8-) Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/sD9f0XU_S78 (http://youtu.be/sD9f0XU_S78)
http://youtu.be/frwlyx2u8JE (http://youtu.be/frwlyx2u8JE)
http://youtu.be/ovFFZ4iEFCo (http://youtu.be/ovFFZ4iEFCo)
Solitary
There are some errors. For instance Sirius sets in the west at about sunrise on December 25. Might have something to do with the myths, but it doesn't point at the sunrise on December 25. This is easily checked with Stellarium or any other planetarium type astronomy program.
Mithra was not pre-Christian. A contemporary or slightly behind Christ. Still, Mithra supports the proposition that Christianity is just an off-shoot of pagan ideas and rituals.
Another problem is that the time of the supposed Exodus was 1313 BCE, not 2150 BCE. Not that the myth can't make up whatever they want. So, I guess this isn't a big point.
Errors in the movie are pretty much nothing, compared to the errors in Holy Bible.
One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Jesus ain't got shit on Gandalf.
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Jesus ain't got shit on Gandalf.
Which myth is that?
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Jesus ain't got shit on Gandalf.
Which myth is that?
The Lord of the Rings.
Oh, silly me. :oops: It is likely that Tolkein and CS Lewis for that matter borrowed material from the historical Jesus, yet they still wrote their myths several centuries after Jesus lived.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Are you claiming that the resurrection myth is unique to the Jesus story? Or that it was better told?
Also, Tolkein, despite being a Christian, was explicit that the LOTR story was not an allegory of Biblical stories, rather just a story in itself.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Oh, silly me. :oops: It is likely that Tolkein and CS Lewis for that matter borrowed material from the historical Jesus, yet they still wrote their myths several centuries after Jesus lived.
You said nothing compares to Jesus' resurrection. I merely pointed out a far more badass example.
It's perfectly normal to take elements from stories you like and re-imagine them in a new setting that you feel improves the value of those elements. Storytellers have been doing it for as long as their craft has existed. It has nothing to do with whether or not a story is true.
I'm claiming that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an unparalleled historical event, unique to all religious and faith-based stories.
ETA: What I meant to say was that no myths prior to Christianity have anything like Jesus' Resurrection.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"I'm claiming that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an unparalleled historical event
Myths are not historical events. They are myths. They may be based on a shred of truth (flood myths probably come from the end of the Ice Age, for example), but they rarely depict the true events inspiring them.
I still think that the Osiris idea is pretty convincing as a story that predates the Jesus mythology by many years. You dismissed this citing the notion that the story 'changed', and that the idea of Osiris being resurrected was for differing reasons than Jesus.
This, naturally, is a conversation based on the idea that the resurrection mythology of Jesus is given as true; it's not. In fact, I believe it's utter hogwash; an allegorical story (at best) used to keep in line with the general themes of the book(s) it was written for.
There's no evidence any such event occurred except for what is written down in the bible. And the bible is not a very good guide for anything.
Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
'Modern scholars'?
Name them, cite articles, peer reviewed journals.
Go:
The rest of your assertions are just that. No evidence to support them, so they can be easily dismissed. Seems you're guilty of the following fallacious reasoning:
(//http://uphillwriting.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/circular-reasoning-works-because.jpg)
Ancient accounts tell of an important figure whose birth would be heralded by a star in the heavens, a god who would later judge the dead. He would be murdered in a betrayal by one close to him, his body hidden away — though not for long, as he would return in a miraculous resurrection to begin an eternal reign in heaven.
To his legions of followers, he (and his resurrection) came to symbolize the promise of eternal life.
The figure, Osiris, was the supreme god in ancient Egypt, only one of many pagan gods worshipped thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. Indeed, though Jesus is currently the best-known example of a resurrected figure, he is far from the only one.
Is resurrection real?
In modern times, there are a handful of documented cases of people coming back from the "dead," such as a condemned prisoner who somehow survived a hangman's noose (especially before the "long drop" was implemented to snap the neck), or an avalanche victim declared dead but who later recovers.
Though these cases are often characterized as miracles, they are better understood as medical misdiagnoses, since the victims were never fully and clinically dead. Some people have recovered after their heart stopped beating or their lungs stopped working, even for an hour or more. But the most important medical criterion is brain death, from which no one has recovered.
In mythology, the phoenix bird could live for a millennium before dying, whereupon it would burn brightly and arise, reborn from its own ashes. Though Islam largely rejects the idea of resurrection, like Christianity it promises an eternal afterlife.
In Eastern religions, the popular idea of karma is closely tied to resurrection and reincarnation. The concept of karma varies somewhat among Buddhists, Hindus, and Jainists but the popular understanding is that karma assures that good things will happen to good people and bad things to bad people. Karma in Buddhism holds that the fate of the soul is determined by its karma, its actions. Every act—whether good or bad, no matter how insignificant—will eventually return to the person who does it.
Most Westerners mistakenly assume the good or bad will come back during this lifetime ("what comes around goes around," as they say), but karma says that good (and bad) deeds will be rewarded in a future life, not this one. Furthermore, everything bad that happens to you is your own fault; karma says you deserve every moment of pain, anguish, and terror in your life, as you brought it upon yourself by some evil act in an earlier lifetime.
The New Age movement is also based on a form of resurrection myth. It is not a personal rebirth but instead a global one, a cleansing or renewal in which the antiquated, destructive old ways of thinking will be replaced by warmth and wisdom.
As fantastic as the world's resurrection stories are, they can't hold a candle to the legend of a friendly rabbit who dispenses colored chicken eggs to children once a year. :rollin: :roll: Solitary
More evidence!
