Imagine this...
May 2, 2021 at 11:48 am
(This post was last modified: May 2, 2021 at 12:50 pm by Jehanne.)
Imagine today, Sunday (or, for those reading this later, just pick another day), CNN issues a worldwide news flash at 4 PM EST announcing the following:
"President John F. Kennedy has been shot."
Shortly thereafter Anderson Cooper appears on live TV to describe the mayhem that occurred some 60 or so years ago.
What would you think? A joke? They are all crazy? An alien virus???
The above scenario, however, happened just under two thousand years ago, which, today, believers and skeptics refer to as The Four Gospels. The earliest Gospel, Mark, was composed around 70 of the common era with The Gospel of John being written sometime in the 90s, some 60 to 70 years after the execution of Jesus. These writings (as well as others outside of the New Testament) claim many extraordinary things that Jesus supposedly did, such as walking on liquid water and raising the clinical dead back to life.
Some living during that time appear, however, to be completely unimpressed by these stories, which were never mentioned by hundreds, if not thousands, of literate human beings who could have recorded those events. For instance, the Jewish-Roman historian, Josephus, was born in Jerusalem, the city that Jesus died in, sometime in 37 CE, but in his book on the Jewish & Roman wars, written 30 years later, Josephus never even mentions the existence of Jesus; he does mention Pilate and Ananus, the high priest. Only some 20 years later, when writing a tome on the history of the Jews does Jesus get a brief, undisputed reference as being "called the Christ".
Clearly, Josephus was unimpressed with the stories surrounding Jesus, no doubt viewing such tales as being a "dime a dozen". Knowing what scholars know today about all the other miracle workers who lived prior, during and after the time of Jesus should cause us to be even less impressed about the supposed "historical data".
"President John F. Kennedy has been shot."
Shortly thereafter Anderson Cooper appears on live TV to describe the mayhem that occurred some 60 or so years ago.
What would you think? A joke? They are all crazy? An alien virus???
The above scenario, however, happened just under two thousand years ago, which, today, believers and skeptics refer to as The Four Gospels. The earliest Gospel, Mark, was composed around 70 of the common era with The Gospel of John being written sometime in the 90s, some 60 to 70 years after the execution of Jesus. These writings (as well as others outside of the New Testament) claim many extraordinary things that Jesus supposedly did, such as walking on liquid water and raising the clinical dead back to life.
Some living during that time appear, however, to be completely unimpressed by these stories, which were never mentioned by hundreds, if not thousands, of literate human beings who could have recorded those events. For instance, the Jewish-Roman historian, Josephus, was born in Jerusalem, the city that Jesus died in, sometime in 37 CE, but in his book on the Jewish & Roman wars, written 30 years later, Josephus never even mentions the existence of Jesus; he does mention Pilate and Ananus, the high priest. Only some 20 years later, when writing a tome on the history of the Jews does Jesus get a brief, undisputed reference as being "called the Christ".
Clearly, Josephus was unimpressed with the stories surrounding Jesus, no doubt viewing such tales as being a "dime a dozen". Knowing what scholars know today about all the other miracle workers who lived prior, during and after the time of Jesus should cause us to be even less impressed about the supposed "historical data".
