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The Jesus myth...

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angellous_evangellous

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logician said:
I'd like to see the Xian apologists give concrete evidence from one contemporary historian of the supposed time of the supposed Jesus that a man resembling the biblical Jesus even existed. Then maybe I'll ignore the many parallels of the JEsus story to pre-existent religious tales.
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Ha! We've been around that block a few times here on RF. I get a feeling that you know the laundry list of ancient historians who don't cite Jesus, and there's not an undisputed instance of Jesus in any historian.

There are only two historians who write about ancient Palestine - Jospehus and Philo, and both of them have been preserved almost exclusively by Christian scholars, so the one reference in Josephus to Jesus is disputed. If Philo mentioned Jesus, it would be disputed too, because of the accidence of its preservation.

So we're at a huge catch-22 with respect to "historical data." If Christians record the history of Christ (the Gospels and other literature - with removal of mythological elements) they are biased (etc). If Christians preserve Jewish historians who refer to Christ, they wrote it in. All the other historians were Roman and completely unconcerned with Palestine (perhaps one of them wrote of it, I'm not sure off the top of my head) and especially with a poor carpenter that they executed (if there was indeed a historical Jesus, he is of no concern to Roman or Greek historians).
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
Ha! We've been around that block a few times here on RF. I get a feeling that you know the laundry list of ancient historians who don't cite Jesus, and there's not an undisputed instance of Jesus in any historian.

There are only two historians who write about ancient Palestine - Jospehus and Philo, and both of them have been preserved almost exclusively by Christian scholars, so the one reference in Josephus to Jesus is disputed. If Philo mentioned Jesus, it would be disputed too, because of the accidence of its preservation.

So we're at a huge catch-22 with respect to "historical data." If Christians record the history of Christ (the Gospels and other literature - with removal of mythological elements) they are biased (etc). If Christians preserve Jewish historians who refer to Christ, they wrote it in. All the other historians were Roman and completely unconcerned with Palestine (perhaps one of them wrote of it, I'm not sure off the top of my head) and especially with a poor carpenter that they executed (if there was indeed a historical Jesus, he is of no concern to Roman or Greek historians).
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Why would a man who was reputed to raise people from the dead, be of '"no interest" to historians. I would believe such a man would be well known , and sought out.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
logician said:
Why would a man who was reputed to raise people from the dead, be of '"no interest" to historians. I would believe such a man would be well known , and sought out.
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Sure, you have to have some competence in the field to ask the right questions. If you're going to look for Jesus in the histories, you will first reject the miracle-man of the Gospels, because any reference to him would be mythological and therefore non-historical. The Jesus you'd be looking for is the one free from Christian myth, and therefore of no interest to any other historian.

You're not very good at your own game.:eek:
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
Sure, you have to have some competence in the field to ask the right questions. If you're going to look for Jesus in the histories, you will first reject the miracle-man of the Gospels, because any reference to him would be mythological and therefore non-historical. The Jesus you'd be looking for is the one free from Christian myth, and therefore of no interest to any other historian.

You're not very good at your own game.:eek:
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I don't get where you're coming from.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
logician said:
I don't get where you're coming from.
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Not a big shock.:D

You seem to think that first to third century Roman historians would seek out Jesus Christ, the miracle worker, who is (according to you) the product of first to third century wishful thinking. Such a fable surely does not exist, and yet you want to go looking for him, and challenge Christian apologists to produce proof for him, but you reject it de facto. This would be interesting in and of itself, but you would be looking for historical proof for something that you know is already the product of myth. Not very intelligent...

Anyway, what historians have done is remove the mythological elements from the story of Jesus... all the miracles, the resurrection story, etc, and reduced it to various pictures of the so-called historical Jesus. The Gospels are the only known record of Jesus, so we have to reduce the myth to something historical... The historical Jesus (in a nutshell) would be a teacher of the Hebrew Scriptures who eventually was killed for upsetting social expectations, which was easy and common back in the day.