The Pagan Origins of the Resurrection Myth
The new cult of the dead and risen messiah originally had a purely Jewish following. It was when the apostle Paul (not one of the original disciples of Jesus) started preaching around AD40 that the number of Gentile convert starts to swell. We have seen that in the letters of Paul the belief about Jesus' death and resurrection was very basic and undeveloped. In his first epistle to the Corinthians (15:3-8), all he said was that Jesus died, buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Paul further added that Jesus was seen by Peter, the apostles, James and finally by himself. Nothing was mentioned as to the day of the week that Jesus rose. Nothing was mentioned of the discovery of an empty tomb by the woman. Where did all these ideas come from if they were not historical?
As with the case of the nativity, these ideas came from pagan beliefs that were permeating the world of the early Gentile Christians. The new religion preached by Paul had to compete with the class of mystery religions that were popular among the Gentiles during that period.
Christianity's biggest rival during the first few centuries of its existence was Mithraism. Mithraism, the most popular of the mystery religions, had Persian roots and involves the worship of the Sun God, Mithra. During this time, Mithraism was virtually the official religion of the Roman Empire, being very popular especially with the military.
Many rituals and beliefs of Mithraism seemed so closely related to the Christian one that it becomes impossible to deny its influence on nascent Christianity. The Mithraists had a special day dedicated to their god. It was the first day of the week, which they appropriately called Sun-day, the "day of our Lord". Mithra was the God of the upper and nether world and it is he who will judge men's deeds.
The Jewish thinker, Philo had already identified the Logos with the Sun, it was therefore natural and inevitable that the early Christians should identify Jesus with such a symbol. Sunday became established as the Lord's Day for the Christians as well. From this observance of Sunday, the myth eventually evolved to connect the rising of Jesus with that day. It is worth noting that the Mithraist ritual involve the liturgical representation of the death, burial (also in a rock tomb!) and resurrection of the god Mithra.
Other contemporary mystery religions no doubt contributed to the evolution of Christian mythology. The Syrian cult of Adonis also had a large following during the time of early Christianity. Adonis, which means The Lord (Hebrew: Adonai), was represented in the liturgy as dying and then rising again on the third day. And in this liturgy it was the women who mourned his death and who found him risen on the third day.
The Egyptian cult of Osiris had a similar belief; for it was Osiris who was dead and rose again on the third day.
Early Christian liturgy was also clearly absorbed and imported from the mystery religions. The Greco-Roman cult of Dionysius had their God, born of the virgin, Semele, being torn to pieces by the Titans. He was then resurrected by his mother. In commemorating his sacrificial death, the devotees ate bread and wine to represent his body and blood. The Mithraist too had a eucharistic celebration very similar to the Christian one. And it was also Mithraism who first came up with the sign of the cross, made on the forehead. It was the supreme symbol of their belief. The worship of Osiris too involve veneration of the Osirian cross, the emblem of their god.
In fact the beliefs, rituals and liturgy of the mystery cults, which antedated Christianity [a], so closely paralleled the Christian ones that the early Church Fathers insisted that the devil must have had a hand in these cults!
The historical origin of the central events of Christianity did not begin with the actual resurrection of a Galilean Jew. It began when Jewish religious philosophy was grafted onto Greco-Roman paganism.
Notes
a. A typical fundamentalist apologetic sleight of hand is to claim that it was the pagan mysteries who copied the Christian story. In The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel quoted a fundamentalist apologist stating that "given the timing involved" it should be the pagans who plagiarized Christianity. Neither Strobel nor his chosen scholar, gave any further evidence for their claim.
Yet this claim is demonstrably false- for a couple of reasons:
It is well known that these mystery religion preceded Christianity by at least a few centuries. The myth of Adonis was known to the Greeks as early as the fifth century BCE. The Egyptian myth of Osiris dates back to at least 4,000 BCE and was recorded in detail by the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46-120 CE). The Persian Sun-God Mithras was mentioned in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus (c480-c245 BCE). The cult of Mithraism reached Rome in the first century BCE.
The way the early church fathers defended against the mystery religions showed that they knew these pagan myths antedated the Christian ones. Justin Martyr (c160-165) claimed that the devil plagiarized Christianity by anticipation with the pagan religions in order to lead people from the true faith. He claimed the myth of the virgin birth of Perseus, an ancient Greek legend that preceded Christianity, was pre-copied by the "deceiving serpent" (Dialogue with Trypho: 70).
Similarly he asserted that the cultic rites of Mithraism had a diabolical origin (Apology 1:66). Tertulian (c160-c225) made the same claim: that it was the devil that provided this "mimicry". That the church fathers would resort to the absurd theory of pre-mimicry (i.e. the copy coming before the original) means that they could not make the claim that the pagan mystery religions copied from Christianity! Why couldn't they? Because it must have been well known to them and to their audience which came first!
It's so funny to hear "modern historians" claim, and nothing from historians the time Christ was Crucified. :roll: Solitary
PilatesQuestion wrote in part:
QuotePaul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
Wasn't Paul, like Mohammad, subject to seizures? If so, that doesn't make him a very reliable witness. Writing a lot does not make you more reliable in reporting the truth. It just makes you a more prolific writer. Like Isaac Asimov or Louis L'Amour.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Keep reading! There's more than one. :roll: Solitary
Double post. Sorry! :oops:
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Oh, silly me. :oops: It is likely that Tolkein and CS Lewis for that matter borrowed material from the historical Jesus, yet they still wrote their myths several centuries after Jesus lived.
