did jesus exist?

[Oberon]

Without the gospels Christianity falls flat on its face.

Christianity falls flat on its face without god or the resurrection, not without the gospels.

 

[outhouse]

Christ

another name for christ "the anointed one" or hebrew messiah

well gosh golly captain, sure seems to be more then a nickname for a little known figure who barely started a movement. You want it both ways to fit your interpetation

all the gospels play jesus off as a super hero who draws crowds, on one hand you play him off as a poor homeless man speaking to tribes but yet some of the most prominent figures call him the anointed one in greek or messiah in hebrew. I dont think you know how popular he was or was not. YOU really dont know. All I claim is that the gray area in all this is much larger then you think due to lack of information in what little relevant material you do have.

 

[outhouse]

with so little info to run off, your hanging on words and there interpetation a little to literally. Its all you have to tie it in. I know your using other material of the time to help base your assumption but in that same litteral sense.

Its like your so close to cracking the egg you cant help but call it a omlet.

I think we all believe and wish there was better NEW material to work with that would tie everything together.

its a shame all the old material the churches burned that would have solved this by now, that and natural fires its a shame what we dont have

 

[dogsgod]

Christianity falls flat on its face without god or the resurrection, not without the gospels.

Sure, whatever you say.

 

[dogsgod]

with so little info to run off, your hanging on words and there interpetation a little to literally.

You hit the nail on the head, this is key to Jesus being historical. It's imperative that 'brother of the Lord' be understood to mean that James was literally a blood sibling and that Josephus' shorter reference be understood to be reliable without question.

 

[Oberon]

imperative that 'brother of the Lord' be understood to mean that James was literally a blood sibling and that Josephus' shorter reference be understood to be reliable without question.

There you go again. Key to so many of your arguments is false idea that 2+ centuries of critical scholarship never questioned basic assumptions. Except that isn't true. Every line in Josephus has been analyzed using textual critical methods. Every single one. Why? First of all, that's how modern editions of the greek (or latin) texts are put together. Important lines, though, like the references to Jesus, have been analyzed to death. There simply isn't any reason to suppose interpolation with the reference to James, unless of course one starts with the assumption, as you do, that Jesus was a myth. Then we have to find explanations, no matter how improbable, to explain away this line.

Same thing with Paul's reference to James. Not only is James, as Jesus' brother, independently attested to elsewhere, Paul met him. He uses a specific syntactical construction to identify James by his kin (Jesus). You haven't made produced a single argument on how this grammatical construction should be understood in a different light. Instead, you already assumed Jesus is a myth, and therefore the line must mean something else.

You get to so many of your conclusions based on arguments built upon your fundamental and unquestioned premise: Jesus was a myth. And then, ironically, you accuse the experts producing scholarship of doing what you are.

 

[idea]

"did" Jesus exist?

What's the past-tense word "did" all about? A better question would be “does” Jesus live? (not just exist, but does he live, and love, and do all that he claims). The answer to that is YES! Jesus lives! Walk a mile in his shoes, and you can come to know him, and feel his presence in your life. We need not rely on past accounts of him, you can know him as he currently is - that's the real beauty of it all.

I know that my redeemer lives, what comfort this sweet sentence gives!

Yahoo! Video Detail for Mormon Tabernacle Choir "I Know That My Redeemer Lives"

 

[fallingblood]

He was listed as a church Father, and his writings are the earliest so anything is possible. I wouldn't say he founded Christianity but he may have developed the philosophical and theological foundations of Christianity. If Paul wasn't the founder he certainly was a chief architect. Now that Christianity revolves about the gospel storied fictions, that makes the unknown author of Mark a founder as well.

Without the gospels Christianity falls flat on its face.

The movement that ended up being Christianity existed before the Gospels. That suggests one thing, the Gospels are not a must.

It doesn't matter if Philo is listed as a Church Father. Christianity did not even exist during his time. Jesus is also listed as the founder and his teachings are the earliest in the movement. Yet, you don't seem to accept that.

And again, you fail to realize this. One can not be the founder of something if that something already exists. I can't be the founder of the Jesus research even though I may add to it. It simply doesn't work.

 

[fallingblood]

another name for christ "the anointed one" or hebrew messiah

well gosh golly captain, sure seems to be more then a nickname for a little known figure who barely started a movement. You want it both ways to fit your interpetation

all the gospels play jesus off as a super hero who draws crowds, on one hand you play him off as a poor homeless man speaking to tribes but yet some of the most prominent figures call him the anointed one in greek or messiah in hebrew. I dont think you know how popular he was or was not. YOU really dont know. All I claim is that the gray area in all this is much larger then you think due to lack of information in what little relevant material you do have.

Look up what Christ means in Greek. Then look up what Christ would mean for the Pagans. Christ was simply a nickname that meant little to Pagans. There were various other so called Messiah's out there as well, who had large followings, and were called the Messiah, yet none of them were known as the so-called Christ, or Christ.

