Name a witness.
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Jesus, the Christian Myth
- Thread starter Arthur Garcia
- Start date
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
According to Wikipedia's entry on the historicity of Jesus (did Jesus exist?):
An overwhelming majority of New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is more probable than not,[4][5][6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4] although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels.[nb 5][13][nb 6][15]:168–173 While scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness,[nb 7] with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed.[17][nb 8][19][20][21]
Put another way, only a fringe minority of religion and history scholars deny Jesus existed. I would also question your late dates for the gospel records, but that has been thoroughly documented elsewhere.
An overwhelming majority of New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is more probable than not,[4][5][6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4] although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels.[nb 5][13][nb 6][15]:168–173 While scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness,[nb 7] with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed.[17][nb 8][19][20][21]
Put another way, only a fringe minority of religion and history scholars deny Jesus existed. I would also question your late dates for the gospel records, but that has been thoroughly documented elsewhere.
Muffled
Jesus in me
John ben Zebedee.
McBell
Unbound
says who?
News outlets are under no law, rule, etc. to be responsible with their "news"
Any and every historical thing can and should be debated. My point here is that Josephus had every opportunity to investigate and interview eyewitnesses to the person and work of Christ. You are right. He was a Jew. A non-believer of the claims regarding Jesus being the long-awaited Messiah as-well-as the incarnate Son of God. Rejecting those claims, Josephus' bias could have moved him to deny every aspect of even Christ's existence but he didn't because the truth of the existence of the person and work of Christ was a too well known fact to be rationally denied. He compiled and reported, as best he could, the results of his search. Certainly not perfect. Who's have ever been?
If you believe that Jesus was a god, you also stand the chance to miss out on eternal salvation.
Can you summarize his case for Christ? What's his best evidence that Jesus was a god. Or is his case merely that Jesus was a person rather than a mythical character? The latter wouldn't matter to me either way.
Did you just write that Jesus probably existed in the minds of the majority, yet they reject the hypothesis that he might not have? I think you did.
If probable is the most firm they can be, then agnosticism is the proper position here: neither assert nor deny that the Jesus of the Bible was based on a real person.
When you say a historical Jesus, do you mean a god come to earth born to virgin that performed miracles and was eventually resurrected from the dead?
More commonly, this subject is a discussion is of whether a person called Jesus existed as the basis for the biblical account, or whether the story completely made up. No supernaturalism is assumed. Is that your understanding? Is that what you believe that Wiki is referring to?
That's a discussion that unbelievers might participate in and agree with the Christians.
I don't think the book is about whether or not Jesus was a god in a polytheism position. Rather, it was an in depth investigational effort to disprove the reliability of the New Testament from multiple points of view. Medical, historical, psychological et al.
As an avowed atheist, he changed his mind and accepted Jesus as His Messiah and the book it a journal of his findings.
Correct, because he wasn't a god as among many. However, as The Word, He was part of the makeup of God.
OK.
Why did you recommend it ("The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel)? Why should others read it? The implication is that if we follow this author's arguments, we'll be convinced to follow his path as well. I wanted to see what kind of evidence changed his mind before investing the effort to read the book. If the arguments were ones I've already seen, there would be no value in seeing them again.
Also, I'm pretty sure that Strobel didn't approach the New Testament with the intent to disprove it, and using sound reason, concluded that a god (or His supernatural agent, depending on doctrine) had walked the earth. In my experience, that just doesn't happen. When atheists convert to Christianity, it is for emotional reasons - usually times of extreme distress - not intellectual ones.
It also contradicts the hundreds of times that I've been told that one cannot understand the Bible or feel God through it without coming to the matter with a prepared heart.
Anyway, I found a relevant YouTube video:
and watched a bit of it. Strobel was explaining what a mess his life had been - how he would come home from work and his little daughter Allison would gather up his her toys and go to his room before he got drunk again and "yelling, swearing, and kicking holes in the wall". Go to 3:14 in the video and hear him describe his rage and anger.