Like the Jesus myth that was written 40-60 years after Jesus died, and not one thing when He did. :roll: Solitary
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
How in the world could modern scholars know what happened with regard to Jesus when there is not one shred of historical writing about Him when He was alive? :roll:
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"PilatesQuestion wrote in part:
QuotePaul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
Wasn't Paul, like Mohammad, subject to seizures? If so, that doesn't make him a very reliable witness. Writing a lot does not make you more reliable in reporting the truth. It just makes you a more prolific writer. Like Isaac Asimov or Louis L'Amour.
Paul didn't even write about the Christian Jesus, he wrote about a sky-godlet named Yeshua, who lived in the 7th heaven, had to go down to the first heaven to be killed, then returned (the "resurrection") to the 7th heaven. No crucifixion, no Pilate, no empty tomb. That was made up later by the gospel writers.
BTW, Paul's "according to scripture" was "according to the Old Testament". There was no New Testament until centuries later.
@Solitary: Modern scholars not only study the reliability of the Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but also the historical accounts written by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Tertellion, and others.
@Colanth: Could you provide Biblical references for your claims? Paul does talk about Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and Philippians 2, for starters. Paul wrote his letters less than 40 years after the death of Jesus. Mark wrote his Gospel about 50 years after Jesus' death. Luke, Matthew, and John wrote their Gospels within the century of Jesus' death, so these documents were not written centuries later. :)
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"@Solitary: Modern scholars not only study the reliability of the Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but also the historical accounts written by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Tertellion, and others.
@Colanth: Could you provide Biblical references for your claims? Paul does talk about Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and Philippians 2, for starters. Paul wrote his letters less than 40 years after the death of Jesus. Mark wrote his Gospel about 50 years after Jesus' death. Luke, Matthew, and John wrote their Gospels within the century of Jesus' death, so these documents were not written centuries later. :)
Please explain how anyone could know the reliability of historical accounts that are written 40-60 after the fact based on hearsay?
This then could very well have served as the ignition and flame for the future growth of Christianity. Biblical scholars tell us that the early Christians lived within pagan communities.
Jewish scriptural beliefs coupled with the pagan myths of the time give sufficient information about how such a religion could have formed. Many of the Hellenistic and pagan myths parallel so closely to the alleged Jesus that to ignore its similarities means to ignore the mythological beliefs of history.
Dozens of similar savior stories propagated the minds of humans long before the alleged life of Jesus. Virtually nothing about Jesus "the Christ" came to the Christians as original or new.
For example, the religion of Zoroaster, founded circa 628-551 B.C.E. in ancient Persia, roused mankind in the need for hating a devil, the belief of a paradise, last judgment and resurrection of the dead. Mithraism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism probably influenced early Christianity. The Magi described in the New Testament appears as Zoroastrian priests. Note the word "paradise" came from the Persian pairidaeza.
Osiris, Hercules, Hermes, Prometheus, Perseus, Romulus, and others compare to the Christian myth. According to Patrick Campbell of The Mythical Jesus, all served as pre-Christian sun gods, yet all allegedly had gods for fathers, virgins for mothers; had their births announced by stars; got born on the solstice around December 25th; had tyrants who tried to kill them in their infancy; met violent deaths; rose from the dead; and nearly all got worshiped by "wise men" and had allegedly fasted for forty days. [McKinsey, Chapter 5]
Even Justin Martyr recognized the analogies between Christianity and Paganism. To the Pagans, he wrote: "When we say that the Word, who is first born of God, was produced without sexual union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter (Zeus)." [First Apology, ch. xxi]
Virtually all of the mythical accounts of a savior Jesus have parallels to past pagan mythologies which existed long before Christianity and from the Jewish scriptures that we now call the Old Testament. The accounts of these myths say nothing about historical reality, but they do say a lot about believers, how they believed, and how their beliefs spread.
In the book The Jesus Puzzle, the biblical scholar, Earl Doherty, presents not only a challenge to the existence of an historical Jesus but reveals that early pre-Gospel Christian documents show that the concept of Jesus sprang from non-historical spiritual beliefs of a Christ derived from Jewish scripture and Hellenized myths of savior gods. Nowhere do any of the New Testament epistle writers describe a human Jesus, including Paul. None of the epistles mention a Jesus from Nazareth, an earthly teacher, or as a human miracle worker. Nowhere do we find these writers quoting Jesus.
Nowhere do we find them describing any details of Jesus' life on earth or his followers. Nowhere do we find the epistle writers even using the word "disciple" (they of course use the term "apostle" but the word simply means messenger, as Paul saw himself). Except for a few well known interpolations, Jesus always gets presented as a spiritual being that existed before all time with God, and that knowledge of Christ came directly from God or as a revelation from the word of scripture. Doherty writes, "Christian documents outside the Gospels, even at the end of the first century and beyond, show no evidence that any tradition about an earthly life and ministry of Jesus were in circulation."
Furthermore, the epistle to the Hebrews (8:4), makes it explicitly clear that the epistle writer did not believe in a historical Jesus: "If He [Jesus] had been on earth, He would not be a priest."
Did the Christians copy (or steal) the pagan ideas directly into their own faith? Not necessarily. They may have gotten many of their beliefs through syncretism or through independent hero archetype worship, innate to human story telling. If gotten through syncretism, Jews and pagans could very well have influenced the first Christians, especially the ideas of salvation and beliefs about good and evil. Later, at the time of the gospels, other myths may entered Christian beliefs such a the virgin birth and miracles.
In the 4th century, we know that Christians derived the birthday of Jesus from the pagans. If gotten through independent means, it still says nothing about Christian originality because we know that pagans had beliefs about incarnated gods, long before Christianity existed. The hero archetypes still exist in our story telling today. As one personal example, as a boy I used to read and collect Superman comics. It never occurred to me at the time to see Superman as a Christ-figure. Yet, if you analyze Superman and Jesus stories, they have uncanny similarities.
