The Jesus Tomb

[chatpilot]

Okay this is getting old.What most people fail to realize is that the NT regarding the life of Jesus did not come into existence in print till at least 70 years after his alleged death in the form of the book of Mark.Not one quote attributed to Jesus in the bible is a direct quote from the lord but hearsay.Why did Jesus not have one of his apostles document his life or at least write down the things he said as he was instructing them?That shows me that he was a poor teacher since he did not encourage those followers to take notes.

All of the stories regarding the crucifixion and ressurection of Jesus contradict each other so badly as to be an insult to any thinking mans intelligence.Once you realize that the bible in it's entirety is nothing more than a book of oral traditions and myths then you will not be able to lay to rest your doubts and uncertainties.

[Alan]

What I was trying to get at is that after several centuries without any means or intentions for authentic biographies to survive, there'll be one or several ideas of what the person was like, but none of them are going to be perfectly accurate, even less if any of the "biographers" had reasons to exaggerate their qualities (positive or negative -- apparently Jews in the Middle Ages lived on a diet of Christian baby blood).

[chatpilot]

Here is an after thought: There is no Jesus tomb because there never was a man named Jesus Christ the son of God upon this earth outside the realm of myth.I dont need dna,or a physical cave with evidence because I am certain of my conclusions.The religionist are desperately trying to validate thier myths by trying to make everything they find in archealogical excavations conform to their scriptures.They do the same with prophecies as well.

[dagda]

Uhm. No. No sane historian would say "King Arthur did exist!".

However I think many historians agree that a person LIKE King Arthur may have existed. That means there was a person who had some of the attributes King Arthur allegedly had.

The same goes for Jesus. There was probably a person around the time of the Biblical Jesus who probably came from roughly the same background and had a cult following considering him the Son of God. He probably even performed some magic tricks. But it isn't very useful to call him "THE Jesus" just to connect the Biblical story with a historical person, simply because the two probably had little in common.

Heck, look at the many different biographies about people like Elvis or Marilyn Monroe these days. And those two have only died a few decades ago -- think what people will believe if they are still remembered in two THOUSAND years and most of their reference material will be written a hundred years from now.

How pedantic! Yes, no-one called Jesus Christ was trotting around Israel in the 1st century (the names Greek, damn it) but a Christ-like figure probably did, much like your rephrasal of my slip. I usally don't make mistakes like that, sorry.

---

'Here is an after thought: There is no Jesus tomb because there never was a man named Jesus Christ the son of God upon this earth outside the realm of myth.I dont need dna,or a physical cave with evidence because I am certain of my conclusions.The religionist are desperately trying to validate thier myths by trying to make everything they find in archealogical excavations conform to their scriptures.They do the same with prophecies as well.'

You are certian? Then you are a fool of a historian. I am not certian Christ existed, I think that the evidence points that way. People who are certian of events in history usally have some agenda. I don't know what yours is, perhaps you care to enlighten us?

Yes, most, if not all, textual sources are secondary in nature. Most textual sources of early Celtic life are secondary, or worse, in nature. So what? They are less valuble than primary evidence, but not more usless than if I wrote a book on the 2nd Punic War.
I may be wrong, but the principles of history (and science) are to take what evidence we have and use it to form a hypothesis, at least untill new evidence to the contary arises. The evidence I can find leves me inclind to think there was a Christ-like figure around the 1st century ad. Perhaps not performing miricles, but existing.
Unless you have new evidence to suggest the contary or to prove our old evidence false, then that is the hypothesis I am left with, like it or loth it. Now why do you disagree with my hypothesis, if we ignore the mythology attached?

[StewartP]

Historians also have to take bias into account. History tends to be written by the winners, and is biased against the losers.
Richard 3rd for example the nasty hunchback king who murdered the princes in the towers. As popularised by Shakespeare, a playwrite in Elizabethan England. Elizabeth was not too far descendant from the Tudor king that deposed the Plantaganet Richard. Other sources show that Richard wasn't as nasty as he has been portrayed.

Now, the gospels.
Written years and generations later. Lots of stuff (especially in Matthew) obviously just made up. The only contemporary accounts of Jesus by Josephus was faked.
there are no contemporary letters that mention him, no Jewish, Greek or Roman letters or diaries.
Not a single physical description of the man, his hight, his hair colour, his face.

He fed thousands, he raised people from the dead, and no one, no disciple or follower wrote it down.

So, did the writers of the gospels have a vested interest in the way they tell the story. Well, of course. Can we rely on the gospels to be an accurate history? Well, most would agree not all of the gospels, there might be some hanky panky, but surely the core story, the Jesus who said some lovely things and was crucified, surely that bit is pretty solid?

erm, perhaps not.

