There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[leroy]

The Greek myths and Hindu scriptures contain real places and people. The entire history of Kings in in one of the Hindu books. That doesn't make Krishna a real demigod.
Mormonism contains real places and people as well. That doesn't mean we take serious the claims of the angel Moroni giving revelations. We even can verify the author who was visited by Moroni.

What we also know about the Gospels is Mark is most likely the source. Mark is writing a story that uses many types of fictive literary devices. Jesus scores 19 on the Rank Ragalin mythotype scale, Mark uses the Epistles, Kings, Moses narratives to create stories about Jesus. HE also uses Hellenistic savior demigod mythology in a Jewish context (syncretism) and transfigures the known Romulus narrative into a parallel story.
He writes a huge metaphor for Yom Kippur/Passover in the Barrabas/Jesus story, each character is one of the sacrificed goats, one being let free and one being sacrificed for the sins of Israel.
There are 20 close parallels with the Romulus/Jesus narrative. Hellenism blended with local religions was a trend happening at this time.

Just like you would NOT take any other mystery religion (local religions similar to Judaism mixed with Hellenism) as historical truth, regardless of how many actual places and real people were in the scripture, the Gospels are not history. They are religious fiction.

If you want the Gospels to have the same status as Josephus (that is absurd) then all mystery religions would share the same privilege as well as the Quran, Mormon upgrades to Christianity and many other religious myths.

The Synoptic Problem research has excellent evidence that Mark is the source for the others and the VAST internal and external evidence surrounding the Gospels show the names were added late 2nd century and they were anonymous and not eye-witnesses. Unlike actual historians who give sources and explanations, the only Gospel who plays at even being a historian is Luke and he does not do a good job at all.
We can get into specifics but this is not historical just for that reason alone. These do not read as history from a historian.

By the time historians are reporting on Christianity they are just reporting people follow some Gospel. Tacitus said it was a superstition.
There were also 50% Gnostic Gospels, 36 others in total. They were not separated until close to the 3rd century. The original canon (Marcionite) is forever lost. So if your Gospels are history, so are all 40, Gnosticism and any other sect during the 2nd century. They chose a set of beliefs not because they proved it correct but for political and faith reasons.
So your suggestion doesn't make sense on several levels.

Yes if you show that hindú myths report real events and real people and places (eith the same level of detail and accurecy of the gospels)

And you show thatbthe author of that myth was to report real history (what actually happen)

I would give the author of that myths the bebefit of the doubt


So build your case.... fir the hindú myths

 

[lukethethird]

This is subjective nonsense.

Intersubjective reality. Consensus reality. Language is a shared medium. Culture is a shared medium. It's a system of thought itself that we participate in that colorizes our reality. But it is still all a construct nonetheless. This is not debatable. It seems you are trying to see science as God here, existing outside of our subjectivities.

Yes, science as a tool tries to be objective, but even then it is far from perfect. I suppose you are not familiar with Kuhn's paradigms, are you? If you were, you might not be this naive.

Hahaha! Yeah, you are clueless what I am talking about. This all just makes you uncomfortable because it might mean you may not have the real Truth now, in the way you imagine you do, now that you found Science to replace God with. As I said, science is fantastic, but make no mistake, it's just a tool of symbolic representation of reality. Reality is a lot less fixed than you or I could possibly imagine.

Blah blah blah, you're right, I have no idea what you are on about, I don't do new age.

 

[Colt]

And the Quran is changing the course of history as well and is continuing to change lives today in a huge way. That doesn't mean it's all true.

Because the Quran contains spiritual truth sufficient to inspire faith in God.

True religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience.

 

[dybmh]

But you don’t either

I never said I did. But @Thrillobyte did.

 

[dybmh]

I counted 19 on the RR scale.

That's easy to show it's wrong.

1) Mary is not royal
2) Jesus was never an actual king
3) Jesus never battled any king, giant, nor beast. "Satan get behind me" is not a battle
4) There are details of Jesus' childood
5) He was not spirited away, his parents went with him

There's 22 total items. I found over 3 that are obvously false. Your count is wrong.

I don't remember the rest except for a list of subjects that are each expanded upon with examples and so on, that are some of the criteria used to determine prior probability on mythicism. RR being just one.

The RR is being exaggerated. If there is a strong argument to be made, then the RR would not need to be exaggerated. And the immediate accusation that a fellow PHD must be an apologist when they point out the RR is being skewed is completely inappropriate.