In fact the movie Superman Returns explicitly tells the Superman story through a savior's point of view without once mentioning Jesus, yet Christians would innately know the connection. Other movies like Star Wars, Phenomenon, K-PAX, The Matrix, etc. also covertly tell savior stories. So whether the first Christians borrowed or independently came up with a savior story makes no difference whatsoever. The point here only aims to illustrate that Christians did not originate the savior story.
The early historical documents can prove nothing about an actual Jesus but they do show an evolution of belief derived from varied and diverse concepts of Christianity, starting from a purely spiritual form of Christ to a human figure who embodied that spirit, as portrayed in the Gospels. The New Testament stories appears as an eclectic hodgepodge of Jewish, Hellenized and pagan stories compiled by pietistic believers to appeal to an audience for their particular religious times.
A NOTE ABOUT DATING:
The A.D. (Anno Domini, or "year of our Lord") dating method derived from a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little), in the sixth-century who used it in his Easter tables. Oddly, some people seem to think this has relevance to a historical Jesus. But of course it has nothing at all to do with it. In the time before and during the 6th century, people used various other dating methods. The Romans used A.U.C. (anno urbis conditae, "year of the founded city," that being Rome). The Jews had their own dating system.
Not until the tenth century did most churches accept the new dating system. The A.D. system simply reset the time of January 1, 754 A.U.C. to January 1, of year one A.D., which Dionysius obliquely derived from the belief of the date of "incarnation" of Jesus. The date, if one uses the Bible as history, can't possibly hold true. *
Instead of B.C. and A.D., I have used the convention of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) as often used in scholarly literature. They correspond to the same dates as B.C. and A.D., but without alluding to the birth or death of an alleged Christ.
* Dionysius believed that the conception (incarnation) of Jesus occurred on March 25. This meant that the conception must have occurred nine months later on December 25, probably not coincidentally, the very same date that the Emperor Aurelian, in 274 C.E., declared December 25 a holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336 C.E., Christians replaced Mithras with Jesus' birth on the same date. Dionysius then declared the new year several days later on January 1, probably to coincide with the traditional Roman year starting on January 1st. Dionysius probably never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus because the Matthew gospel says his birth occurred while Herod served as King.
That meant that if he did exist, his birth would have to occur in 4 B.C.E. or earlier. He made another 'mistake' by assigning the first year as 1 instead of 0 (everyone's birthday starts at year 0, not 1). The concept of zero (invented from Arabia and India) didn't come into Europe until about two hundred years later.
QUOTES FROM A FEW SCHOLARS:
Although the majority of scholars today believe that a Jesus lived on earth, the reasons for this appear suspicious once you consider the history and evolution of Jesus scholarship. Hundreds of years ago all Biblical scholars believed in God. Considering their Christian beliefs, they would, of course, believe in a historical Jesus. In the last two centuries, the school has loosened up a bit, and today they even allow atheists into their study rooms. But even today you had better allude to a historical Jesus even if you question the reliability of the sources, otherwise, you may not have a job. If, indeed, Bible scholars did allow skeptics of a historical Jesus into their studies, and they presented a convincing case, that could threaten the very branch of Jesus scholarship that studied a historical Jesus. It could very well disappear like that of euhermerism.
Although some secular freethinkers and atheists accept a historical Jesus (minus the miracles), they, like most Christians, simply accept the traditional view without question. As time goes on, more and more scholars have begun to open the way to a more honest look at the evidence, or should I say, the lack of evidence. So for those who wish to rely on scholarly opinion, I will give a few quotes from Biblical researchers and scholars, past and present:
When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up.
-Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
The world has been for a long time engaged in writing lives of Jesus... The library of such books has grown since then. But when we come to examine them, one startling fact confronts us: all of these books relate to a personage concerning whom there does not exist a single scrap of contemporary information -- not one! By accepted tradition he was born in the reign of Augustus, the great literary age of the nation of which he was a subject. In the Augustan age historians flourished; poets, orators, critics and travelers abounded. Yet not one mentions the name of Jesus Christ, much less any incident in his life.
-Moncure D. Conway [1832 - 1907] (Modern Thought)
It is only in comparatively modern times that the possibility was considered that Jesus does not belong to history at all.
-J.M. Robertson (Pagan Christs)
Many people-- then and now-- have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as "letters of Paul." Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen "Pauline" letters now included in the New Testament. collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus-- letters written in a style different from Paul's and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul's own letters. About the authorship of Ephesias, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the "deutero-Pauline"-- literally, secondarily Pauline-- letters."
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (Adam, Eve, and the Serpent)
We know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (The Gnostic Gospels)
Some hoped to penetrate the various accounts and to discover the "historical Jesus". . . and that sorting out "authentic" material in the gospels was virtually impossible in the absence of independent evidence."
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University
The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second-century guesses, are all four wrong.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Far from being an intimate of an intimate of Jesus, Mark wrote at the forth remove from Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Mark himself clearly did not know any eyewitnesses of Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.
-Steve Mason, professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto (Bible Review, Feb. 2000, p. 36)
The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.
-Bishop John Shelby Spong
But even if it could be proved that John's Gospel had been the first of the four to be written down, there would still be considerable confusion as to who "John" was. For the various styles of the New Testament texts ascribed to John- The Gospel, the letters, and the Book of Revelations-- are each so different in their style that it is extremely unlikely that they had been written by one person.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
It was not until the third century that Jesus' cross of execution became a common symbol of the Christian faith.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
What one believes and what one can demonstrate historically are usually two different things.
