Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[Cyberman]

Jesus bones?

Give them time and I'm sure there'll be a fossil Jesus in the repulsive Ken Ham's, um, 'museum'.

[ThomM]

Let's see you pull evidence out of your ass.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-12-21/world...s=PM:WORLD

When they find a city with a temple - get back to us

[Cyberman]

When they find a city with a temple - get back to us

Indeed. Courtesy of Ken Humphries:

In short order, Christian apologists fall over themselves to explain 'But of course, no one had heard of Nazareth, we're talking of a REALLY small place.' By semantic downsizing, city becomes TOWN, town becomes VILLAGE, and village becomes 'OBSCURE HAMLET'.

Yet if we are speaking of such an obscure hamlet the 'Jesus of Nazareth' story begins to fall apart.

For example, the whole 'rejection in his homeland' story requires at a minimum a synagogue in which the godman can 'blaspheme.' Where was the synagogue in this tiny bucolic hamlet? Why was it not obvious to the first pilgrims like Helena (see below) – it would, after all, have been far more pertinent to her hero than a well? In reality, such a small, rustic community could never have afforded its own holy scrolls, let alone a dedicated building to house them. As peasant farmers almost certainly they would have been illiterate to a man.

If JC had grown up and spent thirty years of his life in a village with as few as 25 families – an inbred clan of less than 300 people – the 'multitude' that were supposedly shocked by his blasphemy and would have thrown him from a cliff, would not have been hostile strangers but, to a man, would have been relatives and friends that he had grown up with, including his own brothers. Presumably, they had heard his pious utterances for years.

Moreover, if the chosen virgin really had had an annunciation of messiah-birthing from an angel the whole clan would have known about it inside ten minutes. Just to remind them, surely they should also have known of the 'Jerusalem incident' (Luke 2.42-49) when supposedly the 12-year-old proclaimed his messiahship?

Indeed, had no one mentioned what had happened in Bethlehem – star, wise men, shepherds, infant-massacre and all? Why would they have been outraged by anything the godman said or did? Had they forgotten a god was growing up in their midst? And what had happened to that gift of gold – had it not made the 'holy family' rich?

"Would they not have bought lavish for themselves and the community such as rattan garden furniture or perhaps built one of those fancy greenhouses that the Romans invented so they could have vegetables year round?"

If Nazareth really had been barely a hamlet, lost in the hills of Galilee, would not the appellation 'Jesus of Nazareth' have invoked the response 'Jesus of WHERE?' The predictable apologetic of quoting gospel John ("Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" - 1.46) implies that the questioner, Nathanael, had indeed "heard of" the vanishing small hamlet (Nathanael was supposedly a local boy from Cana). But would anyone outside of Galilee have recognized the name?

Then again, if Nazareth had really been a tiny hamlet, the nearest convenient 'mountain' from which the god-man could have been thrown – a cliff edge (Luke 4.28-30) – would have been 4 km away, requiring an energetic climb over limestone crags. Would the superman really have been frog-marched so far before 'passing through the midst of them' and making his escape?

Of course, all these incongruities exist because the 'Jerusalem incident' and the whole nativity sequence were late additions to the basic messiah-in-residence story.

[Strongbad]

Brillliant. This in chess terms would be called discovered check: one piece moves and by doing so reveals another, same-side piece, which directly checks the enemy King. The other chess term appropriate at this juncture is zugzwang, in which one player is in a position which can only get worse no matter what move s/he makes. U/D, never ever take up chess; you suck so badly at it.

Speaking of chess, here is a pic posted by Mr. Spock in another thread. Evidently, it is a picture of Undeceived playing chess with Stimbo. In this illustration, U/D, (the person moving his piece) is down to his king, two pawns, a bishop, and a knight. He has two obvious opportunities to capture his opponents queen (the most powerful piece on the board). His bishop has a clear shot at her, as does his knight. Instead, he is choosing to move one of his pawns two spaces forward. Brilliant!
http://www.coolchessgm.tk/wp-content/upl...ch-OPT.jpg

I like chess.

[Cyberman]

Either U/D is going for the long game, complete with deep strategy, or he thinks he's playing draughts (checkers for our transatlantic cousins). Or Buckaroo, more likely.

[Minimalist]

I'm guessing he's looking for some jesus loving shitbag who will tell him that a wall and some broken pottery shards means that there was a "city" on the site at the end of the first millenium bc.

Such clowns are out there, of course.

I recall Bill Dever's observation of "joshua" conquering "Jericho."

"The real miracle was that he conquered a city which didn't exist."

Timing always trips these fuckers up.

[Undeceived]

We know that a town existed in the second century but what you post is an excellent example of how xtian "scholars" try to bend the facts to bail out their bullshit.

The Israel Antiquities Authority is not a Christian organization. It's a national authority on general archeology. If they 'bent' anything, hopefully they’d lose their jobs. The pottery was a style of pottery used in the 1st and 2nd centuries--both centuries. That’s a fact. I wasn’t aware there was evidence of a 2nd century town before this; I thought the 4th century inscriptions were all we had. I’d like the source, if you have it.

I recall Bill Dever's observation of "joshua" conquering "Jericho."

"The real miracle was that he conquered a city which didn't exist."

I’m sure you’ve already discovered the falsity of Mr. Dever’s claim, but here’s evidence of 15th century B.C. Jericho for those who haven’t:

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/200...richo.aspx

Pottery again, and this time the window is narrowed to the 15th century.
Not only did they find the walls, but the walls were discovered to have fallen outward, not in on the city. Every other Middle Eastern site has walls fallen inward, because of the way sieges are conducted.

