There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[Trailblazer]

Jeremiah 29:11

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This kid really looks like God is prospering him and giving him hope for a good future. Seriously, Trail does this kid look like he's out there because he wants to be?

View attachment 78012

I just love how accurate the Bible is in the OT prophecies.

God did have plans for us but God expects humans to carry them out.
God ushered in the Golden Age by sending Baha’u’llah, and this marks the beginning of an entirely new religious cycle, called the Age of Fulfillment

The Promised Day is Come and now is the time that the prophecies are going to be fulfilled, since the Revelation of Baha'u'llah revealed what will be necessary for us to carry out God's plans.

“God’s purpose is none other than to usher in, in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the Great, the Golden Age of a long-divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed even its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant—so radiant that no eye can visualize it.​

​

“The winds of despair,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, as He surveys the immediate destinies of mankind, “are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective.” “Such shall be its plight,” He, in another connection, has declared, “that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly.” “These fruitless strifes,” He, on the other hand, contemplating the future of mankind, has emphatically prophesied, in the course of His memorable interview with the Persian orientalist, Edward G. Browne, “these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come…. These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family.” “Soon,” He predicts, “will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.” “After a time,” He also has written, “all the governments on earth will change. Oppression will envelop the world. And following a universal convulsion, the sun of justice will rise from the horizon of the unseen realm.” “The whole earth,” He, moreover, has stated, “is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings.” “All nations and kindreds,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá likewise has written, “…will become a single nation. Religious and sectarian antagonism, the hostility of races and peoples, and differences among nations, will be eliminated. All men will adhere to one religion, will have one common faith, will be blended into one race, and become a single people. All will dwell in one common fatherland, which is the planet itself.”​

​

What we witness at the present time, during “this gravest crisis in the history of civilization,” recalling such times in which “religions have perished and are born,” is the adolescent stage in the slow and painful evolution of humanity, preparatory to the attainment of the stage of manhood, the stage of maturity, the promise of which is embedded in the teachings, and enshrined in the prophecies, of Bahá’u’lláh. The tumult of this age of transition is characteristic of the impetuosity and irrational instincts of youth, its follies, its prodigality, its pride, its self-assurance, its rebelliousness, and contempt of discipline.”​

​

The Promised Day Is Come, pp. 116-117​

 

[Trailblazer]

Try Jeremiah 29:11

God's plan/purpose for you is No one will die - Isaiah 25:8
* Everyone can see dead loved ones again - John 5:28-29; John 6:40,44; Acts 24:15
God's plan/purpose for you is No one will get sick - Isaiah 33:24; 35:5-6
* Everyone will enjoy good heath and energy - Job 33:25; Rev. 22:2
God's plan/purpose for you is No one will experience injustice - Isaiah 32:16-17
* Everyone will have plenty of good food and houses - Isaiah 65:21-22; Psalm 72:8, 12-14
God's plan/purpose for you is No suffering because of War - Psalm 46:9
* Everyone will experience Peace on Earth - Psalm 37; Matthew 5:5
God's plan/purpose for you is No more bad memories - Isaiah 65:17
* Everyone will live forever under ideal conditions - 1st Corinthians 15:24-26

I explained what I believe God's plan/purpose is for humanity in post # #401

 

[nPeace]

I thought internal evidence was things within the Christian faith like the Bible and traditions that Christians rely on to support their belief in what external evidence--historical citations, archeological artifacts, et. al. say is mythical.

Hmmm. How could you make that mistake.

How does one study prayer? Simple. A large institution collects five thousand subjects and asks them to pray for people who are in trouble of some sort--no job, no bank account, no rent, dying of cancer, every bone broken laying in a hospital bed. If statistically a certain percentage, 10% I think it is, gets a benefit at some point i.e. a relative comes through with the rent, a spontaneous remission of the cancer, an employer out of 10,000 job applications calls the person back, then the pattern of 90% prayer failures to 10% random successes pretty much proves prayer doesn't work. The question becomes "Why does God consistently in study after study ignore exactly 90% of prayers and answers just 10%?" And it's not just the Christians in the 10% who look like their prayers were answered; it's across all spectrums--Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha'i and atheist who don't even have faith, but God answered someone's prayer for the atheist. Get what I'm saying, peace? It's a definite pattern repeated time after time with the same results: 90% lose but 10% win. Almost like when you roll the dice you crap out 90% of the time but 10% of the time you roll 7, come 11. What I'm trying to say, peace is that it's all odds; the luck of the draw; pure chance governing all this. There's no God involved because the outcomes are always statistically the same. That's a fact. Study after study bears this out.

