Historicity Of Christ?

[Bunyip]

Not most. Virtually all. There are perhaps two historians in the world (one a biblical scholar and the other a classical historian) who doubt that Jesus existed. The modern arguments one finds on the internet about Jesus and Mithras or dying and resurrecting gods was hashed out over the space of about a 100 years, and all arguments presented today against Jesus' existence were answered then. What we find now are bad repeats of 19th century and very early 20th century poorly wrought historiography that fails to address either modern scholarship or even the counter-arguments presented at the time when such challenges to Jesus' historicity had any merit (by virtue of novelty- they may have been wrong but as such questions had at that point not been asked and therefore not answered, we can appreciate the fact that such questions were asked then).

Nonsense. The historicity of Jesus is an inference, not a conclusion. All historians should doubt that Jesus existed - they can most definitely not be sure that he did exist. Historians do not even know what year he was born in, or where. The only contemporary reference is from Paul - who 'met' Jesus ghost, not Jesus.

The claim that the historicity of Jesus has been estab.ished is frankly laughable. We do not have any direct contemporary evidence, not one single eye witness account and none of the basic details about his life.
No birth year.
No birth day.
No place of birth.
No idea who his parents were, or when they were born.
No contemporary accounts other than Paul's fantasy.
Nothing about his life between childhood and his final mission.

That is not a case for historicity, it is nothing.

The modern apologists are weaving what they apparently imagine to be a case for historicity out of little more than hot air, desperation and textua analysis. Mainly because as far as actual evidence is concerned - they have none.

Any claim of historicity so reliant upon textual analysis is going to be more propoganda than history.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Nonsense. The historicity of Jesus is an inference

As are basically all findings across the sciences.

not a conclusion.

To infer is to conclude based on a particular kind of reasoning (namely, inference as opposed to e.g., deduction).

All historians should dout that Jesus existed - they can most definitely not be sure that he did exist.

They also can't be sure if the moon is still there when you don't look at it or whether we're living in The Matrix.

Historians do not even know what year he was born in, or where. The only contemporary reference is from Paul - who 'met' Jesus ghost, not Jesus.

Imperfect information limits the kinds of claims we can make and the certainty with which we can make them. We always have imperfect information, but that rarely means we can't conclude anything. When was Pontius Pilate born? How about Socrates? What contemporary historical evidence besides disagreeing fictions and a play for Socrates? How about Galen? Hippocrates? Pythagoras? Or the names that historians are familiar with that you haven't ever heard of?

If Jesus didn't exist, we'd have to explain the origins of the Jesus movement without the most important component of such movements: a founder. We'd also have to explain how a Jewish movement persecuted by other Jews was hated and persecuted by the non-Jewish populous and who espoused a belief that was scandalous and heretical to other Jews and atheism for gentiles somehow sprang into existence as worshipping messianic figure who wasn't messianic nor an historical figure, only to then have several authors write biographical texts situating the founder of the non-Jewish, non-Gentile, & non-Christian Jesus movement and decided to invent historical fiction only to have this genre immediately understood as a biographical depiction of a real person (whose brother Josephus mentions and whose brother Paul knew). Basically, we'd have to explain why a Jewish sect arose around a mythical. messianic figure despite the fact that the messiah was supposed to restore Israel (and not be some pagan-like being), and then suddenly changed to the worship of a person who was said to have lived and died while people reading the synoptics (and probably John) were still alive. We have contradictions in both directions (the appearance of the movement without a founder and the switch from a belief in a non-Jewish pagan-like deity fulfilling a fundamentally Jewish role into suddenly not just an historical figure but one who had just recently been crucified).

The claim that the historicity of Jesus has been estab.ished is frankly laughable.

Glad you are so amused. Certainly explains the desire not to actually do any research. Maybe actually read enough of Tacitus to not mistakenly quote the translator of the google e-book you quote-mined the last time.

We do not have any direct contemporary evidence, not one single eye witness accout and none of the basic details about his life.

