One question for Christians

[Zone]

So? That does not prove he’s a myth.

We have to be able to tell myth from reality and be able to use some criteria in which to judge it though. How would we know Jack and Beanstalk isn't a real story? The general criteria is if therte is anything funny and supernatural going on then that part of the story at least isn't real. It works out very nicely on the Iliad so why can't we apply the same method to the Bible and the gospels? When God Brimstoned Sodom and Gomorrah and turned Lots wife into a pillar of salt that could have been a volcano for instance. We've got all this in the bag.

So apparently if you agree with what the historical figure claimed then you also believe that he existed and if you disagree with what he claimed then he conveniently never existed? That’s not how we do scholarship. Whether you like Jesus or not is irrelevant, his existence is a historical certainty.

He could happily have existed as a normal man without any supernatural powers at all. Perhaps he believed he had some but that's not the same thing as having them and his followers could easily have beefed him up a little. They told stories of the miraculous powers of the divine Roman Emperors for instance and people took all that business seriously at the time.

[Statler Waldorf]

. How would we know Jack and Beanstalk isn't a real story?

It never claims to be.

The general criteria is if therte is anything funny and supernatural going on then that part of the story at least isn't real.

The general criteria according to whom? I am not aware of any such criteria used by historians.

It works out very nicely on the Iliad so why can't we apply the same method to the Bible and the gospels?

We do not reject the historicity of the Iliad because of it’s supernatural events. It’s not a very well attested document (earliest manuscripts date to 500 years after the original was written) and it is not written as historical narrative like the New Testament is.

When God Brimstoned Sodom and Gomorrah and turned Lots wife into a pillar of salt that could have been a volcano for instance. We've got all this in the bag.

You’re confusing mechanism with agency, God may have used a volcano to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah; however, I doubt it was a volcano that turned Lot’s wife into salt.

He could happily have existed as a normal man without any supernatural powers at all. Perhaps he believed he had some but that's not the same thing as having them and his followers could easily have beefed him up a little. They told stories of the miraculous powers of the divine Roman Emperors for instance and people took all that business seriously at the time.

Why are you assuming naturalism when you read scripture? I see no necessity for that assumption. Secondly, I am not aware of any Roman leader being described as having supernatural powers by the New Testament. It is not reasonable to assume that the writers of the New Testament who personally knew Jesus and his family would ascribe feats to him that he never accomplished all the time knowing it would get them persecuted and killed by the Jewish leadership or Romans. What’s the motive? If I knew that my friend didn’t have supernatural powers, and if I knew that if I told people he did they would stone me I am certainly not going to tell anyone he had supernatural powers let alone write it down in a signed letter. Let’s be reasonable here.

[Zone]

It never claims to be.

If it did we would then accept it as historical?

The general criteria according to whom? I am not aware of any such criteria used by historians.

Historians accept the siege of Troy as historical but they don't accept the Greek gods being there.

We do not reject the historicity of the Iliad because of it’s supernatural events. It’s not a very well attested document (earliest manuscripts date to 500 years after the original was written) and it is not written as historical narrative like the New Testament is.

We accept the general events of the Iliad seeing as archaeology backs it up but they don't accept the gods being there. This just the general academic standard applied to everything. A modern example would be the Roswell incident, there was a historical incident, there was a government cover up and weren't any aliens. The aliens just got added in there. Anything like that, it's gone.

You’re confusing mechanism with agency, God may have used a volcano to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah; however, I doubt it was a volcano that turned Lot’s wife into salt.

She would have been caught in the pyrocalstic flow and turn/encased into a pumice or something. But this is the problem you think there are supernatural beings who historically cause volcanoes to happen and turn people into salt. To get the real history you must extract all supernatural elements. There's no other way to do this, if there's anything funny going on look for a natural or mythological source.

Why are you assuming naturalism when you read scripture? I see no necessity for that assumption.

The standard you apply to all other religious texts, the Quran, Hadiths, Vedas, the Norse Eddas the Book of Mormon etc must also apply equally to the Old and New Testament. You can't make exceptions it has to be 100% right through.

Secondly, I am not aware of any Roman leader being described as having supernatural powers by the New Testament.

It's not in the Bible but you use the same historical analysis on those claims as you do anything else. And that gives you the pure reality there.

It is not reasonable to assume that the writers of the New Testament who personally knew Jesus and his family would ascribe feats to him that he never accomplished all the time knowing it would get them persecuted and killed by the Jewish leadership or Romans.

None of the writers of the New Testament ever knew Jesus personally neither did their sources they got their information from. It's like a game of Chinese whispers.

