Could Jesus Have Been Simply a Fraud?

[lunamoth]

read it.

I've read it many times. Are you going to answer the question?

 

[steeltoes]

Your lost and don't have a clue about my thoughts, views or knowledge.


Post where I have stated the NT is a history book.


And while your at it, post some credible info that it does not contain any history what so ever.

:no::yes:

Love the doublespeak.

 

[lunamoth]

:sarcastic

So, you have no answer?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Word salad. What does that even mean? Is this a Seinfeld episode?

Its plain English, I'm not sure I can help you unless you say specifically the difficulty is.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

So, you have no answer?

It was a silly question. Presumably, the second coming of Christ wouldn't be an event which could occur without anyone ever noticing. Are you claiming that the second coming occurred 2000 years ago, as Christ apparently predicted it would?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Your lost and don't have a clue about my thoughts, views or knowledge.


Post where I have stated the NT is a history book.


And while your at it, post some credible info that it does not contain any history what so ever.

Try making some sense.

You've been treating the NT as a history book all through this thread.

 

[outhouse]

I've read it many times. Are you going to answer the question?

How do I know the feeding of the 5000 is not true?


Not sure what you want.

 

[lunamoth]

Its plain English, I'm not sure I can help you unless you say specifically the difficulty is.

'The lack of evidence is evidence for ..." etc. The absence of evidence that you are a fraud is precisely the evidence that you are.

That is non-sense.

 

[outhouse]

Try making some sense.

You've been treating the NT as a history book all through this thread.

Go back and find one of my statements, that says the NT is a history book.


And go find someone credible that states there is no history in the NT at all.

Good luck, neither exist.

 

[lunamoth]

How do I know the feeding of the 5000 is not true?


Not sure what you want.

I want to know how you know that 5000 were not fed.

 

[lunamoth]

It was a silly question. Presumably, the second coming of Christ wouldn't be an event which could occur without anyone ever noticing. Are you claiming that the second coming occurred 2000 years ago, as Christ apparently predicted it would?

Matthew 16 tells about Jesus saying he would be resurrected. Christianity teaches that he was. What is the problem?

 

[outhouse]

You mistake me. I'm simply pointing out that we don't have any evidence which can distinguish between Christ's claims, and the Gospel's accounts of Christ's claims, because the latter is all we have. We don't really have any external sources by which we can check to see what Christ *really* said, which would be necessary to distinguishing between Christ making fraudulent claims and others making fraudulent claims about him (including attributing to him claims he never made). Even cross-checking the Gospels cannot give us much insight here, seeing as they were likely drawn from the same sources.

I have no problem with that.

We don't know for certain a word he may have said.

It could have been typical Jewish parables, it could have originated with JtB, or who taught JtB and before.

We don't know that Q and Thomas go back to the real Galilean teacher/healer. All we can do is hope that his teachings are buried in there somewhere.



Some verses may have more plausibility then others though.

Ones dealing with poverty I personally lean to.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Go back and find one of my statements, that says the NT is a history book.


And go find someone credible that states there is no history in the NT at all.

Good luck, neither exist.

You're treating Paul, Matthew, Luke, Mark and John as if they're real people who actually wrote the works credited to them and that they were basically being truthful in their claims.

 

[Quagmire]

:no::yes:

Love the doublespeak.

I don't think that's going to come as news to anybody.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I have no problem with that.

We don't know for certain a word he may have said.

It could have been typical Jewish parables, it could have originated with JtB, or who taught JtB and before.

We don't know that Q and Thomas go back to the real Galilean teacher/healer. All we can do is hope that his teachings are buried in there somewhere.

Yet you still zealously cling to this notion that there had to be a real person behind all of that.

Some verses may have more plausibility then others though.

Ones dealing with poverty I personally lean to.

"I personally like it, so they must be genuine sayings of Jesus!"

 

[Enai de a lukal]

'The lack of evidence is evidence for ..." etc. The absence of evidence that you are a fraud is precisely the evidence that you are.

That is non-sense.

The lack of evidence that you are NOT a fraud is evidence that it is possible that you are. If we suspect that someone was a fraud, a lack of evidence that they were NOT a fraud is precisely what we would expect to see. The absence of such evidence would render the hypothesis that you were a fraud as having a non-zero probability.

And I believe the phrase you were looking for is "common sense".

 

[lunamoth]

The lack of evidence that you are NOT a fraud is evidence that it is possible that you are. If we suspect that someone was a fraud, a lack of evidence that they were NOT a fraud is precisely what we would expect to see. The absence of such evidence would render the hypothesis that you were a fraud as having a non-zero probability.

And I believe the phrase you were looking for is "common sense".

Wow, and I was taking you seriously there for a while.

 

[Quagmire]

Yet you still zealously cling to this notion that there had to be a real person behind all of that.

Chances are there was. If that were in any way the topic (and if we didn't already have half a zillion threads that go into that topic in great length), I would expand on it.

"I personally like it, so they must be genuine sayings of Jesus!"

Here's a tip: if you have to start playing dirty in order to make your point, maybe you should re-examine your point.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

If we're asking whether X is possible, we're asking whether X is consistent with the evidence; is there any evidence which contradicts it? If we want to know whether "Christ was a fraud" is possible, then we want to know if there is any evidence that contradicts this- namely, evidence that he was NOT a fraud. If there is no such evidence, then there is no evidence that contradicts the hypothesis that he was a fraud; but then, "Christ was a fraud" is consistent with the evidence, and the hypothesis is possible- it has a non-zero probability.

 

[outhouse]

I want to know how you know that 5000 were not fed.

Simple.

After study of the socioeconomic cultural anthropology, it would be almost impossible for that many people to have gathered.


Oppressed Jews just could not stop work and take off and travel large distances to hear a teacher tell a lesson.

Many of these villages were small, its not like they would send out notice to all Galilee that a great teacher was going to speak and expect a great turn out.


Jesus was a traveling teacher, this wasn't some Jewish holiday where people could have free time.



Not only that , most scholars view this as parallels to the Emperors divinity as he used to speak to large crowds. remember he carried the title of "son of god" before Jesus was even born. When these scripture were written they were trying to steal gentiles who worshipped the Emperor. They had to parallel his divinity to some extent.



Its the same as the "Sermon on the mount" two books cant make up their minds where it happened. And if you look at these parables, they were ment to be read one at a time so that they could be digested. They were important and took some time to think about.

The authors had a collection of parables and so that's how they created it. I guarantee if you read them off to quickly they loose all meaning as written.



Also 5000 Jews gathering would have been perceived as a threat and some kind of military action would have taken place.