Historical evidence for Christ

[tomarnold]

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You do realise that this quote has long been considered to have been tampered with by a later copyist, something well supported by the discovery of an arabic copy that does not contain the parts that Josephus would not have said (as scholars have been pointing out for decades).​

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Even without the debated portions of the text it would affirm everything that it does in it's entirety, except it would not verify the resurrection and that Jesus was the Christ. So if anything was in fact added, the record which is one of 2 of Josephus seperate writings which acknowledge Jesus, the text still gives us much insight.

 

[fallingblood]

Yet their are no historical records of anyone from the area denying the events of the Gospel accounts. Certainly those who hated the movement would have recorded some history to the effect that it wasn't accurate if this was the case.

Actually maybe a rephrasing should help. No one in the area wrote anything about Jesus until after his death. During the life of Jesus, and, as far as we have knowledge of, no one until nearly 2 decades after Jesus died did anyone even mention him. And then, it was a Christian. Yet, this individual didn't never met Jesus.

In fact, we don't here a word about Jesus from Pagan sources until the second century. There wasn't even a word written about Jesus from Jews until around 6 decades after the death of Jesus. In fact, we don't even have any records devoted to the life of Jesus until some 3 decades after Jesus died. So there is no wonder no one really debated the Gospel accounts, because no one outside Christianity seemed to really care.

Later on though, in the second century and later, we do see individuals attacking Christianity and Jesus. For instance, Celsus, in the second century, had some to say about Jesus. Such as his real father was a Roman solider, thus denying the idea of a virginal birth.

In addition to this the Christians had a list of as many as 500 documented eyewitnesses of Him resurrected that they would mention to those in the very area His death and burial occured! They would not have been so bold if these events were not established.

Can you name the 500 individuals? No, you can't.

And again, no one who wasn't a Christian seemed to care about Jesus until Christianity started making an impact. By that time, most of those individuals who would have seen Jesus were dead. James was dead, Paul, most likely the disciples, etc. So the supposed eyewitnesses (which we only actually have one who wrote anything, that being Paul) were dead by the time others even started to care. So mentioning them really did nothing, as none of it could be proven.

More so, the Christian movement was moving away from the area in which Jesus had been buried. Paul's movement was to the gentiles, not in Jerusalem. So again, those witnesses would not have been very useful if they couldn't be contacted anyway.

So both mary's couldn't find the tomb, then Peter and and John could not locate the tomb. After that they forgot to ask Joseph of Armethea how to get there, or just look for the tomb with Guards by it.

And then after they began preaching the resurrection of Christ, neither the sanheidren or any of the Pharisees could produce any such body to squash the movement. They did not go to the wrong tomb.

Can you find the tomb today? I doubt it. People can point to a tomb that they think was his, but that is as best as we can do.

Now you are assuming way to much. For one, Peter and John are said to have fled after Jesus was arrested. As for Mary/s, they only witnessed everything from a distance, and it is not for sure that they would have seen such a tomb.

More so, we are told that Jesus didn't appear to the disciples until they were in Galilee (actually, the Gospels contradict each other here, but that is actually the most likely occurrence). So again, no reason to even see a tomb.

As for Joseph of Arimathea, we know nearly nothing about him. The Bible doesn't even agree about him. Some state that he was a secret follower of Jesus, others don't go that far. So there is a problem there.

The guards, again, we can't say for sure, as only one Gospel even mentions it. The others seem unaware of the idea. Is it possible, sure. But it only shows us that there is reason to believe that the stealing of the body of Jesus would have been at least a plausible thought.

As for the Pharisees or others, there is no reason to bring forth a body. Because there is no evidence that they even cared about the Jesus movement until later on, after the place of the tomb would have been lost.

I'm not saying for sure that the disciples didn't know where the tomb was, but it can't just be assumed because the Gospels state so, as they contradict each other, thus one has to look at the accounts more carefully.

Why exactly did this annonymous individual steal the body? So someone broke the seal, rolled back the giant stone, and took the body of Christ- all without the guard noticing? If the guard was sleeping, which is doubted because that would be punishable by death to Romans, he certainly would have woke up.