 

[dybmh]

RR hero type. 14 in Mark, 20 in Matthew. I count 19.

There you have it. Not only is the scale exaggerated, it's cherry picking the one gospel with the highest score.

And I counted 6, I think. That's because I didn't stretch the meaning of the items.

 

[dybmh]

I wish I understood why this is an issue to so many believers.

What's not to understand?

The gospel myths have much of the same form as older myths from surrounding peoples such as with virgin births of demigods who are resurrection after three days. What's the motivation for saying that one was not derived from ("inspired by") the other?

The fact that it's a weak assertion. And there's another rather obvious plausible explanation. These are common archetypes, and different people come up with similar stories all the time.

That wouldn't invalidate it as the then latest iteration of a common archetype in mythology, and very few are arguing for these stories being purely historical accounts any more, so what's the issue?

It's another example of claiming certainty while not knowing what they're actually talking about. There are so many pagan myths and pagan gods that if one searches long enought they will come up with similarities regardless of whether they are across the globe from each other.

And when these similarites are cited no one is considering the massive differences int eh stories, nor are they listing the massive number of myths that are not similar at all.

This same discussion arises here every Christmas and Easter regarding pagan rebirth and fertility symbols that have been assimilated into Christianity. There is always emotional debate over whether there is any pagan influence there. Here's one of many such threads. Note the impatience of the believers that the question is asked: Is Christmas Pagan?

Irrelevant.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

When the intent is to "amend" an existing religious revelation, that tends to make me very suspicious of the legitimacy of it (re: Joseph Smith's story).

Is that why there are 4 gospels?

 

[Windwalker]

Blah blah blah, you're right, I have no idea what you are on about, I don't do new age.

You don't do reason very well. You probably made a better fundamentalist Christian than you do an atheist.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well up to this point you haven't shown any other source/evidence apart from josefus

Not true. You just have a tendency to ignore sources.

Aja and so what? How does that proove that the census was in 6AC? And not in 4BC?

Once more, it was not part of Rome. Rome would have no business demanding a census.

So what ? Judea was a suborninate state in 4BC.....romans would have not care about jewsh laws

Client state. That means that they were still autonomous.

that is a red harring falacy. Even if you where correct , that has nothing to do with the date of the census.

It is not a red herring since it shows that the author of Luke was not all that bright. Or terribly dishonest. Your choice.

Care to explain your point about minor a major details (I honestly dont know what you mean)

ABOUT SPIDERMAN
Rembember that my argument had 2 parts

1 the authos of the gospels where well infomed

We have already established that the author of Luke was not. And so what?

2 the authors of the gospels reported what they honestly belived happened.


The author of Spideman might have "1" but not number "2" the author is not trying to report what actually happened. This is why spiderman and the gospels are not analogous.

Josephus has 1 and 2 this is why we trust josephus , and we would only reject a claim made by josephus if we have good reasons to do so (josephus has the benefit of the doubt)

What makes you think that the authors of the gospels were trying to pass on what actually happened? That is an unjustified assumption on your part.

So why cant the gospels and acts have the same status that josephus has ?

When did Josephus ever appeal to magic? And of course there are too many gross errors in the Gospels.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Because the Quran contains spiritual truth sufficient to inspire faith in God.

True religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience.

What is true religion in your personal opinion and/or according to your Christian beliefs?

It is my understanding that Muslims don't adhere to the Christian belief in eternal salvation through Jesus. It is also my understanding that they believe salvation is only attainable through the worship of God alone, and in order to be saved, a person must believe in God and follow His commandments (reference here). However, according to the Bible, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Do you consider what Muslims believe about Jesus "spiritual truth" even though they don't believe he is the Son of God and they don't believe that people need to accept him as their savior in order to be forgiven of their sins against God? In fact, according to the Islamic sources I've read (such as this one), Muslims believe people were born free of sin, and they don't believe that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross (reference here). Since they don't believe he died on the cross (another reference here), it stands to reason that they don't believe he was resurrected from the dead, which is a core belief in Christianity. Why do you believe the Quran contains spiritual truth when it doesn't teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on a cross and was resurrected to save people from their sins? How do you, as a Christian, reconcile what the Quran says about Jesus with what the Bible says about him?

 

[nPeace]

I don't see your last post to me and my reply from Thursday which you may have also replied to that post and that is also missing.

I think some other responses to my posts may be missing as well because I only had a few responses but was expecting more.

I didn't get to reply, sorry. It's good to know I didn't wake up as Nowhere Man, though.
Thanks for the heads-up @Trailblazer.