That doesn't strike you as crazy... or more accurately, a joke?
It sound like persons claimed they found a genie in a bottle, so the scientific community say, okay, make a wish and rub the bottle, and we'll see what happens.
I'm sure the genie would play dead. 'I mean, what do they think I am... a mouse, they think they can put in a box.' and laugh his head off.

Seriously though. That's a mockery.
Sorry those people wasted their time letting scientists make a fool out of them.

Until something better comes along, peace, scholars are all we got. They pretty much call the reality of ancient history if they have the proper degrees and have the scope of study. You wouldn't go to a witch doctor if you were diagnosed with cancer, would you, peace? You'd go to someone who you believed knew what they were doing.

We do have something better than those scholars.
I mean, they can't even agree on the things they disagree on.
Let this guy tell you. What biblical scholars don’t do.
If that doesn't shake your faith, nothing will.

And if that MD pulls out a wad of chicken gizzard and starts rubbing in on your stomach run like hell!

So yeah. You have gone to "witch doctors", So why aren't you running? They certainly aren't going to rub that chicken gizzard they spend their sought after funding on. However, they stroke your mind with that rabbit they pull out of a hat.

 

[Trailblazer]

We are discussing the reasons why things are as they are, and how that fits with a creator God as certain believers claim it exists.

How do you think you can know why things are as they are and how that fits with a creator God?

There are some factual references in the Bible. And if there is evidence for any part of it then it earns some degree of belief. Religious books and texts that refer to supernatural beings are easy to dismiss since there is no evidence for any such beings existing outside of human imagination. So even if there are some true elements in various stories or texts they can be dismissed due to the baselessness of supernaturalism.

I do believe in parts of the Bible, many parts, but I do not believe in everything that is in the Bible.

Nor is Baha'u'llah, but that doesn't stop you.

As a Manifestation of God Baha'u'llah was infallible, which means that everything He wrote was inerrant.

It's easy to be a critic outside of your faith.

That was not a criticism, just an explanation.

 

[YoursTrue]

Ok, I'm not someone who has the gospel story memorized, but you have 3 major hard to believe events listed here. So, toss those out or reduce their scope. What's wrong with that?

I have read more about Philo and it is likely he was not too interested in Jesus. Considering him inconsequential. Or just didn't know much about him, or didn't want to talk about him. Who knows? Maybe in the future we'll find out. During the great resurrection as Rambam spoke of. There were a lot of things going on in Israel during that time anyway beyond the existence, life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

[YoursTrue]

*Informative*

The entire idea is nonsensical of testing prayers like that.

 

[YoursTrue]

Ok, I'm not someone who has the gospel story memorized, but you have 3 major hard to believe events listed here. So, toss those out or reduce their scope. What's wrong with that?

Let me say this, dybmh. Many Jews base their faith on the reality (not a mythical story) about Moses. Although some will deny it as truth by calling it "tradition." To deny the account as truthful is making a mockery of that religious concept.

 

[YoursTrue]

Really? The line in all four gospels is "If you ask the Father for ANYTHING in my name he will grant it..." I don't see anything in there about asking for God's will to be done. I only deal with the words in the promise. I don't get into all this malarkey about, "Well, what Jesus REALLY meant was..." because there are as many opinions out there about what Jesus really meant as there are Christians. That's a LOT of opinions.

Things must be taken in context. If someone asks that his enemy's children are born deformed, blind, dumb, etc. do you think Jesus meant that God would answer that prayer? One might keep fighting but then -- I go back to the fact that the gospel account stops basically before the temple was utterly destroyed by the Romans. I'll try to get more into this later.