Maybe there was no guard. That is quite possible. There is a good reason to create such a story. Obviously, there was some rumor of the body of Jesus being stolen. So the idea of the guard was created.

As for the stone, it poses a problem for the resurrection story anyway. The women came to anoint the body of Jesus. How could they do that if they couldn't get in? Well obviously that wasn't a problem. And if there was a guard, that would pose an even bigger problem.

Why would someone want to steal the body of Jesus? A loyal follower, seeing the Jesus died, wanted to take his body for one a various reasons. To make it seem as if Jesus wasn't dead for instance.

If it were unbelieving Jews they would have later pointed out the body and published it greatly to prevent the uprising of Christendom.

If it were Romans, the body would have been demonstrated to end the uprising of Christianity and the controversy among the Jews.

There is no possibility of any of this happening realistically. Why would whoever did this thing actually take his clothes off, and then fold them on top of it all!

None of the writers were eyewitnesses to the events. So they would have only heard of stories. The closest writer to the events, Paul, mentions nothing of the such.

Over time, exaggerations and details are made up. Not on purpose per se, but we know this happens in oral tradition. So extra details wouldn't be out of the question.

And again, the Jews and Romans would not have cared about the body of Jesus. The Jesus movement was nothing at that time. Most people who even knew of it probably didn't think it would even last much longer anyway as, as was common, once the leader of a movement died, the movement passed away soon after. So showing the body was of no importance. There would have been no reason at all.

This statement is not true.

Actually it is true. A great look on this is Raymond E. Brown's book Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection. He goes over some of the possibilities.

More so, if that was the only possibility, that there was a bodily resurrection, there would be no debate at all. So obviously, my statement was true.

 

[fallingblood]

Even without the debated portions of the text it would affirm everything that it does in it's entirety, except it would not verify the resurrection and that Jesus was the Christ. So if anything was in fact added, the record which is one of 2 of Josephus seperate writings which acknowledge Jesus, the text still gives us much insight.

Actually, Josephus gives us no insight at all. He doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. The importance of Josephus on Jesus is that it gives a credible source for the existence of a historical Jesus.

 

[fallingblood]

In this case, what is the purpose for saying that the resurrection happened after 3 days?

That actually poses a problem. If Jesus died on Friday, and was raised on Sunday, that isn't three days. More so, we are not told that Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, but that the tomb was empty. Thus, the resurrection must have happened before that time.

 

[McBell]

Conclusion ​

We can clearly see that Jesus is a historical figure,​

All you can say that there is evidence that someone named Jesus lived around that time period.

and we need to make a decision as to what that means to us. He was not just a mere man, if the disciples stole the body as some suppose, they would not have been willing to die for a lie. However 11 of the 12 original disciples did end up giving their lives for the Gospel, certainly they must have known He was risen. Let us repent and believe today and see the Lord for who He truly is!

None of this is supported by what little you have posted.
Perhaps you forgot to present the proofs?

 

[outhouse]

All you can say that there is evidence that someone named Jesus lived around that time period.

and that name was as common as mike is today

 

[McBell]

In addition to this the Christians had a list of as many as 500 documented eyewitnesses

Really?
What are their names?
Where can list be viewed?

of Him resurrected that they would mention to those in the very area His death and burial occured! They would not have been so bold if these events were not established.

Let us first find out if these 500 people even exist as you claim.

And then after they began preaching the resurrection of Christ, neither the sanheidren or any of the Pharisees could produce any such body to squash the movement. They did not go to the wrong tomb.

And 'resurrection' is the ONLY possible reason?
You must be the most flexible person on the planet, what with all this stretching you have been doing.

Why exactly did this annonymous individual steal the body? So someone broke the seal, rolled back the giant stone, and took the body of Christ- all without the guard noticing? If the guard was sleeping, which is doubted because that would be punishable by death to Romans, he certainly would have woke up.

There are a great number of reasons why his body might have been stolen.
There is quite some debate over whether there were any guards.
And you know for a fact that there has never in all the history of Rome been a guard fall asleep?

If it were unbelieving Jews they would have later pointed out the body and published it greatly to prevent the uprising of Christendom.

This is nothing more than an assumption on your part.

