Evidence for Jesus outside the Bible?

[The Grand Nudger]

What's not to understand? Are you surprised that people are unconvinced?

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I'm just going to go ahead and ask you this directly:

You have recently "lost god". I empathize. It must be terrible to begin to doubt something that is so personal, and forms the very core of your views of right, wrong, good and evil. In the light of this thread, and others, would it be unfair to suggest that you may be grasping for truth in the bible so that you're entire worldview need not be re-examined? If there were truth in the bible, would it help to soften this un-truth of which you are now very suspicious?

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Sorry for the flurry of posts.

I also wanted to add that there are those of us who maintain that Jesus is a narrative device, due to our inability to prove otherwise. Within this group there are many people who still use his teachings, in the same way that one would use Aesop's (also believed by some to be a narrative device) fables, as a way of "crowdsourcing" a personally satisfying view of our collective human experience.

These stories do not have to contain an ounce of truth in them for me to acknowledge the concept that they are trying to communicate.

[Hannah]

No Rhythum. I dropped it like a hot brick. I am not clinging on to Biblical stories like some kid sucking a dummy.

'I also wanted to add that there are those of us who maintain that Jesus is a narrative device, due to our inability to prove otherwise.'

What evidence of his life would be enough to make you believe he ever existed? Isn't it enough that there was state sactioned persecution of Christians only 30 years after he died? His followers must have mushroomed pretty rapidly to have become a state problem.

Instead of just ignoring all the evidence, whether flimsy or substantial, why don't you respond to it with your reasons for not finding it evidential enough? If there was no Jesus, why was there state sanctioned Christian persecution in 64AD ordered by Nero and persecution intermitantly after that? If there was no real Jesus, how did a following so large develop so quickly? If there was no Jesus, who created his character? Who would have benefited at the time? What type of people would have benefited from a mythical character like Jesus and how did they manage to 'install' him into people's mind so quickly and to such a degree that people were prepared to die rather than give up their faith in him? Please answer these questions or I will stop answering your questions.

[frankiej]

Isn't it enough that there was state sactioned persecution of Christians only 30 years after he died? His followers must have mushroomed pretty rapidly to have become a state problem.

30 years is a long time for a rumor to spread and infest the truth

[Hannah]

Isn't it enough that there was state sactioned persecution of Christians only 30 years after he died? His followers must have mushroomed pretty rapidly to have become a state problem.

30 years is a long time for a rumor to spread and infest the truth

Who started it and why? Now we have a conspiracy theory to deal with.

You see, you cannot have nothing. There is no nothing to this story. There is evidence and you need to look at it before assuming nothing happened and some old man wrote about some pretend dude in the desert a thousand years after he was supposed to have died. The official evidence for after his death starts 64AD.

Who started the rumour and why did they start it? Please provide proof or your theory is more unsubstantiated than the official theory.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, it isn't proof enough for me, I'm sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome

Where am I to find evidence of Jesus in this account of history? I don't need evidence that people believe in Jesus, there is a church at the end of my street. - case closed -

You're correct in that someone had to start the rumor. That doesn't prove that the subject of the rumor exists.

[Hannah]

No, it isn't proof enough for me, I'm sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome

Where am I to find evidence of Jesus in this account of history? I don't need evidence that people believe in Jesus, there is a church at the end of my street. - case closed -

Who started it and why? Now we have a conspiracy theory to deal with.

You see, you cannot have nothing. There is no nothing to this story. There is evidence and you need to look at it before assuming nothing happened and some old man wrote about some pretend dude in the desert a thousand years after he was supposed to have died. The official evidence for after his existence starts 64AD.

Who started the rumour and why did they start it? Please provide proof or your theory is more unsubstantiated than the official theory.

[The Grand Nudger]

Its not "nothing or Christ", "truth or conspiracy". This is a false dichotomy. I don't have an explanation for you, but that doesn't mean that your explanation is correct. Evidence.

[Hannah]

Its not "nothing or Christ", "truth or conspiracy". This is a false dichotomy. I don't have an explanation for you, but that doesn't mean that your explanation is correct. Evidence.

Many people were being executed for believing in a man who did (or did not according to some) exist thirty years earlier. They died because they had faith in him. If you were a gambling man, which would you put your money on? Him having been real or him not having been real? This really is what it comes down to. What is, in all honesty, the most likely?

[The Grand Nudger]

That's what it comes down to for you Hannah. I prefer evidence.

[frankiej]

I prefer evidence.

Amen