 

[Trailblazer]

The entire idea is nonsensical of testing prayers like that.

I fully agree it is nonsensical, but the article was still informative.

 

[YoursTrue]

I fully agree it is nonsensical, but the article was still informative.

OK, it was informative that (lol) they asked subjects to pray and then proceeded to see what happened? lol, I'm still chuckling here it's so nuts. I didn't read the article, only saw the comments about it, but did the article say -- lol again -- what the subjects prayed for?

 

[YoursTrue]

I just love how accurate the Bible is in the OT prophecies.

God did have plans for us but God expects humans to carry them out.
God ushered in the Golden Age by sending Baha’u’llah, and this marks the beginning of an entirely new religious cycle, called the Age of Fulfillment

The Promised Day is Come and now is the time that the prophecies are going to be fulfilled, since the Revelation of Baha'u'llah revealed what will be necessary for us to carry out God's plans.

“God’s purpose is none other than to usher in, in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the Great, the Golden Age of a long-divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed even its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant—so radiant that no eye can visualize it.​

​

“The winds of despair,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, as He surveys the immediate destinies of mankind, “are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective.” “Such shall be its plight,” He, in another connection, has declared, “that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly.” “These fruitless strifes,” He, on the other hand, contemplating the future of mankind, has emphatically prophesied, in the course of His memorable interview with the Persian orientalist, Edward G. Browne, “these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come…. These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family.” “Soon,” He predicts, “will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.” “After a time,” He also has written, “all the governments on earth will change. Oppression will envelop the world. And following a universal convulsion, the sun of justice will rise from the horizon of the unseen realm.” “The whole earth,” He, moreover, has stated, “is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings.” “All nations and kindreds,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá likewise has written, “…will become a single nation. Religious and sectarian antagonism, the hostility of races and peoples, and differences among nations, will be eliminated. All men will adhere to one religion, will have one common faith, will be blended into one race, and become a single people. All will dwell in one common fatherland, which is the planet itself.”​

​

What we witness at the present time, during “this gravest crisis in the history of civilization,” recalling such times in which “religions have perished and are born,” is the adolescent stage in the slow and painful evolution of humanity, preparatory to the attainment of the stage of manhood, the stage of maturity, the promise of which is embedded in the teachings, and enshrined in the prophecies, of Bahá’u’lláh. The tumult of this age of transition is characteristic of the impetuosity and irrational instincts of youth, its follies, its prodigality, its pride, its self-assurance, its rebelliousness, and contempt of discipline.”​

​

The Promised Day Is Come, pp. 116-117​

Allow me to say that according to the Biblical account, God put life and death before Adam (and subsequently Eve). Eve was deceived. Adam was not. I'd like your thought about this. thanks. (They both died as a consequence of their actions.)

 

[YoursTrue]

I feel like these have been addressed. It's all the same answer.

• A man who could raise people from the dead like Jesus did to Jarius' daughter and Lazarus would have been immediately drafted by the Romans to raise their troops killed in battle.
  • It wasn't publicised the way you're imagining, Jesus traveled around, and he hid from the authorities
• A man who had been condemned by the Romans to be executed and who had come back alive would have been immediately rearrested by the Romans and crucified all over again.
  • He rose from the dead, then dissappeared. Correct me if I'm wrong?
• A man the gospels claims was so famous he could turn out 9,000 people to hear him on a mountainside and then feed them all with a couple of loaves and two fish would have caused all 100,000 people of the city of Jerusalem and the entire garrisoned army of Romans to turn out to watch him be crucified
  • Those numbers were probably greatly exaggerated, and there was no fear of divine retribution because it wasn't a lie about Jesus
• witness the supernatural darkness for 3 hours
  • embelished by the authors without fear of divine retribution because it's not a lie about Jesus
• the gigantic earthquake that in reality would have leveled Jerusalem to the ground
  • embelished by the authors without fear of divine retribution because it's not a lie about Jesus
• the zombie bodies of their forefathers coming out of their graves.
  • embelished by the authors without fear of divine retribution because it's not a lie about Jesus

Well, there were other miracle workers around at that time. Did they write about any of those other people? Even a tiny bit? It just doesn't seem like this is their genre. And like I said, all the absence shows is that the Jesus story was not as grand in scale.