Jesus, if he did exist, is therefore invisible to the writers of history, and not many of them wrote about Palestine, anyway.
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
angellous_evangellous said:
There are only two historians who write about ancient Palestine - Jospehus and Philo, and both of them have been preserved almost exclusively by Christian scholars, so the one reference in Josephus to Jesus is disputed.
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  1. That is not why the Testamonium is disputed.
  2. There are two references to Jesus, and I believe Kirby has suggested that most believe the second to be authentic - as do I.
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
You seem to think that first to third century Roman historians would seek out Jesus Christ, the miracle worker, who is (according to you) the product of first to third century wishful thinking. Such a fable surely does not exist, and yet you want to go looking for him, and challenge Christian apologists to produce proof for him, but you reject it de facto. This would be interesting in and of itself, but you would be looking for historical proof for something that you know is already the product of myth.
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Let me get this straight, you’re implying that the Jesus story of the Bible is an obvious myth and nobody believes it, and I’m challenging a non-existent group? Maybe the 20 to 40 million Christians of the U.S. alone might disagree with you. I personally know many believe the biblical story of Jesus almost verbatim, so your post is sheer
nonsense. Again, there’s nothing special about the Jesus story compared to other religious mythos, it is simply a redone rehash of the myths of previous man-gods. There is no historical physical figure Jesus any more than there is a historical physical figure Horus.

But believe what you will, isn't that what Ameirca is about?
 
Kcnorwood

Kcnorwood

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
The Jesus you'd be looking for is the one free from Christian myth, and therefore of no interest to any other historian.
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The problem with this statement is that you don't believe what 99.9% of what most christians believe. Your saying to everyone of those people out there who believe the bible word for word that they are wrong. Everyone here has jumped on me at sometime or another for saying that most christians out in the real world would disagree with the christians here & more then likley call you out.
 
blueman

blueman

God's Warrior
This is one of the most over used and worn out arguments regarding Jesus and when you weigh the historical evidence, very weak in scope. There are more scholars today (both apologetic and skeptics) that will acknowledge the existence of Jesus and many of the facts surrounding his life, death and resurrection. The basis for rebuttal of the Jesus myth is the following:

- Historicity as depicted in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles (written within a 15 to 60-year period after the cruxifiction of Christ)

- Nonbiblical sources (Tacitus, Josephus and Lucien among others) Jewish Talmud referring to Jesus as a sorcerer and suggesting that the disciples stole the body from the tomb

- Opposition towards Christianity (Saul of Tarsus, Jesus' own brother James and other family members)

- Evidence (biblical and secular) supporting the cruxifiction of Jesus during the reign of the emperor Tiberius

- The empty tomb

- Historical evidence of Jesus' appearance to over 500 people three days after his death (1 Corinthians 15 (early church oral creed within a few years after Christ' death)

- The subsequent conversion of thousands of Jews to Christianity (including Saul of Tarsus (Paul) and James

- The courage of the disciples and other Christians to maintain conviction of the resurrection of Christ being a bonified fact even to the point of martydom)

- Old Testament biblical prophecy written approximately 750 years prior to Jesus' birth (Isaiah, Psalms, Daniel, Jerimiah, Micah, etc.)

- The embarrasing content reflected in the Gospels (the woman found the empty tomb, James, Jesus' brother and other family members thought he was crazy during his ministry)

- Jesus' and Christianity's impact on music, literature, education, humanitarism and art over the course of history

- The growth of Christianity and how it spread all through Rome (a pagan nation) during a short period of time after the death of Christ

And so on and so on.................................... The mythical argument regarding Jesus is old and outdated and most importantly, does not stand on it's own merit when weighed against the evidence.
 
Smoke

Smoke

Done here.
blueman said:
And so on and so on.................................... The mythical argument regarding Jesus is old and outdated and most importantly, does not stand on it's own merit when weighed against the evidence.
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Although much of the "evidence" you present is either unconvincing or non-existent, I think there's sufficient evidence to agree with your conclusion.
 
blueman

blueman

God's Warrior
MidnightBlue said:
Although much of the "evidence" you present is either unconvincing or non-existent, I think there's sufficient evidence to agree with your conclusion.
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You follow the steps in reaching a logical conclusion regarding historical events. That's how we determine what is the rationale conclusion as it applies to history. Most scholars would view the information laid out as very convincing in contrast to the opposing view(s)
 
Kcnorwood

Kcnorwood

Well-Known Member
As much as I do love these debates they do get a bit old after a while you got 500 people saying that the bible & everything in it is true, then you got the same amount of people telling you that it's not. No one knows for sure that is untill we die.
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
"And so on and so on.................................... The mythical argument regarding Jesus is old and outdated and most importantly, does not stand on it's own merit when weighed against the evidence."

Speaking of old arguments, this is the oldest and most outdated.
 
Sonic247

Sonic247

Well-Known Member
Oh come on it's not outdated, most historians whether they believe in God or not will not say he never existed. And the reasons he gave are valid, exactly how valid is up for debate, but enough to make it very improbable that Jesus didn't exist from a historical standpoint.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
Kcnorwood said:
Everyone here has jumped on me at sometime or another for saying that most christians out in the real world would disagree with the christians here & more then likley call you out.
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Ha! See the very post that follows this.

LOL
 
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