 

[nPeace]

FYI, RF is moving to another server so that's why lots of posts are missing, mine too. I would suggest not writing anything too long unless you save it somewhere else.

So, does that mean we won't be able to find posts we made a week, month, or year ago?

 

[Trailblazer]

So, does that mean we won't be able to find posts we made a week, month, or year ago?

I don't know if those posts will be restored or not. Maybe staff knows. I am not counting on it.

 

[dybmh]

So, does that mean we won't be able to find posts we made a week, month, or year ago?

reviewing what I know:

RF went down on 6/15 - Thursday. When it came back up around 4ish PM, it looked like the site was restored using a backup from late tuesday 6/13
RF went down again on 6/16 - Friday. When it came back up, not sure when, it looked like the same backup from Tuesday was used to bring the site back online. And this makes sense, if there was concerns about the stability of the server, the tech crew went back to a known good backup to do the restore, rather than experiment with a questionable config that was backed up sometime between Thrs and Fri. Also, it could be that the backup was skipped those days, if the server was down.

So, that's approx. 2ish days of posts that were lost. Not a complete 3 days because the site was down for a good chunk of that time. Sadly I did repost some content on Thursday evening or Friday morning, and it was lost again. I'm saving my lengthy oh-so-important posts ( sarcasm ) so I don't have to retype them. I'm not kidding about saving them, just about their importance. Hopefully my preventive actions will ward off any gremlins. Prepardness prevents.

 

[Colt]

What is true religion in your personal opinion and/or according to your Christian beliefs?

It is my understanding that Muslims don't adhere to the Christian belief in eternal salvation through Jesus. It is also my understanding that they believe salvation is only attainable through the worship of God alone, and in order to be saved, a person must believe in God and follow His commandments (reference here). However, according to the Bible, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Do you consider what Muslims believe about Jesus "spiritual truth" even though they don't believe he is the Son of God and they don't believe that people need to accept him as their savior in order to be forgiven of their sins against God? In fact, according to the Islamic sources I've read (such as this one), Muslims believe people were born free of sin, and they don't believe that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross (reference here). Since they don't believe he died on the cross (another reference here), it stands to reason that they don't believe he was resurrected from the dead, which is a core belief in Christianity. Why do you believe the Quran contains spiritual truth when it doesn't teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on a cross and was resurrected to save people from their sins? How do you, as a Christian, reconcile what the Quran says about Jesus with what the Bible says about him?

“Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience.” UB 1956

 

[leroy]

Not true. You just have a tendency to ignore sources.

Ok I will include this in the list of claims that you haven't support.

Client state. That means that they were still autonomous.

From Wikipedia...client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state").

So 2 things
1 Do tou admit that your USA Canadá comparison is wrong and incurate?

2 do you have any evidence that suggest that romans would never make a census in judea when it was a client state?


For example In 28 B.C., Emperor Augustus ordered a census in the province of Galatia, which at that time was a client state of the Roman Empire........so why assuming that judea had different rules ?

It is not a red herring since it shows that the author of Luke was not all that bright. Or terribly dishonest. Your choice.

ether one, the point is that even if you show that Luke made a mistake about the motive for why joseph traveled, that does nothing to prove that luke was wrong in the date of the census.


Josephus made a mistake on the date when Herod died.......does that mean that josephus is ether not very bright or dishonest? .....does this prove that josephus must have also been wrong on the date of the census?

If you are going to use ****y arguments you have to use them both ways

We have already established that the author of Luke was not. And so what?

Yes luke was well informed, we know this because most of the verifiable facts that he reports are true.

What makes you think that the authors of the gospels were trying to pass on what actually happened? That is an unjustified assumption on your part.

There are many reasons to suppose that the authors reported what they belived happened.

For example the criteria of embarasment , the authors reported events that where counterproductive to their agenda and purposes.

When did Josephus ever appeal to magic?

Coutless times..... josephus mentiones miracles, angels, celestial voises, Godlly interventions, signs, provenientes, divine interventions etc.

If you reject the gospels because they have magic, you should reject josephus for the same reason

And of course there are too many gross errors in the Gospels.

The errors (if any) are few compared to the ratio of correct claims ,...... there are also errors in josephus, so why dont you reject all his sources?