We do not know that we have no eye-witness account, we have direct contemporary evidence (despite your idiomatic usage of the term) and we know a large number of details about his life. However, as you aren't actually interested in learning or dismissing any and all scholarship when it suits you, defining everything from logical terms to historical methods by reiterated assertions, and otherwise failing to actually produce any worthwhile dialogue, why bring up a post a made months ago when we've been over this and your various claims to varying expertise aside you just continue to define yourself as correct no matter what arguments are marshalled from whatever fields (from logic to linguistics)?

That is not a case for historicity, it is nothing.

I agree. Your post was nothing. Luckily, we have over 2 centuries of scholarship and thousands of people who actually know what they are talking about regarding perhaps the most critically researched historical figure ever.

 

[Bunyip]

As are basically all findings across the sciences.

No mate, scientific findings can be deductive and inductive. Historicity claims are abductive. A deduced conclusion is not an inference. It is a deduction.

To infer is to conclude based on a particular kind of reasoning (namely, inference as opposed to e.g., deduction).


They also can't be sure if the moon is still there when you don't look at it or whether we're living in The Matrix.



Imperfect information limits the kinds of claims we can make and the certainty with which we can make them. We always have imperfect information, but that rarely means we can't conclude anything. When was Pontius Pilate born? How about Socrates? What contemporary historical evidence besides disagreeing fictions and a play for Socrates? How about Galen? Hippocrates? Pythagoras? Or the names that historians are familiar with that you haven't ever heard of?

If Jesus didn't exist, we'd have to explain the origins of the Jesus movement without the most important component of such movements: a founder.

No we wouldn't. The movement did not really begin untilmamfew centuries later.

We'd also have to explain how a Jewish movement persecuted by other Jews was hated and persecuted by the non-Jewish populous and who espoused a belief that was scandalous and heretical to other Jews and atheism for gentiles somehow sprang into existence as worshipping messianic figure who wasn't messianic nor an historical figure, only to then have several authors write biographical texts situating the founder of the non-Jewish, non-Gentile, & non-Christian Jesus movement and decided to invent historical fiction only to have this genre immediately understood as a biographical depiction of a real person (whose brother Josephus mentions and whose brother Paul knew). Basically, we'd have to explain why a Jewish sect arose around a mythical. messianic figure despite the fact that the messiah was supposed to restore Israel (and not be some pagan-like being), and then suddenly changed to the worship of a person who was said to have lived and died while people reading the synoptics (and probably John) were still alive. We have contradictions in both directions (the appearance of the movement without a founder and the switch from a belief in a non-Jewish pagan-like deity fulfilling a fundamentally Jewish role into suddenly not just an historical figure but one who had just recently been crucified).


Glad you are so amused. Certainly explains the desire not to actually do any research. Maybe actually read enough of Tacitus to not mistakenly quote the translator of the google e-book you quote-mined the last time.



We do not know that we have no eye-witness account, we have direct contemporary evidence (despite your idiomatic usage of the term) and we know a large number of details about his life. However, as you aren't actually interested in learning or dismissing any and all scholarship when it suits you, defining everything from logical terms to historical methods by reiterated assertions, and otherwise failing to actually produce any worthwhile dialogue, why bring up a post a made months ago when we've been over this and your various claims to varying expertise aside you just continue to define yourself as correct no matter what arguments are marshalled from whatever fields (from logic to linguistics)?


I agree. Your post was nothing. Luckily, we have over 2 centuries of scholarship and thousands of people who actually know what they are talking about regarding perhaps the most critically researched historical figure ever.

Spare me the fatuous arguments from authority mate.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

Ok, so you say that we have a large amount of details about Jesus life - wonderful.

So please tell me anything you know about his life between infancy and his final mission?
When was he born?
When did he die?

As to all that silliness about what you imagine has to be explained by those who doubt the historicity of Jesus, that is just shifting the burden of proof.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion

Ok, so you say that we have a large amount of details about Jesus life - wonderful.

I would put it differently. Rather, I have some familiarity with historical methods, ancient historiography, logic, etc., such that I need not rely on appeals to various incompatible claims of expertise while dismissing the foundations of the entirety of all academia by equating citations with a logical fallacy. But then, I've actually taken the time to do more than proffer up sweeping statements about entire fields of research I know nothing of. You seem not to find this particularly necessary.