-Robert J. Miller, Bible scholar, (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p. 9)
When it comes to the historical question about the Gospels, I adopt a mediating position-- that is, these are religious records, close to the sources, but they are not in accordance with modern historiographic requirements or professional standards.
-David Noel Freedman, Bible scholar and general editor of the Anchor Bible series (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p.34)
Paul did not write the letters to Timothy to Titus or several others published under his name; and it is unlikely that the apostles Matthew, James, Jude, Peter and John had anything to do with the canonical books ascribed to them.
-Michael D. Coogan, Professor of religious studies at Stonehill College (Bible Review, June 1994)
A generation after Jesus' death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large number of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E.
-Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College (Bible Review, Dec. 1994, p. 37)
James Dunn says that the Sermon on the Mount, mentioned only by Matthew, "is in fact not historical."
How historical can the Gospels be? Are Murphy-O-Conner's speculations concerning Jesus' baptism by John simply wrong-headed? How can we really know if the baptism, or any other event written about in the Gospels, is historical?
-Daniel P. Sullivan (Bible Review, June 1996, Vol. XII, Number 3, p. 5)
David Friedrich Strauss (The Life of Jesus, 1836), had argued that the Gospels could not be read as straightforward accounts of what Jesus actually did and said; rather, the evangelists and later redactors and commentators, influenced by their religious beliefs, had made use of myths and legends that rendered the gospel narratives, and traditional accounts of Jesus' life, unreliable as sources of historical information.
-Bible Review, October 1996, Vol. XII, Number 5, p. 39
The Gospel authors were Jews writing within the midrashic tradition and intended their stories to be read as interpretive narratives, not historical accounts.
-Bishop Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels
Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "Who Wrote the Bible," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Yet today, there are few Biblical scholars-- from liberal skeptics to conservative evangelicals- who believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels. Nowhere do the writers of the texts identify themselves by name or claim unambiguously to have known or traveled with Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Once written, many experts believe, the Gospels were redacted, or edited, repeatedly as they were copied and circulated among church elders during the last first and early second centuries.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The tradition attributing the fourth Gospel to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is first noted by Irenaeus in A.D. 180. It is a tradition based largely on what some view as the writer's reference to himself as "the beloved disciple" and "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Current objection to John's authorship are based largely on modern textural analyses that strongly suggest the fourth Gospel was the work of several hands, probably followers of an elderly teacher in Asia Minor named John who claimed as a young man to have been a disciple of Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Some scholars say so many revisions occurred in the 100 years following Jesus' death that no one can be absolutely sure of the accuracy or authenticity of the Gospels, especially of the words the authors attributed to Jesus himself.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Three letters that Paul allegedly wrote to his friends and former co-workers Timothy and Titus are now widely disputed as having come from Paul's hand.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The Epistle of James is a practical book, light on theology and full of advice on ethical behavior. Even so, its place in the Bible has been challenged repeatedly over the years. It is generally believed to have been written near the end of the first century to Jewish Christians. . . but scholars are unable conclusively to identify the writer.
Five men named James appear in the New Testament: the brother of Jesus, the son of Zebedee, the son of Alphaeus, "James the younger" and the father of the Apostle Jude.
Little is known of the last three, and since the son of Zebedee was martyred in A.D. 44, tradition has leaned toward the brother of Jesus. However, the writer never claims to be Jesus' brother. And scholars find the language too erudite for a simple Palestinian. This letter is also disputed on theological grounds. Martin Luther called it "an epistle of straw" that did not belong in the Bible because it seemed to contradict Paul's teachings that salvation comes by faith as a "gift of God"-- not by good works.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The origins of the three letters of John are also far from certain.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Christian tradition has held that the Apostle Peter wrote the first [letter], probably in Rome shortly before his martyrdom about A.D. 65. However, some modern scholars cite the epistle's cultivated language and its references to persecutions that did not occur until the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) as evidence that it was actually written by Peter's disciples sometime later.
Second Peter has suffered even harsher scrutiny. Many scholars consider it the latest of all New Testament books, written around A.D. 125. The letter was never mentioned in second-century writings and was excluded from some church canons into the fifth century. "This letter cannot have been written by Peter," wrote Werner Kummel, a Heidelberg University scholar, in his highly regarded Introduction to the New Testament.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The letter of Jude also is considered too late to have been written by the attested author-- "the brother of James" and, thus, of Jesus. The letter, believed written early in the second century.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
According to the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, a faithful account of the actions and words of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the existence in the text of contradictions, improbabilities, things which are materially impossible or statements which run contrary to firmly established reality.
-Maurice Bucaille (The Bible, the Quran, and Science)
The bottom line is we really don't know for sure who wrote the Gospels.
-Jerome Neyrey, of the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. in "The Four Gospels," (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Most scholars have come to acknowledge, was done not by the Apostles but by their anonymous followers (or their followers' followers). Each presented a somewhat different picture of Jesus' life. The earliest appeared to have been written some 40 years after his Crucifixion.
-David Van Biema, "The Gospel Truth?" (Time, April 8, 1996)
So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that "we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus."
-Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926
The Synoptic Gospels employ techniques that we today associate with fiction.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
Josephus says that he himself witnessed a certain Eleazar casting out demons by a method of exorcism that had been given to Solomon by God himself-- while Vespasian watched! In the same work, Josephus tells the story of a rainmaker, Onias (14.2.1).