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

“Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience.” UB 1956

I see that you've modified your response to my post. First of all, I'm not familiar with The Urantia Book, but I did read a portion of the link you previously posted (which is located here). Secondly, you used a single quote from the link you posted in response to my first question about what you believe a true religion is, but you didn't elaborate on anything further. You also didn't answer any of the other questions I posed to you. Are you going to answer them?

My prior post:

It is my understanding that Muslims don't adhere to the Christian belief in eternal salvation through Jesus. It is also my understanding that they believe salvation is only attainable through the worship of God alone, and in order to be saved, a person must believe in God and follow His commandments (reference here). However, according to the Bible, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Do you consider what Muslims believe about Jesus "spiritual truth" even though they don't believe he is the Son of God and they don't believe that people need to accept him as their savior in order to be forgiven of their sins against God? In fact, according to the Islamic sources I've read (such as this one), Muslims believe people were born free of sin, and they don't believe that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross (reference here). Since they don't believe he died on the cross (another reference here), it stands to reason that they don't believe he was resurrected from the dead, which is a core belief in Christianity. Why do you believe the Quran contains spiritual truth when it doesn't teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on a cross and was resurrected to save people from their sins? How do you, as a Christian, reconcile what the Quran says about Jesus with what the Bible says about him?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok I will include this in the list of claims that you haven't support.

From Wikipedia...client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state").

So 2 things
1 Do tou admit that your USA Canadá comparison is wrong and incurate?

2 do you have any evidence that suggest that romans would never make a census in judea when it was a client state?


For example In 28 B.C., Emperor Augustus ordered a census in the province of Galatia, which at that time was a client state of the Roman Empire........so why assuming that judea had different rules ?



ether one, the point is that even if you show that Luke made a mistake about the motive for why joseph traveled, that does nothing to prove that luke was wrong in the date of the census.


Josephus made a mistake on the date when Herod died.......does that mean that josephus is ether not very bright or dishonest? .....does this prove that josephus must have also been wrong on the date of the census?

If you are going to use ****y arguments you have to use them both ways



Yes luke was well informed, we know this because most of the verifiable facts that he reports are true.



There are many reasons to suppose that the authors reported what they belived happened.

For example the criteria of embarasment , the authors reported events that where counterproductive to their agenda and purposes.


Coutless times..... josephus mentiones miracles, angels, celestial voises, Godlly interventions, signs, provenientes, divine interventions etc.

If you reject the gospels because they have magic, you should reject josephus for the same reason



The errors (if any) are few compared to the ratio of correct claims ,...... there are also errors in josephus, so why dont you reject all his sources?

Sorry, but you are clutching at straws. Try again. If you want a discussion and try to learn how you are wrong you need to be honest.

 

[joelr]

That's easy to show it's wrong.

1) Mary is not royal

Virgin. Some find the geneaology in Luke 3 gives her the Davidic family line which would be royal. Mother of God however is instant royalty status.

Virgin.
2) Jesus was never an actual king

In John he is King of the Jews. What Carrier might have been talking about in Matthew was the nativity scene where it is asked "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?".
But really, he's a king.

3) Jesus never battled any king, giant, nor beast. "Satan get behind me" is not a battle

Jesus confronts and defeats the temptations of the Devil (also known as the Adversary, and as a Serpent or Dragon and Prince of the World), in both cases before going to claim their kingdom. In earliest Christian tradition Satan is the power whom Jesus most decisively defeats so as to effect the salvation of the faithful ever after.

4) There are details of Jesus' childood

Nativity and a death threat. The period from 3-30 is left out.

5) He was not spirited away, his parents went with him

This means a general flight, fleeing for one's life for some reason. Oedipus was taken away to hide by a shepard after being left to die of exposure.

There's 22 total items. I found over 3 that are obvously false. Your count is wrong.

Those are not even close to obviously false? This is a general story-telling structure, not literal verbatim plot twists. It's a list about mythology.

The RR is being exaggerated. If there is a strong argument to be made, then the RR would not need to be exaggerated.

As I demonstrated in a 3 part list that is only a part of how prior probability is determined, the argument is strong. Calling an agrument strong or not strong when you know almost NONE OF IT, is absurd. What's actually being exaggerated with conjecture is everything you are saying about RR and the mythicist thesis. As well as the Hellenistic roots of the NT.

And the immediate accusation that a fellow PHD must be an apologist when they point out the RR is being skewed is completely inappropriate.

I called him an apologist because he's an apologist who makes apologist-y statements. His review was bizarre. re-link to it and I'll show you. He didn't read the book, thought RR was the main theme to the argument and more crank than I can remember.