So please tell me anything you know about his life between infancy and his final mission?

He was from Nazareth. HIs trade should have been that of a tekton. He spoke Aramaic. He did not marry. He likely was part of the movement of John the Baptist. He did likely believe himself to be a messianic figure. His father, for some reason, wasn't in the picture. He was rejected as a prophet or messianic claimant by his own family and village by and large. I could go on, but as you need read only Meier's works or the (incredibly expensive) compendium put together by Evans in hundreds of pages that make up The Historical Jesus (Critical Concepts in Religious Studies), or any number of other sources, why bother?

When was he born?

When was Alexander the Great? Pontius Pilate? Socrates? Pythagoras? Euripides? Galen? Bede? And so on.

As to all that silliness about what you imagine has to be explained by those who doubt the historicity of Jesus, that is just shifting the burden of proof.

1) There can be no proof. Just as you can't seem to understand what something so basic as "inference" is, so too are you apparently incapable of understanding the role of proof in academia and its necessary relationship with formal systems.
2) EVERYBODY who seeks to offer an explanation of our historical evidence has the burden of proof. It doesn't matter if you are arguing that Jesus was God or Jesus was Gay or Jesus was a ghost: historiography is about using the available evidence to construct the most plausible account. Everybody is subject to the same burden of proof, as all claims about that which happened and that which did not are of the same kind.
3) What has to be explained is historical evidence. Period. Any and all historians who seek to address any and all historical issues (whether they believe these issues to be mythical or no) are under the onus to provide evidence and a coherent account. Historiography is about evaluating the evidence so as to always offer an explanation for the evidence, not explain away evidence while offering nothing in the way or historical explanation remotely close to anything based upon historical methods that would actually take into account historical evidence.

 

[1robin]

Now, as Atheists/Agnostics/any religion other than Christianity, do you believe that Christ was real historically? Not as in the Son of God, but as in a true historic figure.

P.S Please do some research about the subject if you are not very knowledgable about it.

We can do more than that.

There is a consensus among NT historians today (regardless of their faith) to several fact among many that justify the Christian faith alone.

1. Christ appeared on the historical scene with a sense of divine authority.
2. He was Crucified by the Romans and died on the cross.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have experienced him post mortem.

This is the state of scholarship on the historicity of Christ.

 

[pearl]

{the founder of the non-Jewish}

It is not clear that Jesus intended to found a church separate from Judaism. As a Jew his mission would have been more as a renewal movement within Judaism itself. We make a mistake if we assume that the concern of the authors was to leave an historical,( in today's sense of historical), or biographical record. That was not the intent. The Gospels are testamonies to faith with the intent to hand on that faith in what was proclaimed as Truth. And this Truth was conveyed through, myth, legend, etc., poetic expression of profound existential truths. The Gospels are a literary genious, evidenced by remaining on the best seller list for 2,000 plus years.


{whose brother Paul knew}

Paul did not 'know' the historical Jesus, only through a mystical experience, but handed on what had been handed to him. The Gospels were written by the 2nd generation church. By most accounts 20 years had passed before Paul wrote.

When, after sifting through layer after layer, demytholigizing, we must admit that there is little of what today would be considered 'historical evidence'. It seems an imperative to come to grips with the concept and language, all human beings can only understand truth within the context of their own social and cultural experience. The problem arises when trying to speak accurately of the God that is "Wholly Other", language breaks down and the attempts to descriptively define that God result in a mythical personification, or a demonization of that God.

 

[Bunyip]

LegionOnomaMoi

I'll take the liberty of editing out all of your usual whines, accusations, boasts and so on - leaving just the meat ok?

I would put it differently....He was from Nazareth.

Indeed, but Nazareth did not yet exist.

HIs trade should have been that of a tekton. He spoke Aramaic. He did not marry. He likely was part of the movement of John the Baptist. He did likely believe himself to be a messianic figure. His father, for some reason, wasn't in the picture. He was rejected as a prophet or messianic claimant by his own family and village by and large.

Yeah, as I said - we know barely anything about him.

When was Alexander the Great?

