The Historical Jesus

[Silver]

The only reason for faith is to force Jesus into a reality where he simply does not belong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Our mythic figures are like jugs. They carry our water. We're not trying to force them into reality, they're already here in our lived experience. It's the water we're trying to force. Some set of normative claims about how the world should be..which only makes sense in the context of it being some other way...the way it is.

[brewer]

The only reason for faith is to force Jesus into a reality where he simply does not belong.

I like it his name (and his dads) comes up during climax.

[Ravenshire]

My measure for what is historical is the ordinary, the natural. For a faith that is unnatural will see witches where history shows they were just ordinary women.

When did history prove that witches aren't real.

It never had to. It's upon those making the claim that witches exist to prove their claim. This is called the burden of proof, and you're attempting to shift it elsewhere. Bad form.

[Pat Mustard]

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.

You do know that the author of Luke and Acts wasn't the apostle Luke, right? The opening words of Luke explicitly confirm it. And, outside of biblical literalists, not one single scholar considers the anonymous author of Luke and Acts to be a good or trustworthy historian.

The signs were obvious from almost the get-go that the bible was a bunch of made up stories that didn't make sense, but too many people in temporal positions of power had a vested interest in entrenching christianity, so this book of nonsense became the imposed word of god.

[Pat Mustard]

That seems like an impossible question because even those historians who take Gospels to contain some historical facts about Jesus, consider that they are something like 95% made up (lies). And there isn't any other evidence of him except in the NT. Like what do you mean by "was Jesus a real person?"

From what I understand the "real" Jesus did not exist but rather there might have been someone, like an apocalyptic preacher, who inspired myths about him. Like, you can't say there was a historical Santa but rather a guy who inspired Santa Claus mythology. Granted, there is more evidence that the guy who inspired Santa Claus mythology actually existed.

Mara Bar Samrion, "What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. Wat advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their Kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given."

1) Doesn't refer to Yeshua bar Yosef, he wasn't king of the Jews. 2) The letter contains no reference to any form of christian religion. 3) The letter was quite likely a forgery, with no way to pin down a definite date of authoriship before the third century (two hundred years after bar Serapion's [note correct spelling] death). 4) Even then the oldest copy of the letter we have is from another three centuries later?

So yeah, not evidence for Jesus, not even a little bit.

[Pat Mustard]

As it is written, The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Where is the wise? Where is the Scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

IF your faith is based on evidence then why not provide some?

Or do Christians have more than enough evidence to believe in Christ?

How long will you present me with nothing but dogma?

And what is this bullshit supposed to signify exactly?

That you're so afraid of people willing to make their own minds up that you would force them on the point of a sword to agree with you.

[h311inac311]

The issue I have with comparing the Gospels to Moby Dick is that Herman Melvil never even once made the claim that his story was true. Nor is there any significant number of people alive today who think that Captain Ahab was a real person. If you're going to make a comparison I think it should be more Apples to Apples in order for it to be effective. 

Let's imagine that I wanted to create a version of Abraham Lincoln who raised people from the dead and fought vampires. If I tried to spread Lincolnism today, beyond taking advantage of a small handful of lonely and imaginative people, how well would Lincolnism stand up to criticism? Would if my Lincolnites were being persecuted or killed for their faith? How many of them do you think would be willing to die for something that can so easily be proven false? 

In 200 A.D. denying that Jesus performed miracles was almost impossible. There were simply too many eye-witness accounts that had been passed down by parents to their grand children (and on to their grand children as well). The Jews had every reason to want to dis-credit Jesus, but they couldn't assert that the miracles weren't real so they just had to call him a sorcerer and leave it at that.
If Jesus performed no miracles then why did so many people believe in him? And why were so many people convinced that he was able to cast out demons? How did his word spread across Rome, Greece and even Israel when it was being met with so much resistance? Why were so many people willing to die for the idea that their life had been touched by the Holy spirit? 

Why were there so many people willing to face death or imprisonment for their faith? How much more opposition could a believer of any story encounter? How much opposition would prove that, at the very least, their beliefs were sincerely held?

For a guy who was hanged on a cross and bled out in front of thousands of jeering spectators (gods aren't supposed to bleed you know). For a guy whom many believed to be a god the crusifixion would represent the defeat of said god, would Thor allow himself to be sacrificed by his own people? What about Zeus? No one was expecting the son of God to allow something like this to happen. Every rational person was thinking at that time, "If Jesus is more than just a sorcerer, then why wouldn't he come down from that cross? Why not summon an army of angels? Why not use a miracle in front of all these witnesses to prevent yourself from experiencing any more pain, or humiliation?"

  Who among us would be willing to face that amount of pain and humiliation if we had the power to simply snap our fingers and become Superman?

         For the skeptic, the crucifixion would mark the ultimate cap-stone to Jesus legacy. He lived, people say he performed a few miracles, and then he died by the people he was trying to save. In the end he was proven to be a fraud, he was proven not to be the son of God. And so an execution, that would've ended any other cult leader's career; somehow managed to be the most talked about miracle in history; the empty tomb.


Why did the disciples go from being depressed, after Christ's crucifixion, and giving up on spreading the gospel to being willing to risk their lives for Jesus?
What explains Paul's conversion from a man who wanted to kill Christians to a man who was willing to die for the testimony of Christ?

"Would you believe that a christian life was a good life, if there were no christ?"  Well if it were proven that Christ couldn't do miracles then I would probably try to keep the morals but I would retreat to Daoism. I like Lao Tsu's teaching a lot so it's my second favorite religion.

[h311inac311]

When did history prove that witches aren't real.

It never had to. It's upon those making the claim that witches exist to prove their claim. This is called the burden of proof, and you're attempting to shift it elsewhere. Bad form.

Well Ravenshire Foxaer said, "where history SHOWS they were just ordinary women." If witches have been SHOWN to be ordinary women by history then I would expect Foxaer to have at least one example.

[Pat Mustard]

The issue I have with comparing the Gospels to Moby Dick is that Herman Melvil never even once made the claim that his story was true. Nor is there any significant number of people alive today who think that Captain Ahab was a real person. If you're going to make a comparison I think it should be more Apples to Apples in order for it to be effective. 

A) It's Herman Melville and b) show me one documented example where any of the gospel authors told us they were telling the truth. And the gospels themselves don't count because i} they were anonymously authored and ii} they've been heavily edited and re-edited over the years.