Well sure, don't believe it. But that doesn't mean it's false.

If you're going to deny the gospel and other accounts, how do you feel about the account about Moses? What about Elijah, who raised a dead person? Do you believe these things or are they mythical to you? Many including those who base their religion on what happened with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob leading to Moses based their religious affiliation with these, yet consequently deny what is written. Me personally, dymbh, I had to come to a conclusion. It was not easy. I had to accept mentally and spiritually, heart, soul, and mind, that the Bible is truthful. I do not accept every religion claiming to be Christian, as you probably know. The Bible IS the word of God. Every week at least the Torah is taken out of the ark in the synagogue. To then declare it is mythical is yes, making a mockery of what is written. That includes those who claim they are so-called Christian. Many say they are but again, refuse to accept the biblical accounts as inspired, coming from God as truthful. One must have God's holy spirit to understand these things. I prayed. Yes, God answered my prayer.

 

[YoursTrue]

By the way, @dybmh , I like klezmer music, do you? I look forward very much to seeing my family in the resurrection, one of the things even Rambam (Maimonides) asserted. I look forward to meeting him also.

 

[YoursTrue]

Well, first of all, the audience were Jews. So those things about darkness, and earthquakes, and the dead rising, are all end-time prophecies in the OT. It's not about differentiating Jesus from the pagan gods, it's about confirming him as the Jewish moshiach.

I'm not changing the trajectory of the story, I'm reducing it.

So, this is how I understand it, and, you're welcome to disagree. If the gospel writers were God fearing people, they would be fearful of misquoting Jesus and of writing a story that did not accurately represent his actions. So, what they did was collect the stories of Jesus or the Jesuses, plural, ( there could have been several ), and then collate them into the gospels. As more stories came in, the differetn gospels were written, each one adding to the previous story, or adding a different perspective. But the gospel writers would not want to fabricate something. They wouldn't want to get zapped by lightning. I'm kidding, but you get the idea.

I think Bart Ehrman speaks about this a little bit, but from a different perspective. He says something like, "If the gospel writers were fabricating a messiah, they would have made him differently. More perfect, more successful." I agree. There's things in the gospels which are natually objectionable to Jewish people, but these elements were included in spite of that. Eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood, are anti-thetical to Jews. It's an obvious deal breaker for Jewish people, but this was included because, the authors didn't want to leave out something accurate about their Lord and saviour. If they wanted to fabricate a perfect Jewish messiah, they would have left this out.

So, the authors wouldn't lie about Jesus' words or actions if they were God fearing. They would include every word and deed as accurately as they could. But! Exaggerating those supernatural events after his death? There's wiggle room there. There's also wiggle room when it comes to how many people were fed by the loaves and fishes. You see, there's loopholes that a person can employ when it comes to bending the truth about setting and scope and events after Jesus' death. But a God fearing author would not do that when it comes to what Jesus said, and what Jesus did.

That's what I think.

As far as drinking Jesus' blood, we know it was wine. It was symbolic of Jesus' life and death. And more. Some do believe it literally turns into blood when they drink it, but this is not what the Bible says.

 

[Trailblazer]

OK, it was informative that (lol) they asked subjects to pray and then proceeded to see what happened? lol, I'm still chuckling here it's so nuts. I didn't read the article, only saw the comments about it, but did the article say -- lol again -- what the subjects prayed for?

Yes, it is nuts.

 

[Trailblazer]

Allow me to say that according to the Biblical account, God put life and death before Adam (and subsequently Eve). Eve was deceived. Adam was not. I'd like your thought about this. thanks. (They both died as a consequence of their actions.)

I do not believe that Adam and Eve died physically because they disobeyed God. I believe they died spiritually because they disobeyed God.
Regardless of whether or not they had disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree eventually they would have died physically since all humans were created to be mortal.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I can't find details of the 2006 study, but here is a very good summary of all the studies regarding intercessory prayer as well as the religious objections to using science to study it.