July 20 or 21st 356 BC in Pella. His father was Phillip II, whom he succeeded at the age of 20. He died in Babylon in 323BC. His mother was Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus.

1) There can be no proof.

Yes I know that. We have covered that before.

2) EVERYBODY who seeks to offer an explanation of our historical evidence has the burden of proof.

You just said that there can be no proof.

It doesn't matter if you are arguing that Jesus was God or Jesus was Gay or Jesus was a ghost: historiography is about using the available evidence to construct the most plausible account.

Correct - well done. It DOES matter however if your testimony comes from a person who met the ghost of the person whose historicity is being considered - as opposed to the actual person. testimony of meeting Jesus ghost is not the same as testimony of the historical Jesus.

Everybody is subject to the same burden of proof, as all claims about that which happened and that which did not are of the same kind.

No, the claim that he was historical bears a burden of proof. that he is not known to be historical prior to that burden being met is just the natural default.[/QUOTE]

 

[Bunyip]

We can do more than that.

There is a consensus among NT historians today (regardless of their faith) to several fact among many that justify the Christian faith alone.

1. Christ appeared on the historical scene with a sense of divine authority.
2. He was Crucified by the Romans and died on the cross.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have experienced him post mortem.

This is the state of scholarship on the historicity of Christ.

1. When did that happen? 2. The Romans have no record of that. 3. The earth is covered in empty tombs. 4.Yes, but of course the man they saw risen from the tomb and claiming to be Jesus was not actually recognizable as Jesus.

 

[1robin]

1. When did that happen?

It happened less than 100 years ago, when the German revisionist movement died away. You would be surprised (I certainly was) to know the trends in biblical scholarship are virtually all in the bible's favor. I think more early manuscripts have been discovered in the last decade than ion any previous decade for over a thousand years.

2. The Romans have no record of that.

Is that an argument? They are the party which would have suffered by far the most embarrassment from recording it. I am not even sure there is not a record. Many Roman historians wrote of Christ. What is know is that the biblical record of the burial matches in exact detail Roman practices of the day and left Jesus buried in sealed and guarded tomb. I have no reason to think a Roman record of the empty tomb would exist. However what we have every single reason possible to expect is their record of producing the body to stop this much feared fledgling faith dead in it's tracks. yet even the might of the Roman empire failed to produce the body they had secured despite every motivation to do so.

3. The earth is covered in empty tombs.

Is that the best you could do? It is entirely missing tombs like the one in question beyond the sepulcher of Christ.

4.Yes, but of course the man they saw risen from the tomb and claiming to be Jesus was not actually recognizable as Jesus.

What? He was recognized by everyone except Paul. He even showed the nail scars and spear wounds. How many men running around with crucifixion wounds were seen exactly through out history. I can tell you. Two, there are a grand total of two men who were crucified and seen alive later. Christ and another man who was barely up before they cut him down and he almost died anyway and that occurred at another place and time.

 

[pearl]

What is know is that the biblical record of the burial matches in exact detail Roman practices of the day and left Jesus buried in sealed and guarded tomb.

But the common practice following the execution of an accursed criminal was to dump the corpse into a common burial place.
Better evidence for burial in a tomb is the virtually certain account of Joseph of Arimathea, the account is found in all 4 Gospels
and would have known where Jesus had been buried. Three accounts agree that Jesus had been buried in either a new tomb
or one where no one had been buried before. Even going with the story that is was the Jerusalem rulers that took Jesus' body down
from 'the tree', Joseph of Arimathea was one of the 'rulers' as a member of the Sanhedrin.

It is correct that the risen Jesus was not recognized by everyone. Jesus is not recognized by Mary Magdalene, nor by the disciples on the road to Emmaus, nor by Peter, Mark has it that "He appeared in another form."

You would be surprised (I certainly was) to know the trends in biblical scholarship are virtually all in the bible's favor.

Being in the bible's favor, does not mean that everything stated in the Bible must be historical.

 

[Bunyip]

It happened less than 100 years ago, when the German revisionist movement died away. You would be surprised (I certainly was) to know the trends in biblical scholarship are virtually all in the bible's favor. I think more early manuscripts have been discovered in the last decade than ion any previous decade for over a thousand years.

