, were they preaching merely from memory? Or did they have a few written notes or "talking points" taken from Jesus' own sermons that they took along with them?