Also, most prominent figures? If that was true, there would be no debate as to whether or not he existed.

 

[idea]

The movement that ended up being Christianity existed before the Gospels.

Christianity existed before the world was formed...

IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.(New Testament | John1:1 - 2)

 

[fallingblood]

with so little info to run off, your hanging on words and there interpetation a little to literally. Its all you have to tie it in. I know your using other material of the time to help base your assumption but in that same litteral sense.

Its like your so close to cracking the egg you cant help but call it a omlet.

I think we all believe and wish there was better NEW material to work with that would tie everything together.

its a shame all the old material the churches burned that would have solved this by now, that and natural fires its a shame what we dont have

Again, you are using baseless assumptions. What material would help this that the church burned? And why would they burn it if it would solve this problem? And when are you going to answer my questions, why would Jews invent Jesus, a failed and flawed Messiah.

 

[fallingblood]

Christianity existed before the world was formed...

IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.(New Testament | John1:1 - 2)

Not even close. The verse you quoted does not say Christianity existed before the world was formed. If anything, it states that the Logos existed before the world was formed and that the Logos, for a lack of better words on my part, took the form of Jesus.

The word (Logos) does not equal Christianity.

 

[outhouse]

What material would help this that the church burned?

well aint that a fine question lol

No your right, information that would have shined a negative light or denounced christianity in any way, the early movement founders [church] would have preserved for all mankind to see.

Are there not old paintings/drawings showing the burning of books, atleast that we have first hand evidence of.

 

[Oberon]

No your right, information that would have shined a negative light or denounced christianity in any way, the early movement founders [church] would have preserved for all mankind to see.

They did. We know a great deal about critics of mainstream/orthodox christianity because christian apologists and heresy hunters quoted them at length. Celsus, whom dogsgod has quoted several times, survives only because he was quoted extensively by Origen, a christian.

 

[outhouse]

despite knowing allot about critics and the fact that they saved allot of eveidence against. You dont know how much was destroyed just that some made it through the cracks


All 3 of you brilliant in your own rights talk so authoritive on every aspect no matter what is thrown at you. congradulations your sharp in your subject. BUT a subject of gray area in which only a little is known, Ive never heard this much talk on something as a fact, that is so unknown.

 

[Oberon]

despite knowing allot about critics and the fact that they saved allot of eveidence against. You dont know how much was destroyed just that some made it through the cracks

That's true. Of course, it's true in general of all of ancient history. Destroying texts wasn't really the problem. People just didn't care enough to continue to copy them or keep them. We are lucky to have a lot of texts simply because we found them in trash heaps.

None of this is really important for Jesus' historicity. True, if we had other early sources it might mean MORE information with which to judge the details of Jesus' life. But we have more than enough already to know that he was a historical person. Josephus and Paul are enough for that. In fact, Josephus and Tacitus are probably enough. Throwing in the other epistles, the gospels, the apocryphal gospels, early christians like Papias, the rabbinic sources, Seutonius, Mara bar Sarapion, Pliny, and Thallus give us a lot more to work with (although virtually nothing outside the canonical gospels, and perhaps even the synoptics in the view of some, should be used for anything other than as independent attestation of what is in the gospels), and allow us to gain a better understanding of the details of Jesus' life/mission/work.

BUT a subject of gray area in which only a little is known, Ive never heard this much talk on something as a fact, that is so unknown.

I wish I could say this was the first time someone who really has no idea what is or isn't known or with what certainty and who isn't really familiar at all with the massive amount of primary and secondary source material makes claims about what constitutes "gray area" and what this means.

 

[outhouse]

I do understand that scholars had to go through a mountain of paperwork to get what little the do know.

I also know you wish you had kust one more piece of solid material to end this. I wish you had it to. I would love to know what really happened so long ago

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Lunatics were common back then, one came up with a good story, the story spread and the myth was born.

it would not be that hard to believe some orally translated fables told 10 years later and spun into a new movement

Right, think of the OT stories themselves. Even today a vast majority believes there was literally an Adam and an Eve, There was a World Wide Flood even though science has shown this to be incorrect.....and others believe in other various biblical characters, places, events....even though, from what we can tell from what we have as a historical record, a lot of it is false. Biblical science, astronomy and mathematics are not really reliable either but that's a whole different story.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I do understand that scholars had to go through a mountain of paperwork to get what little the do know.

I also know you wish you had kust one more piece of solid material to end this. I wish you had it to. I would love to know what really happened so long ago

To be confident in a used car, you need Carfax.

To be confident in the historical Jesus, you need Jesusfax.

 

[Oberon]

To be confident in a used car, you need of Carfax.

To be confident in the historical Jesus, you need Jesusfax.

Fantastic.