What’s the motive?

Someone had an interesting experience, probably not supernatural we'll assume it wasn't a waking dream/hallucination of Jesus after his death or something. And this was verbally spread initially and the people it was spread to made it slightly more interesting, and then it was spread some more and the story got more and more interesting and supernatural until it was recorded down. The people involved likely all believed it was real much like the people involved in the Roswell Incident.

If I knew that my friend didn’t have supernatural powers, and if I knew that if I told people he did they would stone me I am certainly not going to tell anyone he had supernatural powers let alone write it down in a signed letter. Let’s be reasonable here.

You can only be reasonable by eliminating all traces of the supernatural from any historical account. That way you get something closer to the original events, see for instance the King Arthur movie. It's still not that historical but closer to the real history we can assume, no Merlin or magic swords involved. Jesus does tend to get nuked when you apply this golden standard to him as does much of the Bible in general. A more philosophical religion with supernatural elements that didn't take place historically in the physical world tends to survive the process better.

[Searching4truth]

Im sure he did exist but not so sure anymore how "divine" he was

[Minimalist]

Nope, Luke merely says Jesus was born around the time of the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria, so how do you know what year Quirinius was governor of Syria?

It's called "history" you fucking moron. Something you know nothing about.

Again, that’s false. There are pieces of Mark’s gospel that date to 53 AD that mention Jesus by name.

Now you are just being a liar....which is not unusual.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdrobert...ally-said/

The oldest manuscript of the gospels is a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John. It is called P52 [capital 'P' with 52 superscript here and elsewhere], text critical shorthand for “Papyrus 52.” This fragment, which contains part of Jesus’s conversation with Pilate prior to the crucifixion (John 18:31-33, 37-38), has been dated to around 125 A.D. This means the copy of John of which P52 is a tiny part was made within a couple of generations of the original writing of the gospel.[iii] The next oldest manuscripts of the gospels come from the latter part of the second century and the early part of the third century. P4, P45, P64, P66, P67, P75 include significant portions of all four gospels.

As for Caesar and your fictional godboy,

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/exist.html

Go fuck yourself.

[Statler Waldorf]

If it did we would then accept it as historical?

No, we would then begin applying the other criteria to it, but since it does not claim to be factual we do not even have to go there.

Historians accept the siege of Troy as historical but they don't accept the Greek gods being there.

That is more likely because they do not accept the Iliad as historical.

We accept the general events of the Iliad seeing as archaeology backs it up but they don't accept the gods being there. This just the general academic standard applied to everything. A modern example would be the Roswell incident, there was a historical incident, there was a government cover up and weren't any aliens. The aliens just got added in there. Anything like that, it's gone.

I am not seeing your point. Secular historians accept that there was a man named Jesus who was executed by the Romans because of the Jewish leadership whose followers believed he was the Messiah and did many miracles. Whether you think those miracles were real miracles or not is irrelevant; that does not mean Jesus should be rejected as a historical figure.

She would have been caught in the pyrocalstic flow and turn/encased into a pumice or something. But this is the problem you think there are supernatural beings who historically cause volcanoes to happen and turn people into salt. To get the real history you must extract all supernatural elements. There's no other way to do this, if there's anything funny going on look for a natural or mythological source.

So you are merely tossing out any evidence that does not agree with your naturalism? A Christian conceptual scheme makes far more sense of all of the evidence.

The standard you apply to all other religious texts, the Quran, Hadiths, Vedas, the Norse Eddas the Book of Mormon etc must also apply equally to the Old and New Testament. You can't make exceptions it has to be 100% right through.

I do apply the same standard for all other texts, I do not assume naturalism.

None of the writers of the New Testament ever knew Jesus personally neither did their sources they got their information from.

I am sorry, but that’s just flat out wrong. John, Peter (through Mark’s gospel), Matthew and Jude all knew Christ personally. Luke was a contemporary of Christ and based his accounts on eye witnesses to Christ. Paul was a contemporary of Christ and knew Christ’s family. We really have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to contemporary sources for Christ.

Someone had an interesting experience, probably not supernatural we'll assume it wasn't a waking dream/hallucination of Jesus after his death or something. And this was verbally spread initially and the people it was spread to made it slightly more interesting, and then it was spread some more and the story got more and more interesting and supernatural until it was recorded down. The people involved likely all believed it was real much like the people involved in the Roswell Incident.

How do you know any of this?

You can only be reasonable by eliminating all traces of the supernatural from any historical account.

According to whom? I do not get where you are getting this standard from.