You misunderstood. WHEN did Jesus come on the scene - what date?

Is that an argument? They are the party which would have suffered by far the most embarrassment from recording it. I am not even sure there is not a record. Many Roman historians wrote of Christ. What is know is that the biblical record of the burial matches in exact detail Roman practices of the day and left Jesus buried in sealed and guarded tomb. I have no reason to think a Roman record of the empty tomb would exist. However what we have every single reason possible to expect is their record of producing the body to stop this much feared fledgling faith dead in it's tracks. yet even the might of the Roman empire failed to produce the body they had secured despite every motivation to do so.

Why would Rome care to hide the evidence of a life and crucufixion that we have no record of? An empty tomb proves nothing. It proves only that the body was not in it.

Is that the best you could do? It is entirely missing tombs like the one in question beyond the sepulcher of Christ.

Nonsense, there are millions. More importantly -Jesus tomb has yet to be discovered. It's absurd that you rely on a discovery unmade as evidence.

What? He was recognized by everyone except Paul. He even showed the nail scars and spear wounds. How many men running around with crucifixion wounds were seen exactly through out history. I can tell you. Two, there are a grand total of two men who were crucified and seen alive later. Christ and another man who was barely up before they cut him down and he almost died anyway and that occurred at another place and time.

Read your bible, nobody recognised him - his face had changed.

 

[1robin]

But the common practice following the execution of an accursed criminal was to dump the corpse into a common burial place.

That is the case in general because most criminals did not have anyone who wanted to take care of their burial. However it was also the practice to give the body to any loved one or friend who wished to give them a burial. None other that probably the greatest legal mind in history (Simon Greenleaf) lays all this out in his paper "The testimony of the Evangelists". So Jesus being given to Joseph is perfectly in line with historical practice.

Better evidence for burial in a tomb is the virtually certain account of Joseph of Arimathea, the account is found in all 4 Gospels and would have known where Jesus had been buried. Three accounts agree that Jesus had been buried in either a new tomb or one where no one had been buried before. Even going with the story that is was the Jerusalem rulers that took Jesus' body down from 'the tree', Joseph of Arimathea was one of the 'rulers' as a member of the Sanhedrin.

I agree with this. History does not make any event more certain that Joseph's taking Jesus' body and placing it in a new tomb. Additionally it is historically reliable that the Romans sealed and placed guards at the tomb yet the tomb was found empty.

It is correct that the risen Jesus was not recognized by everyone. Jesus is not recognized by Mary Magdalene, nor by the disciples on the road to Emmaus, nor by Peter, Mark has it that "He appeared in another form."

I think that many did not recognize him at first but everyone I can recall eventually came to recognize him eventually. This could be because of course they had no expectation of meeting a crucified Christ, and that he had a new resurrection body which was somewhat different than his previous body.

Being in the bible's favor, does not mean that everything stated in the Bible must be historical.

That was not the point I was making. I was saying that despite what layman think the historical reliability of the bible is growing in modern times. In countless cases the evidence initially does not coincide with biblical claims but I have found if the investigation goes on and more evidence is gathered the bible usually turns out to be correct in the end. I can list example after example of this. I will provide two just as a teaser. It was once claimed that the Moabites as a culture never existed and the bible was wrong. There are now museums full of artifacts from that culture. An atheist scholar set out to disprove the bible. His target was the obscure official titles Luke includes in his Gospel. After it turned out Luke's titles were correct in every single case the atheist became a Christian. I can't help but give two more. The bible said the Canaanites were totally depraved. At one time scholars said that was wrong. Now we have archeological evidence they buried live children in foundational deposits and worshipped Moloch who demanded human sacrifice. At one time it was said that the bible claiming that Leprosy could be on walls in cloths was proof the bible was wrong because scientists thought it was hereditary. Now we know leprosy can live outside the body for a short time and be caught by contact. In every conflict between scholars and the bible where evidence has concluded the issue the bible has been proven correct (at least in my experience). By the way I have read forensic coroner reports from the coroner that worked on the John Gacy case say that every medical detail of the description of Christ's crucifixion is medically accurate. Even the weird statement about blood and water pouring out of the wound from the spear.