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
For Mark's gospel to work, for instance, you must believe that Isaiah 40:3 (quoted, in a slightly distorted form, in Mark 1:2-3) correctly predicted that a stranger named John would come out of the desert to prepare the way for Jesus. It will then come as something of a surprise to learn in the first chapter of Luke that John is a near relative, well known to Jesus' family.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
The narrative conventions and world outlook of the gospel prohibit our using it as a historical record of that year.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 54)
Jesus is a mythical figure in the tradition of pagan mythology and almost nothing in all of ancient literature would lead one to believe otherwise. Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it.
-C. Dennis McKinsey, Bible critic (The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy)
The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They're not biographies.
-Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University (in the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, aired in 1998)
The gospels are not eyewitness accounts
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
We are led to conclude that, in Paul's past, there was no historical Jesus. Rather, the activities of the Son about which God's gospel in scripture told, as interpreted by Paul, had taken place in the spiritual realm and were accessible only through revelation.
-Earl Doherty, "The Jesus Puzzle," p.83
Before the Gospels were adopted as history, no record exists that he was ever in the city of Jerusalem at all-- or anywhere else on earth.
-Earl Doherty, "The Jesus Puzzle," p.141
Even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every "historical Jesus" is a Christ of faith, of somebody's faith. So the "historical Jesus" of modern scholarship is no less a fiction.
-Robert M. Price, "Jesus: Fact or Fiction, A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin," Opening Statement
It is important to recognize the obvious: The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last."
(Deconstructing Jesus, p. 260)
CONCLUSION
Belief cannot produce historical fact, and claims that come from nothing but hearsay do not amount to an honest attempt to get at the facts. Even with eyewitness accounts we must tread carefully. Simply because someone makes a claim, does not mean it represents reality. For example, consider some of the bogus claims that supposedly come from many eyewitness accounts of alien extraterrestrials and their space craft. They not only assert eyewitnesses but present blurry photos to boot! If we can question these accounts, then why should we not question claims that come from hearsay even more? Moreover, consider that the hearsay comes from ancient and unknown people that no longer live.
Unfortunately, belief and faith substitute as knowledge in many people's minds and nothing, even direct evidence thrust on the feet of their claims, could possibly change their minds. We have many stories, myths and beliefs of a Jesus but if we wish to establish the facts of history, we cannot even begin to put together a knowledgeable account without at least a few reliable eyewitness accounts.
Of course a historical Jesus may have existed, perhaps based loosely on a living human even though his actual history got lost, but this amounts to nothing but speculation. However we do have an abundance of evidence supporting the mythical evolution of Jesus. Virtually every detail in the gospel stories occurred in pagan and/or Hebrew stories, long before the advent of Christianity. We simply do not have a shred of evidence to determine the historicity of a Jesus "the Christ." We only have evidence for the belief of Jesus.
So if -Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute you hear anyone who claims to have evidence for a witness of a historical Jesus, simply ask for the author's birth date. Anyone whose birth occurred after an event cannot serve as an eyewitness, nor can their words alone serve as evidence for that event.
Sources (click on a blue highlighted title if you'd like to obtain it or read it):
Briant, Pierre, "Alexander the Great: Man of Action Man of Spirit," Harry N. Abrams, 1996
Carrier, Richard, "Reply to McFall on Jesus as a Philosopher (2004)"
Crossan, J.D., "Jesus: a revolutionry biography," HarperOne, 1995
Doherty, Earl, "The Jesus Puzzle," Canadian Humanist Publications, 1999
Flavius, Josephus (37 or 38-circa 101 C.E.), Antiquities
Gauvin, Marshall J., "Did Jesus Christ Really Live?" (from: http://www.infidels.org/ (http://www.infidels.org/))
Gould, Stephen Jay "Dinosaur in a Haystack," (Chapter 2), Harmony Books, New York, 1995
Graham, Henry Grey, Rev., "Where we got the Bible," B. Heder Book Company, 1960
Helms, Randel McCraw , "Who Wrote the Gospels?", Millennium Press, 1997
Irenaeus of Lyon (140?-202? C.E.), Against the Heresies
McKinsey, C. Dennis "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy," Prometheus Books, 1995
Metzger, Bruce,"The Text of the New Testament-- Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration," Oxford University Press, 1968
Pagels, Elaine, "The Gnostic Gospels," Vintage Books, New York, 1979
Pagels, Elaine, "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent," Vintage Books, New York, 1988
Pagels, Elaine, "The Origin of Satan," Random House, New York, 1995
Potter, David Stone, Mattingly, Dr. David J., "Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire, Univ. of Michigan Press, 2010
Price, Robert M.," Deconstructing Jesus," Prometheus Books, 2000
Pritchard, John Paul, "A Literary Approach to the New Testament," Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1972
Robertson, J.M. "Pagan Christs," Barnes & Noble Books, 1966
Romer, John, "Testament : The Bible and History," Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1988
Schonfield, Hugh Joseph, "A History of Biblical Literature," New American Library, 1962
Spong, Bishop Shelby, "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism," HarperSanFrancisco, 1991
Tacitus (55?-117? C.E.), Annals
Wilson, Dorothy Frances, "The Gospel Sources, some results of modern scholarship," London, Student Christian Movement press, 1938
The Revell Bible Dictionary," Wynwood Press, New York, 1990
King James Bible, 1611
U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990
Various issues of Bible Review magazine, published by the Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington D.C.
Online sources:
[1] Epistle of James, from Theopedia
[2] Epistles of John, Wikipedia
[3] First Epistle of Peter, from Theopedia
[4] Second Epistle of Peter, from Theopedia
Solitary
If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications.
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
[youtube:2pjuz5oa]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yHDBHxAfI[/youtube:2pjuz5oa]
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications. What leap of logic makes you think that. There are historical accounts written when they existed by historians that lived at the same time period, not 40-60 years later :roll: .