Im sure he did exist but not so sure anymore how "divine" he was

Finally! A rational person!

It's called "history" you fucking moron. Something you know nothing about.

Every time I begin to forget just how bad you are at debating you take it upon yourself to remind me. Thank you.

How do you know that Quirinius first governing Syria in 6 AD is part of “history”?

Now you are just being a liar....which is not unusual.

A blog? My original claim stands.

As for Caesar and your fictional godboy,

[url]http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/exist.html[/url

Jesusneverexisted.com? Seriously? It’s amazing just how sloppy your scholarship becomes when arguing for something you really really want to be true.

Go fuck yourself.

Classy Gramps

[Brakeman]

We accept the general events of the Iliad seeing as archaeology backs it up but they don't accept the gods being there. This just the general academic standard applied to everything. A modern example would be the Roswell incident, there was a historical incident, there was a government cover up and weren't any aliens. The aliens just got added in there. Anything like that, it's gone.

I am not seeing your point. Secular historians accept that there was a man named Jesus who was executed by the Romans because of the Jewish leadership whose followers believed he was the Messiah and did many miracles. Whether you think those miracles were real miracles or not is irrelevant; that does not mean Jesus should be rejected as a historical figure.

Whoa there! You over reached quite a bit there! The scholars of Erman's ilk agree only that there was a man that the jesus myth was based on, Not that his name was really jesus, not that he was executed by the romans, not that the Jews held sway with the romans to instigate his execution, and certainly not that any miracles were performed by the man. Furthermore, for your stance, all of it needs to be historical, even the miracle birth and the associated magical events by stars, rich wise men, baby slayings, and other verifiable events.

None of the writers of the New Testament ever knew Jesus personally neither did their sources they got their information from.

I am sorry, but that’s just flat out wrong. John, Peter (through Mark’s gospel), Matthew and Jude all knew Christ personally. Luke was a contemporary of Christ and based his accounts on eye witnesses to Christ. Paul was a contemporary of Christ and knew Christ’s family. We really have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to contemporary sources for Christ.

Unless you can't count the circular reasoning bible as a source to verify the bible..?
If we have so many sources, name 5 contemporary sources dated 1 to 33AD that we have good original evidence of.

[Statler Waldorf]

Whoa there! You over reached quite a bit there! The scholars of Erman's ilk agree only that there was a man that the jesus myth was based on, Not that his name was really jesus, not that he was executed by the romans, not that the Jews held sway with the romans to instigate his execution, and certainly not that any miracles were performed by the man.

No, Ehrman believes all of that. I never said that it is accepted that Jesus did miracles; I said that his followers believed that he did miracles and that is a historically accepted fact.

Let’s let Ehrman speak for himself…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w

Ehrman even goes as far as to associate the Jesus myth with denying the Holocaust and denying that Abraham Lincoln existed.

“We have more evidence for Jesus than almost anybody from his time period.”- Ehrman

Furthermore, for your stance, all of it needs to be historical, even the miracle birth and the associated magical events by stars, rich wise men, baby slayings, and other verifiable events.

Nope, that’s actually false. Marco Polo’s writings are often used as historical references even though he claims he saw dragons in China. Secular historians do not believe in the virgin birth but they still accept the historicity of Jesus.

Unless you can't count the circular reasoning bible as a source to verify the bible..?

I am not verifying the Bible I am verifying the historicity of Christ. It is no different than using Roman scholars to support the idea that gladiators fought in Rome.

If we have so many sources, name 5 contemporary sources dated 1 to 33AD that we have good original evidence of.

How could a source that details Christ’s death be written during his life? That’s absurd. Not to mention, that’s not what the word contemporary even means. A contemporary source is merely a source from around the same time period. We view all first century sources as being contemporary with Christ. Peter, John, Luke, Paul, Matthew, and Jude all lived at the same time as Christ (Jude being Jesus’ brother).

[Bad Writer]

How does verifying that a man named Jesus lived change the reality that religion is bogus? We have about as much reason to believe in him as we do Allah, Buddha, or Santa Claus. The historicity of Jesus is about as underwhelming as the fact that Mohammed took shits in the desert.

[Statler Waldorf]

How does verifying that a man named Jesus lived change the reality that religion is bogus? We have about as much reason to believe in him as we do Allah, Buddha, or Santa Claus. The historicity of Jesus is about as underwhelming as the fact that Mohammed took shits in the desert.

How convenient!

Atheists: “Jesus never existed!”
Theists: *Point out how absurd that position is
Atheists: “Well it doesn’t really matter if he existed anyways!”