I'm quite familiar with the study and have referenced it often myself on these threads:

I guess you mean the deity of Christianity. I have ruled Him out

Yes, I do, the god of Genesis and of Abraham as taught by Christianity. And once you've done that - ruled that god out - religion is toothless. That religion, if you believe it, holds the soul hostage. People succumb to it out of fear that they will be kept awake after death just to be tortured for mistakes mad before death. They worship that version of a god out of fear, "What if it's true?" Once you eliminate the possibility of that deity existing, the possibility of an afterlife is no longer a threat, since even if there is one and even if it is unpleasant, that outcome was always in your future.

That's interesting. I wonder why you would want to 'try out' Christianity. How long did you try it out before you reverted to logic and reason?

I described it last year here. Thanks for asking. It was about a decade in Christianity for me.

And where you say, "reverted to logic and reason," I would say, "abandoned belief by faith." I never abandoned critical thinking. I set it aside provisionally to test the claims of a religion that called itself so absurd it must be true (Credo quia absurdum is Latin for "I believe because it is absurd").

I have long described tunneling back out of Christianity as being like a chick trying to hatch. It needs that sharp piece of beak called an egg tooth, without which, it presumably remains encased in shell. Critical thinking skills were my egg tooth. I don't know how one can escape that if one has completely silenced cognitive dissonance. And that's the state I see many people being in. I read what they write, and can see that they lack the egg tooth.

And they like it that way. They want that voice silenced, the one they have been told is Satan trying to steal their souls. "Not today, Satan!"

 

[dybmh]

If you're going to deny the gospel and other accounts, how do you feel about the account about Moses? What about Elijah, who raised a dead person? Do you believe these things or are they mythical to you? Many including those who base their religion on what happened with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob leading to Moses based their religious affiliation with these, yet consequently deny what is written. Me personally, dymbh, I had to come to a conclusion. It was not easy. I had to accept mentally and spiritually, heart, soul, and mind, that the Bible is truthful. I do not accept every religion claiming to be Christian, as you probably know. The Bible IS the word of God. Every week at least the Torah is taken out of the ark in the synagogue. To then declare it is mythical is yes, making a mockery of what is written. That includes those who claim they are so-called Christian. Many say they are but again, refuse to accept the biblical accounts as inspired, coming from God as truthful. One must have God's holy spirit to understand these things. I prayed. Yes, God answered my prayer.

I'm not saying it was mythical, that wasn't my intention. Only that the events could have been exaggerated without fear of heaven. The same could have happened in the stories of Abraham Issac and Jacob an Moses. And, it might not have been that way either. It could have been completely accurate with the assitance of miracles. My belief is not dependent on historical fact; but, I acknowledge the lack of evidence and what it means.

 

[Windwalker]

Well, I am embarrassed to confess that I actually find the topic of unity vs diversity boring as hell. I just couldn't move myself to get involved with it. I apologize sincerely.

Then you have no refutation to any or all of the points I originally made, since you are evading the topic points supporting them. In effect, you're just 'preaching' in other words, saying you're right, and when your 'facts' are challenged, you feign disinterest. And you say you don't want to be offensive? Did you evangelize like this when you were a fundamentalist Christian too?

 

[dybmh]

I'm quite familiar with the study and have referenced it often myself on these threads:

Good, but you do not seem to be familiar with the objections by religious people specifically Christians to the idea of praying in this way and studying it. You don't seem to be aware of the idea that "My will be done" is witchcraft, and that even though the participants in the study may have had the best intentions, the researchers, the one's who developed and carried out the study, were testing "MY will be done" ( the will of the researcher ), and not "THY will be done", whch is prayer.

Do you understand? They were testing the wrong thing.

Anyway, the link I brought details these objections, so that you can see that I am making a valid point. And I brought the link to info from a, let's just call them Satanic, group confirming that this idea of "MY will be done" is what is employed by those involved in LHP, the left hand path.