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable Reliable? I can remember in grade school where we did a test and someone told a story to the person next to them that no one could hear. This went all around the class room and the last person told the story that didn't even resemble the original.
Give me a break! oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. You would think they would have written such a fantastic story then, not 40-60 years later wouldn't you?Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions. This is not true at all! Get a book on myths and study it.
This actual unbiased historian begs to differ with your evidence:
http://youtu.be/mwUZOZN-9dc (http://youtu.be/mwUZOZN-9dc) :roll: Solitary
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications.
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
Nonsense.
The actions of those and countless thousands of others are written and corroborated by countless testimonies from people at the time. Unlike the myth of Jesus where nobody even wrote about him for several decades after he supposedly died, people at the time we writing about the men (such as Caesar) and their escapades. The Romans were very good at documenting things.
You can go to the roman forum in Rome anytime you want and see busts and graffiti of Caesar, and that's not even mentioning all the other corroborating evidence that easily satisfies the question as to whether he existed.
You keep saying 'modern scholars'. Cite examples. Who are they? What have they written? Where can we find their texts so we may validate them ourselves?
Just asserting that the Jesus myth is true doesn't make it so. You need to stop using fallacious reasoning and start admitting that your beliefs are based on un-evidenced faith.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"There are some errors. For instance Sirius sets in the west at about sunrise on December 25. Might have something to do with the myths, but it doesn't point at the sunrise on December 25. This is easily checked with Stellarium or any other planetarium type astronomy program.
Mithra was not pre-Christian. A contemporary or slightly behind Christ. Still, Mithra supports the proposition that Christianity is just an off-shoot of pagan ideas and rituals.
Another problem is that the time of the supposed Exodus was 1313 BCE, not 2150 BCE. Not that the myth can't make up whatever they want. So, I guess this isn't a big point.
Errors in the movie are pretty much nothing, compared to the errors in Holy Bible.
""The god is found as "Mitra" in the Indian Vedic religion, which is over 3,500 years old, by conservative estimates..""
http://www.websitesonadime.com/ffwic/mithra.htm (http://www.websitesonadime.com/ffwic/mithra.htm)
Just to be clear - Roman Mithrasism does not predate Christ. The rest of the planet where Mithras was a god Does predate christianity.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
That's like saying Edgar Rice Burroughs was evidence for Tarzan.
Sorry Jesus, Prometheus did more for me than you ever did. He didn't die and go to paradise for my sins... he spent the rest of eternity being tortured for my standard of living and intelligence.
Quote from: "SGOS"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
That's like saying Edgar Rice Burroughs was evidence for Tarzan.
:rollin: That's laugh-out-LOUD funny, Sgos
WitchSabrina wrote in part:
QuoteJust to be clear - Roman Mithrasism does not predate Christ. The rest of the planet where Mithras was a god Does predate christianity.
Thank you for clarifying that. I was going off the top of my head from a lecture I heard on YouTube. I forget the modern scholar's name who said that Mithras did not predate Christianty. =D>
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"@Solitary: Modern scholars not only study the reliability of the Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but also the historical accounts written by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Tertellion, and others.
Studying the reliability, rather than studying the document, isn't scholarship, it's apologism. (Studying the reliability starts with the premise that it's reliable, then looking to see if there's anything that would contradict that premise. As far as scholarship goes, that's a few steps down from piss-poor.)
SCHOLARS doubt most of the Bible, Christian apologists are convinced of its reliability.
Quote@Colanth: Could you provide Biblical references for your claims? Paul does talk about Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and Philippians 2, for starters. Paul wrote his letters less than 40 years after the death of Jesus.
1) There's no ACTUAL evidence that the Jesus of the Bible ever existed.
2) There's no extant writing claiming to be Paul's from "40 years after the death of Jesus". Ignatius of Antioch wrote (ca 110 CE) something similar to parts of Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians - which may or may not mean something. (The books could have been quoting Ignatius. Writing in 110, he would have had absolutely no first-hand knowledge of the events. Most likely not even second hand knowledge.) See also //http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Criticism
QuoteMark wrote his Gospel
This is one of the most common marks of a total lack of scholarship. Almost every scholar (not apologists) agrees that the gospels weren't written by people with the names of the gospels.
Quoteabout 50 years after Jesus' death.
See #1 above and, since the earliest writing that could have been part of what later became the Bible dates to 110, we can't know that. The "no later than 60 CE" or "no later than 70 CE" are faulty textual analyses ("the author would certainly have mentioned momentous events occurring later if he had been writing later" - bullshit) by people who need the Bible to have been written by people who actually knew Jesus. If I write a book about Lincoln's last day, now, of course I wouldn't include anything that happened after 4/15/1865, if I wanted it to claim that it was written by someone who knew him. They may have been primitive by our standards, but they weren't morons.
QuoteLuke, Matthew, and John wrote their Gospels within the century of Jesus' death, so these documents were not written centuries later. :)
Again - no. If you can present a manuscript that confidently dates (C-14 will do) from, say, 70 CE or earlier, everyone would be interested.
But "we have documents written by so-and-so that we know were written no later than 73 CE and mention Yeshua ben Yosuf"? That's Christian myth, not verified history. Only people with degrees that DON'T qualify them to know any more about it than anyone else claim that as an expert opinion. Experts say "we don't have any evidence".