 

[1robin]

You misunderstood. WHEN did Jesus come on the scene - what date?

That is a strange question. Of course the general time frame is 1 Ad but the date is arguable. There is a few year range (from 0Ad to about 4AD) which various scholars claim he was born in. However it was not his birth that my claim concerned, it was the nature of his years of ministry (from about 30AD to 33AD).

Why would Rome care to hide the evidence of a life and crucufixion that we have no record of? An empty tomb proves nothing. It proves only that the body was not in it.

Rome did not hide it. Rome had no reason to note it. Rome controlled land on which countless cultures existed. Palestine was one of the most remote backwaters of the empire. They had to deal with rebels from every corner of the Mediterranean world and Europe. Jesus was only a regional issue. He was not at the time of his life a major concern beyond Palestine so there is no reason to expect Rome paid it any significant attention. Just another rebel who was stopped. A lack of evidence is only a lack if it can be shown there should be more evidence than we have.

Nonsense, there are millions. More importantly -Jesus tomb has yet to be discovered. It's absurd that you rely on a discovery unmade as evidence.

No there are not. There is only one tomb known to have had a body placed in it and then been sealed and guarded only to have the body disappear completely. Rome had every possible motivation to produce the body and kill Christianity in the cradle but the most powerful empire on earth was powerless to do so. As far as the tomb being known today that is irrelevant. It only matters if the tomb was known at the time, and since it was under Roman guard it obviously was known to them. However I believe the tomb is known today, or at least one has much evidence to suggest it was the tomb he was buried in. It is the one that Constantine's mother built a church over that is most likely the correct one, but whether we know where it is today is irrelevant anyway.

Read your bible, nobody recognised him - his face had changed.

As far as I can remember (and I have read the entire bible several times over, and studied the Gospels countless times), everyone came to recognize him eventually. Some reasons that some did not immediately recognize him is that no one expected to meet a risen Christ, and that he had a new resurrection body, and not his former mortal body. He also seemed to kind of hide his identity when he first met at least some of the people that met him after crucifixion.

 

[JerryL]

Was there actually a Joshua Bar Joseph (whether named that or not) whom John and Peter were disciples of and who is the inspiration for the Gospels?

I don't know. When I dig, I find very little to support that there was. It seems, from where this layman sits, that he's in the same boat as Socrates... likely an invention of his so-called "disciples" so that they, themselves, would not be killed for what they were saying. But anything is possible.

 

[Bunyip]

That is a strange question. Of course the general time frame is 1 Ad but the date is arguable. There is a few year range (from 0Ad to about 4AD) which various scholars claim he was born in. However it was not his birth that my claim concerned, it was the nature of his years of ministry (from about 30AD to 33AD).

The point being that the actual dates are not known. Because we have no contemporary recordsto tie to a specific date.

Rome did not hide it. Rome had no reason to note it. Rome controlled land on which countless cultures existed. Palestine was one of the most remote backwaters of the empire. They had to deal with rebels from every corner of the Mediterranean world and Europe. Jesus was only a regional issue. He was not at the time of his life a major concern beyond Palestine so there is no reason to expect Rome paid it any significant attention. Just another rebel who was stopped. A lack of evidence is only a lack if it can be shown there should be more evidence than we have.

Correct. And of course that is the point - there should be more evidence. Sadly nobody who met Jesus left a record - not one single person.

No there are not. There is only one tomb known to have had a body placed in it and then been sealed and guarded only to have the body disappear completely.

Sorry mate, but that is utter rubbish. There are tombs with no bodies in them all overthe world - millions of them. The empty tomb (not that the tomb of Jesus has ever been found) is evidence of nothing.

Rome had every possible motivation to produce the body and kill Christianity in the cradle but the most powerful empire on earth was powerless to do so. As far as the tomb being known today that is irrelevant. It only matters if the tomb was known at the time, and since it was under Roman guard it obviously was known to them.

No mate, there is no record of the Romans finding Jesus tomb - or even knowing who Jesus was, or that he even existed.

