The Historical Jesus

[Huolpoch]

Interesting, this is the first time I've encountered a historical narrative this skewed against Jesus.

Here is my first question for all of you, when did people start to point out that Jesus wasn't a real person? Or that all of the miracles were made up? How long did it take the ancient world to produce this account?

As far as I know, Luke is actually a highly regarded historian. As the author of his gospel as well as Acts; I have heard that so far every single name of a person, place or a thing that can be accounted for by modern archaeology has been confirmed to be true. A quote from New Testament scholar Greg Bloomberg, "A historian who has been found trustworthy where he or she can be tested should be given the benefit of the doubt in cases where no tests are available." So far we have more than 70 confirmed tests of Luke's historical accuracy which means that Luke is, by any standard, a trustworthy historian.

Beyond this we have the over-abundance of copies of the New Testament, every-single book and letter has more than 1,000 early copies for us to compare against one another. Yes, scholars will make mistakes, but they won't make the same mistakes in the same places. Consider this simple example.

The cat leaped
A cat jumped
the dog jumped

Here we have 3 copies of 1 original message. Can you tell me what the original message is even though each copy is off by 1 out of every 3 words.

With 4 biographies, all of which containing a compatible story, I think we have every reason to believe in the Historical Jesus, but beyond that we have the witness of the apostles, men who were willing to die for their risen King.

People started openly pointing out Jesus wasn't real when the stopped being persecuted for speaking against the teachings and power of the Catholic Church and the Church of England, and started learning about other religions.

If you take the time to just read (not even study) about other religions and deities, it should be obvious that Jesus is an amalgamation of many other deities that are present in various cultures and literature, many older than Jesus: son of a god/god incarnate, virgin birth, miracles, crucified, resurrected, prophesies....Just read about Krishna; you'll see the similarities,and Krishna shows up in literature 200 years before the first book of the NT was allegedly written.

It s easy to come up with similar texts when those texts are written one after the other, or come from the same narrative. Then there are the multiple translations...

Christians do, but I don't know who has high regards for Luke as a historian, when many can't even ascertain he was real.

Dying for a cause is not uncommon: Muslim suicide bombers, Heaven's Gate cultists, immolation to protest government actions, kamikaze pilots, samurai committing seppuku, heck, the secret service agents guarding the President of the U.S. are willing to take a bullet for him... so your apostles willing to die is not special in any way, shape, or form.