(May 4, 2011 at 11:03 am)Nathanael Wrote: What are you referring to by the word "Jesus"? By your exclusion of the Biblical (i.e. New Testament) documents, do you mean to imply that they provide evidence for Jesus' existence or not?Don't be a smart arse you know exactly what i'm referring to. What i'm saying is, is give me evidence OTHER THAN THE BIBLE that jesus existed.
Quote:We sadly don't have archaeological evidence for most ancient people, which is just the nature of ancient history. We do not have any writings of any rabbis in the first century (apart from possibly the Apostle Paul, who would be a rather unique case anyway). A piece of carpentry with the name 'Jesus' on it would really prove very little, since there were doubtless plenty of people called Jesus (which was a common name in 1st century Palestine) who were also carpenters. The closest kind of evidence we have would be an ossuary claimed to be that of James, the brother of Jesus. Even if it is an authentic first-century ossuary, it is quite possible (though perhaps unlikely) that there existed some other James whose brother was Jesus and whose father was Joseph.
Well then i guess there's no reason for anyone to believe in the shit in the bible then is there. Saying that 'it's just the nature of ancient history' that we can't provide evidence for a persons existance is not a get out clause which suddenly validates the bible. Maybe i'm jumping the gun and that's not what you're insinuating, but frankly there are thousands of documents which refer to gods and angels etc so why should the bible be so special without any evidence backing up it's claims?
As for the ossuary i see someone else has already delt with that.
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