However I believe the tomb is known today, or at least one has much evidence to suggest it was the tomb he was buried in. It is the one that Constantine's mother built a church over that is most likely the correct one, but whether we know where it is today is irrelevant anyway.

As far as I can remember (and I have read the entire bible several times over, and studied the Gospels countless times), everyone came to recognize him eventually. Some reasons that some did not immediately recognize him is that no one expected to meet a risen Christ, and that he had a new resurrection body, and not his former mortal body. He also seemed to kind of hide his identity when he first met at least some of the people that met him after crucifixion.

Yeah - he came back from the dead in a different body, and people actually believe that impossible nonsense.

 

[pearl]

Additionally it is historically reliable that the Romans sealed and placed guards at the tomb yet the tomb was found empty.

If they did so it would have been at the prodding of the Jewish officials as the biblical 'three day' formula would have meant
nothing to them.

I think that many did not recognize him at first but everyone I can recall eventually came to recognize him eventually. This could be because of course they had no expectation of meeting a crucified Christ, and that he had a new resurrection body which was somewhat different than his previous body.

As found in John, 'these have been written so that you may believe." The author's purpose is clear. The Evangelists did not
simply record what was handed on to them. They were theologians in their own right. They wrote from the perspective of the
Pentecost event. There is much embellishment, poetic license, to convey the literal truth.

After it turned out Luke's titles were correct in every single case the atheist became a Christian

Doesn't seem a good reason to convert. What does he do if the next wave of historical analysis reverses the credibility of what
he founded his faith on?

By the way I have read forensic coroner reports from the coroner that worked on the John Gacy case say that every medical detail of the description of Christ's crucifixion is medically accurate. Even the weird statement about blood and water pouring out of the wound from the spear.

This is very true.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

leaving just the meat ok?

Not really. You haven't shown the capacity or background to distinguish what is meaningful/relevant and what is not, but have indicated that you are not capable for the most part of doing so with respect to this subject, as so clearly demonstrated below:

Indeed, but Nazareth did not yet exist.

Yes. It did. We have archaeological remains. And if we had none, and no source mentioned Nazareth, that would mean that 2 or 3 authors didn't so far as we know (as most works by ancient authors are lost to us).

Yeah, as I said - we know barely anything about him.

Compared to Martin Luther King or Gandi? True. Compared to virtually everybody within a few hundred years of Jesus? Wrong. Now, I realize you will disagree with this, so I am going to point out now that you haven't the faintest clue what kind of evidence we have for most names from antiquity, no familiarity with relevant scholarship or even the ability to identify the relevant fields, and no ability to evaluate the evidence (as you have repeatedly demonstrated, from your claims to be an expert in everything from espionage to history despite majoring in political science to your quote-mining a translator of Tacitus thinking you were citing Tacitus when you didn't just incorrectly specific a volume of Tacitus' that didn't exist but failed to realize you were quoting the translator's summary).

What you say can be compared against the thousands of people who are actually educated regarding this and related topics and, thanks to the past 2 centuries of studies that have made the figure of Jesus the most scrutinized in all of history, we can safely ignore your rambling mixture of pseudo-logic and internet-mined falsehoods.

July 20 or 21st 356 BC in Pella. His father was Phillip II, whom he succeeded at the age of 20. He died in Babylon in 323BC. His mother was Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus.

Oh, really? According to which manuscripts, copied from whom by whom and were originally written by which author (and we know that the claimed authors actually did write said texts because..?) ?

In the end, your complete lack of familiarity with the nature of evidence here will always demonstrate the futility of any of your claims and the misguided nature of your would-be application of "critical reasoning". Instead, you just referred to sources based on myths about a son of a god according to our sources. Perhaps Wikipedia didn't spell out the details clearly enough for you.

You just said that there can be no proof.

I've always said that. I don't make the mistake of confusing formal systems with either the sciences or humanities, still less the ridiculous notion that something can be an inference but not a conclusion.

