RE: Did Jesus Christ exist as a historical human or was he a theological construct?
April 8, 2012 at 10:57 pm
(This post was last modified: April 8, 2012 at 11:04 pm by radorth.)
(May 18, 2010 at 5:49 am)darkwolf176 Wrote: I came accross the question while browsing online and was wondering if I could get some opinions on the matter.
I for one am really not sure.
The atheist H.G. Wells wrote at length about the person of Jesus in his "Short History of the World." (Bartleby.com, interesting reading)
"We are obliged to say 'Here was a man,'" he wrote. The agnostic Willl Durant said the invention of such a character in one short period would be a miracle exceeding anything claimed in the Gospels and called the claimed Gospel contradictions "minutae." There are contradictions, like was the stone rolled away before or after the disciples showed up? The Gospels don't agree, but Durant is calling this a dumb reason not to believe the story.
The end of Mark was probably added as it does not appear in early copes of Mark, but this has been admitted by Christian scholars for hundreds of years. To throw up your hands and say well then, how do we know anything? is a logical fallacy called "false in one part, therefore false in all."
I might ask, why is it that if the Gospels agree, atheist "thinkers" say they must have been copied, and if they don't agree they must be made up? Now there's a contradiction to think about, no?