[Cyberman]

[Itinerarium Burdigalense – the Itinerary of the Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux – is the earliest description left by a pious tourist. It is dated to 333 AD. The itinerary is a Roman-style list of towns and distances with the occasional comment.

As the pilgrim passes Jezreel (Stradela) he mentions King Ahab and Goliath. At Aser (Teyasir) he mentions Job. At Neopolis his reference is to Mount Gerizim, Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob's well at Sichar (where JC 'asked water of a Samaritan woman'). He passes the village of Bethel (Beitin) and mentions Jacob's wrestling match with God, and Jeroboam. He moves on to Jerusalem.

Our pilgrim – preoccupied with Old rather than New Testament stories – makes no single reference to 'Nazareth.'

4th Century Roman Map – and NO NAZARETH!

The Levantine coast from the so-called Peutinger map or "table" (Tabula Peutingeriana), with west to the top. The complete map is twenty-two feet wide and is so-named for Conrad Peutinger, a 16th century German antiquarian and is currently held in Vienna. The map is actually a medieval copy (12th or 13th century) of a 4th century Roman original (it shows Constantinople, founded in the year 328). The whole world known to the Romans is represented, from Spain in the west to India in the east.

In the section shown here, below the city of Aelia Capitolina (centre left), the map shows one site which had by this stage entered the Christian dreamscape – the Mount of Olives (red). The cartographer of this unique record named more than 3000 places. And guess what? – he does not mention Nazareth!

By the late 4th century – by which time the Church had control of theological correctness – Nazareth was being correctly described by Jerome as 'a very small village in Galilee' (Onom. 141:3). He should know: he had fled scandal in Italy to set up an ecclesiastical retreat in the area for well-heeled Romans. The village owed its very existence to the imperial itinerary half a century before.

By the 5th century the supposed site of Nazareth – marked by its couple of churches – had become a key destination for pious (and leisured) pilgrims. We know of a Piacenza visiting in 570, of an Arculf visiting in 638, a Wilhebald in 724, an Al Mas'udi in 943. Sewulf in 1102, like the earlier visitors, reported that only the annunciation church was to be seen.

In 636 Arab armies overran Byzantine possessions in Palestine, including Nazareth. A Christian presence continued in the area, though it was subject to restrictions and heavy taxes. Nearly five centuries later, Crusaders occupied the valley and built a fort. On the foundations of the earlier Byzantine 'grotto' church they built something a little grander, more befitting their resident bishop.

I suspect that even jumping into the TARDIS or a plutonium-powered DeLorean won't convince those whose dogmatic rejection of scholarly and archaeological consensus is so powerful it actually warps into a parallel reality.

---

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.

Josephus does, however, have something to say about Japha (Yafa, Japhia), a village just one mile to the southwest of Nazareth where he himself lived for a time (Life 52).

A glance at a topographical map of the region shows that Nazareth is located at one end of a valley, bounded on three sides by hills. Natural access to this valley is from the southwest.

Before the first Jewish war, Japha was of a reasonable size. We know it had an early synagogue, destroyed by the Romans in 67 AD (Revue Biblique 1921, 434f). In that war, it's inhabitants were massacred (Wars 3, 7.31). Josephus reports that 15,000 were killed by Trajan's troops. The survivors – 2,130 woman and children – were carried away into captivity. A one-time active city was completely and decisively wiped out.

Now where on earth did the 1st century inhabitants of Japha bury their dead? In the tombs further up the valley!

With Japha's complete destruction, tomb use at the Nazareth site would have ended. The unnamed necropolis today lies under the modern city of Nazareth.

At a later time – as pottery and other finds indicate – the Nazareth site was re-occupied. This was after the Bar Kochba revolt of 135 AD and the general Jewish exodus from Judea to Galilee. The new hamlet was based on subsistence farming and was quite unrelated to the previous tomb usage by the people of Japha.

[Minimalist]

The Israel Antiquities Authority is not a Christian organization.

Indeed they are which is why they correctly identified the Early Roman Period as the First AND Second centuries CE....something you shitheaded xtian asswipes seem unable or unwilling to comprehend.

As far as fucking joshua goes, you had best read Dever's book...if big words don't scare you away...before you attempt to cast doubt on the findings by an entire generation of archaeologists.

Jericho was uninhabited from c 1550 Bc until the iron age. There is no room for your fucking phony joshua to have conquered anything.

Wake up and stop looking like a dickhead.

[Undeceived]

Now where on earth did the 1st century inhabitants of Japha bury their dead? In the tombs further up the valley!

We can tell the borders of Nazareth by the graves around it:

Because graves were situated outside of towns and cities at least in law-observant villages in Judea and Galilee--it is possible to estimate the approximate extent of first-century Nazareth from their location. From the graves in the area, it can be determined that the town was less than 400 by 100 meters in extent. Later quarrying has meant that little remains above the limestone bedrock, although at least three miqvaot are known. There are a number of caves, some of which show evidence they were used as homes.

[ http://books.google.com/books?id=UNIelnu...gy&f=false ]

The book mentions several houses within the bounds of Nazareth. And we have dated one to the 1st-2nd century:
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-12-21/world...s=PM:WORLD

Call it Nazareth or some other town, the place between the graves was occupied near the time of Jesus. In this case, I hope evidence trumps old 'scholarly and archaeological consensus'.

you had best read Dever's book...before you attempt to cast doubt on the findings by an entire generation of archaeologists.

Bill Dever bases his arguments on Kathleen Kenyon's excavations in the 1950s. The reason her dating holds weight is because carbon dating later confirmed a 1562BC (+/-38) age of the area. However, carbon dating extends to when the walls were built, not when they fell. It's safe say the walls could have lasted a century, and now we have 15th century (1400s) pottery to prove it. Does Dever try to account for this discovery, or is his book too outdated?