It DOES matter however if your testimony

The complete anachronism here renders immediately flawed anything following it, but as many do not study ancient history I will take the meager time needed to point out that what testimony meant then and what it does now as well as the nature of evidence and how it should be evaluated were utterly different. We live in a literate society. Ancient Greek and Roman historians of the highest quality distrusted other historical accounts by historians. They also distinguished biography from history, and melded both with myth and legend (hence the stupendously ridiculous nonsense your endlessly repeat about our evidence for other figures despite the fact that it seems the limit of your research here is mistaking a translator you quote mined from google books).

testimony of meeting Jesus ghost is not the same as testimony of the historical Jesus.

Testimony of meeting his family and followers, however, is vastly different. But you believe in mythical deities like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, etc. (no, these are not actually mythical, they are just mythical if we use your half-baked ridiculously incompetent methods that are firmly grounded in your various misrepresentations of expertise and utter failure to support your claims).

No, the claim that he was historical bears a burden of proof.

All historical claims bear such a proof. This one has been answered. If you would spend less time quote-mining cites to support a position you reached without evidence and more time actually trying to study and learn a thing or two about the topic, I wouldn't be dealing with this idiocy and you would be far better off.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

Once again, I must edit out for you all of the dribble, pontification, silly, endlesssly repeated accusations and so on leaving just the actual meat of your objections. (You launch into the same moronic ad hominem digs eight or nine times just in this one response, each one essentaly a repeat of the last - in fact these repeated whines take up the vast majority of your post - to the point where you forget to make a logical argument).

Yes. It did. We have archaeological remains. And if we had none, and no source mentioned Nazareth, that would mean that 2 or 3 authors didn't so far as we know (as most works by ancient authors are lost to us).

You are mistaken, there is no evidence of a significant settlement where Nazareth stands today. You have archeological remains to indicate that there were people living in the area, but they are NOT the remains of a significant settlement and Nazareth was not known at the time.

....... still less the ridiculous notion that something can be an inference but not a conclusion

Inferences drawn from abductions are by definition NOT conclusions. Adbuctive reasoning (inferences to the best explanation) do not yield conclusions - to do so would be to commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Any first year philosophy student would know this.

Please reconsider posting comments when you are erm...'tired'. Read through this last one and note how you repeat the same silly attacks over and over again - you are making a fool of yourself. Sure, pot shots at me personally must be fun for you - but when you reach the point where you are repeating them nine times in a single response to the exclusion of an actual rebuttal, you need to just grow the hell up buddy. You are a senior acting out like a teen dirtbag.

 

[JerryL]

They also can't be sure if the moon is still there when you don't look at it or whether we're living in The Matrix.

Yes. The idea that reality is how we perceive it is a presupposition. It's not actually proven. Why anyone would bring "science" into this is beyond me. Science doesn't care about "truth"... that's for philosophers. Science cares about accurate models.

Imperfect information limits the kinds of claims we can make and the certainty with which we can make them. We always have imperfect information, but that rarely means we can't conclude anything. When was Pontius Pilate born? How about Socrates? What contemporary historical evidence besides disagreeing fictions and a play for Socrates? How about Galen? Hippocrates? Pythagoras? Or the names that historians are familiar with that you haven't ever heard of?

Funny you mention Socrates. There's a widely held belief that he didn't exist either but rather was the invention of Plato.

So let me ask you about some others. When was Heracles born? What about Thor? John Henry? Bigfoot? Kal-El?

If Jesus didn't exist, we'd have to explain the origins of the Jesus movement without the most important component of such movements: a founder.

So you believe Islam was actually founded by an Archangel and not the prophet who claimed to be repeating his teachings?

If you want founders: Consider Peter and John... and the upstart Paul later.

We'd also have to explain how a Jewish movement persecuted by other Jews was hated and persecuted by the non-Jewish populous

By "persecuted" you mean "made the official state religion of the world's only superpower at the time"?

Not quoting the rest of that paragraph but in short: It's full of claims you've not substantiated.

Glad you are so amused. Certainly explains the desire not to actually do any research. Maybe actually read enough of Tacitus to not mistakenly quote the translator of the google e-book you quote-mined the last time.

Tacitus is the guy who would have been born a few decades after Jesus's supposed death who, in addition to merely describing the beliefs of the Christians while cataloging their persecution under Nero also claimed to witness:

"In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. Few people placed a sinister interpretation upon this. The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world."​