[chatpilot]

Great post StewartP! Dagda aside from the fact that there are two geneologies of Jesus Christ lineage one from the paternal line and one from the maternal line, they both badly contradict each other.Lets not forget that when the bible says that Jesus was taken to Nazareth as a child to flee the slaughter of the innocents it also claims he was raised in Nazareth.The only problem with this is that Nazareth did not exist at the time it is puported to be the town where Jesus resided throughout his youth.

Not to mention,the fact that the Christ tale has been told many many times in many cultures where the name and the settings are the only things that change.This leads me to conclude that the Christ myth is nothing more than a rehash of more ancient myths and christianity has plagiarized these myths to conform to the current religions in Rome.

Read up on this there are a couple of good books Dagda,and don't forget to read the NT and specifically search for discrepancies.One good book you can read is a classic entitled Sixteen Crucified Christs there are plenty more just google it.

It seems when I talk about this no one knows what the hell they are talking about in their responses.I have reseached this and I say again I am certain without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ the man of the gospels never existed.Not to mention that Jesus Christ is not even a proper name but a title.Do some research then hit me up with some knowledge otherwise stick to your vain and hollow hypothesis based on nothing more than I think,I believe,just maybe's.

[dagda]

Finnaly! Right throught this argument I have asked for an argument against my hypothesis rather than just 'belive me, I know'. The last two posts were a step in the right direction. Now I can actully evaluate the argument against Jesus Christ existing without having to guess at the evidence that inclines you to think in that direction. However, I must ask, what took you so long?

'Not to mention that Jesus Christ is not even a proper name but a title'

Chatpilot, I don't know how many times I have said to you that I know that Jesus Christ is a Greek title and that I have never surmised that the man whent by that name. Either you do not read my posts (rude) or that is your trump card in all arguments concerning Christs existence (rather weak trump card). Please stop, I am getting rather tired of it.

'The only contemporary accounts of Jesus by Josephus was faked.'

Intresting. Can you elaborate?

'Not a single physical description of the man, his hight, his hair colour, his face.'

Same with William Wallace.

'He fed thousands, he raised people from the dead, and no one, no disciple or follower wrote it down.'

Never said Jesus Christ did miricles, only that he may have existed.

[Alan]

If you dilude the definition of what constitutes Jesus Christ that much, then, yes, he most likely DID exist.

But what's the point of calling him Jesus Christ if he didn't even do anything noteworthy?

[StewartP]

'The only contemporary accounts of Jesus by Josephus was faked.'

Intresting. Can you elaborate?

Josephus mentions Jesus in his Antiquities

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Book XVIII, Chap. iii, sec. 3).

Josephus was AD37. Already he is out of range for first hand witness, but still earlier than the earlier gospels

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/rmsbrg02.htm
Bit of a cut and paste follows, I'm sorry, but there is more at the link above.

Its language is Christian. Every line proclaims it the work of a Christian writer. "If it be lawful to call him a man." "He was the Christ." "He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him." These are the words of a Christian, a believer in the divinity of Christ. Josephus was a Jew, a devout believer in the Jewish faith -- the last man in the world to acknowledge the divinity of Christ. The inconsistency of this evidence was early recognized, and Ambrose, writing in the generation succeeding its first appearance (360 A.D.) offers the following explanation, which only a theologian could frame: "If the Jews do not believe us, let them, at least, believe their own writers. Josephus whom they esteem a very great man, hath said this and yet hath he spoken truth after such a manner; and so far was his mind wandered from the right way, that even he was not a believer as to what he himself said; but thus he spake, in order to deliver historical truth, because he thought it not lawful for him to deceive, while yet he was no believer, because of the hardness of his heart, and his perfidious intention."

Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly forty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines.

It interrupts the narrative. Section 2 of the chapter containing it gives an account of a Jewish sedition which was suppressed by Pilate with great slaughter. The account ends as follows: "There were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and thus an end was put to this sedition." Section 4, as now numbered, begins with these words: "About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder." The one section naturally and logically follows the other. Yet between these two closely connected paragraphs the one relating to Christ is placed; thus making the words, "another sad calamity," refer to the advent of this wise and wonderful being.

The early Christian fathers were not acquainted with it. Justin Martyr, Terullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen all would have quoted this passage had it existed in their time. The failure of even one of these fathers to notice it would be sufficient to throw doubt upon its genuineness; the failure of all of them to notice it proves conclusively that it is spurious, that it was not in existence during the second and third centuries.

[dagda]

Very intresting. You have given me some food for thought.