That's the kind of person that is converted from atheism to Christianity as an adult. That's why evangelists have better luck on Skid Row and Death Row than Restaurant Row.
It was also my own experience. I converted from atheism to Christianity at age 20 during a time of extreme angst. I never read the Bible trying to disprove it, nor do I believe that Strobel did, either. That's the kind of thing you tell yourself and others as your narrative evolves.
Incidentally, ten years later, I was an atheist again and have been since.
Next, Strobel gets to his case, which includes Paul's life (Paul never met Christ unless you count the road to Damascus story, which I don't), the empty tomb (although he argues that the tomb was really empty, not that it was really a tomb or that somebody had risen from the dead from within it), the criterion of embarrassment (if we're making things up, we don't report events that hurt our cause), alleged eyewitness testimony of the risen Christ - basically, the same arguments we've heard before.
They weren't convincing then, either, but how could they be? Words alone cannot make a case for a supernatural occurrence. We'd need to see supernatural acts, a god, or both. Isn't that implied by the story of the miracles attributed to Jesus? Jesus didn't just offer words. What is implied is that he knew that words alone wouldn't have been enough. People need concrete evidence to believe such a bold claim.
Where words are most convincing is when they are uncannily prophetic, and even then, they don't indicate a supernatural source. Biblical prophecy doesn't rise to the level of uncannily prophetic.
Incidentally, my summary of Strobel's case is what I was asking you to do - not to remake all of his arguments, but to provide a capsule summary of the general nature of his case.
And his case is for the divinity of Christ, not merely His historicity.
You're not considering the claims of other religions (Muslim hell may be waiting for us both), or of the logical possibility of being judged in an afterlife about which you know nothing including the criteria by which you will be judged or the consequences following that judgment - a situation presently unknown to man.
I'm just answering the implied argument that one should believe in Jesus because, as the other poster noted, "If you see Jesus only as a myth, you stand the chance to "myth" out on eternal salvation." It's a faulty argument shown to be faulty in rebuttals to Pascal's Wager, which also sees Christian and atheistic views as the only possibilities.
Since I have no idea as to what you have seen, I wouldn't know what to say.
You will have to take up that with the author. When one says "that just doesn't happen", and "not intellectual ones" it does a couple of things IMO:
- It predetermines what one believes (with no verifiable proof)
- It presupposes that ANY atheist who claims otherwise is a liar and has other motives.
- It predetermines that if someone comes to know Jesus, one can never use their brains.
Have no idea what this means.
Will check it out and comment later.
Yes... that began after his wife gave her life to Jesus.
You your decision was an emotional one?
OK...
Maybe that is why I still believe.
I don't know about others... but I know what criteria I will be judged on.
I'll leave the judging to God. I can hardly judge the hidden hearts of men. But understand your point.
All that I have seen is the video I linked to.
Yes, that's what I meant by "extreme angst"
OK
Ok... but it seems a little strange. The evidence is the book but you want the evidence before you read the book.
I think the problem here is that we are trying to ascertain the whole of his story in one short video.
I don't think we have to continue here. My decision was a logical decision without any extreme angst.
Are there people who believe in "extreme angst"... absolutely.
Do some do it intellectually? yes.
Cold Case Christianity
Do some accept in a moment of crisis? Sure.
I don't think God cares how or why one comes but simply "come".[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
I've gotten what I wanted, which was a little information about the arguments that are made. That can be done in a few words.
I'm not trying to ascertain the whole argument. I realize that if I want that, I need to read the book.
I was trying to decide if that would be worth my while. I wanted to see if there was anything new there such as any new archeology or uncovered documents, or if it was the usual arguments.
At this point, the case for Christ is that there may well have been a man with many of the features of the Jesus of the New Testament, that the evidence for supernatural feats doesn't support the claims that there were, and that it is nearly impossible to say which elements of the story are true or not.
For example, were there people named Joseph and Mary that came from Nazareth and had a baby in Bethlehem? Were there really twelve apostles and did they have the names they are thought to have had? Was there a last supper? Details like those apparently cannot be established.