If it were Romans, the body would have been demonstrated to end the uprising of Christianity and the controversy among the Jews.

Yet another unsubstantiated claim on your part.

There is no possibility of any of this happening realistically. Why would whoever did this thing actually take his clothes off, and then fold them on top of it all!

Why would they steal the body in the first place?

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

and that name was as common as mike is today

Yeah, that's another problem. Jesus is the Greek "Iesous" and is the Greek form of the Hebrew name "Yehoshua" or Joshua. Being the successor of Moses, it was a pretty common name.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

I love threads like these....

 

[Ilisrum]

There would be no significance of even using the term "resurrection" then, since this so-called spiritual resurrection is nbothinbg other than talking about the immortality of the soul.

In this case, what is the purpose for saying that the resurrection happened after 3 days?

There's good reason to think that the "resurrection" Paul spoke of was a spiritual resurrection because everything else in his "Gospel" is focused on the spiritual. He believed that he was living in the end of days (something that traditional Christianity has a hard time accepting) and that Jesus would soon return to fulfill his role as the Christ. Paul calls Christ "the first fruits of the resurrection" and the "firstborn of many sons". His list of "eyewitnesses" in Corinthians could just as easily suggest visions, which were very real to ancient people. But meh...

So would you cast doubt on the historical accounts of other Christians being killed around that time frame and in those areas for their faith? Or would you admit this much?

Ok Pliny the Younger's historical account talked about Christians, whose only crime was believing, being brutally killed for their faith. HOW MUCH MORE those men who preached vehemently and consistantly the Message!

While it is true the New Testament only documents the death of James, and the imprisonment of Paul (not the death), this again only demonstrated the early authorship of the Scripture! Otherwise there is no doubt if these men had died as of yet, it would be documented since it would certainly be noteworthy to the readers.

I'm not saying that Christians weren't killed. To argue against that is foolish. I'm saying that the traditional stories of the death of the Apostles are based more on legend than actual history.

Ok Pliny the Younger's historical account talked about Christians, whose only crime was believing, being brutally killed for their faith. HOW MUCH MORE those men who preached vehemently and consistantly the Message!

Even secular history documents the killing of early believers who simply believed. It is easy to conclude that: 1)Paul, who had many documented attempts on his life already in New Testamant Scripture due to the nature of his calling and the persuasiveness of the Spirit through him, and was even in chains- eventually suffered death for his faith. 2) If the average believer of the time could get killed for their confession, that most certainly those who boldly proclaimed the message would suffer for it.

The fact that Christians were persecuted makes it even more likely that these stories would be made up to give hope to the believers.

As for Paul, I think it's likely that he was killed in Rome as tradition holds. Peter and the others... not so much. There's no way to know for certain so only God knows.

If "proselytising" is a fancy word to explain that I want to convince you to escape the wrath of God which we all deserve for our sin, then sure.

Thanks for your concern but I'm already damned.

 

[David M]

It could be that he was placed into a tomb that the disciples just couldn't find. They did in fact flee the area anyway, so it wouldn't be surprising they couldn't find the tomb.

Support for the idea that all the disciples had fled the area at the time of the crucifiction comes from where?

 

[David M]

Flavius Josephus didn't actually write this part. This was added at a later date, by someone else. Also if you read any other parts of Antiquities of the Jews, then you would see that the style about Jesus being the Messiah is completely different to the rest of the texts.

No, Josephus wrote that part of the Histories but someone added to the text at a later date. We now have a copy missing all the bits making Jesus very important and limiting it to "who was called the Messiah by his followers" rather than "was the Messiah" and it is exactly in the style of Jospehus.

 

[fallingblood]

Support for the idea that all the disciples had fled the area at the time of the crucifiction comes from where?

The Bible.

 

[fallingblood]

No, Josephus wrote that part of the Histories but someone added to the text at a later date. We now have a copy missing all the bits making Jesus very important and limiting it to "who was called the Messiah by his followers" rather than "was the Messiah" and it is exactly in the style of Jospehus.

Actually that is still even debated. The copy you're talking about is not necessarily a better version, and most scholars don't take it to be completely accurate.