Oh, we DO have evidence that a lot of the claims are FALSE. Like Jesus of Nazareth? The town that didn't exist until long after he was dead? (Where Nazareth is were 2 farms in the 1st century.) We even know where the myth came from. It was Jesus the Nazorite, one dedicated to God from birth. It got mistranslated to Nazarene. Once people believed that Jesus came from a place named Nazareth, they started going "there" (like they go to his "tomb", even though its actual location, if it even exists, is pure conjecture). And, if you like Josephus as an accurate source, he made an exhaustive list of all cities and towns in the area - and never mentioned anyplace called Nazareth. (And his reference to Jesus is such an obvious forgery to scholars that it's not disputed.)
There's a lot more actual evidence that the Jesus of the Bible never existed than there is that he existed (which is actually none at all).
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate
There are no historical accounts of Jesus, there are only Biblical accounts. And, since the "history" of the Bible is so obviously wrong in so many places, it's not an historical source.
QuoteBefore the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition
No evidence of that AT ALL. The disciples, the martyrs - all later Christian myth as far as actual evidence is concerned. The fact that Christianity asserts that the Pauline works date from around 70 CE isn't evidence that they do. The fact that Ignatius' documents (which may actually be the SOURCE of the Pauline documents) DO date from around 110 CE DOES mean that they do.
QuoteMoreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers.
As I've said before, a) "Jesus' closest followers" is myth, and we have absolutely no idea when the gospels were written (or by whom).
QuoteFurthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
And again, no, for reasons I gave you upthread.
QuoteWe could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
You could argue all day. Most Christians could argue all day. Scholars laid this to rest by the end of the 19th century. From there on, it's just more of the myth being propagated.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I forget the modern scholar's name who said that Mithras did not predate Christianty. =D>
William Lame Craig? :shock:
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition
The oral tradition! Yeah, like that's really reliable. There is absolutely no record of the original story, so no one can go back to see what the original story even said. There's nothing magical or superior about the oral tradition. It was just the only thing available to illiterate primitive people who passed on stories, much the way people pass on gossip and rumors today.
QuoteLikelyToBreak wrote:
I forget the modern scholar's name who said that Mithras did not predate Christianty. =D>
Colanth asked: William Lame Craig? :shock:
No, I'm pretty sure it was a woman. It was a while back so, don't remember her name. I do recall it didn't matter, as there were plenty of other examples of others going through a passion, death, and resurrection. Even Hercules died and rose from the dead, and he was one of the most popular mythic beings in the ancient world.
WitchSabrina pretty well cleared up that subject though.
Josephus (c37-100 AD)
Flavius Josephus is a highly respected and much-quoted Romano-Jewish historian. The early Christians were zealous readers of his work.
A native of Judea, living in the 1st century AD, Josephus was actually governor of Galilee for a time (prior to the war of 70 AD) – the very province in which Jesus allegedly did his wonders. Though not born until 37 AD and therefore not a contemporary witness to any Jesus-character, Josephus at one point even lived in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle.
Josephus's two major tomes are History of The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews. In these complementary works, the former written in the 70s, the latter in the 90s AD, Josephus mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era.
At face value, Josephus appears to be the answer to the Christian apologist's dreams.
In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the Christ-myth:
1. Jesus's existence 2. his 'more than human' status 3. his miracle working 4. his teaching 5. his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles 6. his Messiahship 7. his condemnation by the Jewish priests 8. his sentence by Pilate 9. his death on the cross 10. the devotion of his followers 11. his resurrection on the 3rd day 12. his post-death appearance 13. his fulfillment of divine prophecy 14. the successful continuance of the Christians.
In just 127 words Josephus confirms everything – now that is a miracle!
BUT WAIT A MINUTE ...
Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus' wondrous words.
The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."
Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.
It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum.
Consider, also, the anomalies:
1. How could Josephus claim that Jesus had been the answer to his messianic hopes yet remain an orthodox Jew?
The absurdity forces some apologists to make the ridiculous claim that Josephus was a closet Christian!
2. If Josephus really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's) story?
In fact, Josephus relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus! He also reports in great detail the antics of other self-proclaimed messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, and the unnamed 'Egyptian Jew' messiah.
It is striking that though Josephus confirms everything the Christians could wish for, he adds nothing that is not in the gospel narratives, nothing that would have been unknown by Christians already.
3. The question of context.
Antiquities 18 is primarily concerned with "all sorts of misfortunes" which befell the Jews during a period of thirty-two years (4-36 AD).
Josephus begins with the unpopular taxation introduced by the Roman Governor Cyrenius in 6 AD. He presents a synopsis of the three established Jewish parties (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes), but his real quarry is the "fourth sect of philosophy ... which laid the foundation of our future miseries." That was the sect of Judas the Galilean, "which before we were unacquainted withal."
At the very point we might expect a mention of "Christians" (if any such sect existed) we have instead castigation of tax rebels!
"It was in Gessius Florus's time [64-66] that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and made them revolt from the Romans; and these are the sects of Jewish philosophy."
"Nor can fear of death make them call any man Lord." Sound a tad familiar?
Chapter 2 notes the cities built to honour the Romans; the frequent changes in high priest (up to Caiaphas) and Roman procurators (up to Pontius Pilate); and also the turmoil in Parthia.
Chapter 3, containing the Testimonium as paragraph three, is essentially about Pilate's attempts to bring Jerusalem into the Roman system. With his first policy – placing Caesar's ensigns in Jerusalem – Pilate was forced to back down by unexpected Jewish protests in Caesarea. With his second policy – providing Jerusalem with a new aqueduct built with funds sequestered from the Temple, Pilate made ready for Jewish protests. Concealed weapons on his soldiers caused much bloodshed.
At this point the paragraph about Jesus is introduced!
Immediately after, Josephus continues:
"And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews ..."
There is no way that Josephus, who remained an orthodox Jew all his life and defended Judaism vociferously against Greek critics, would have thought that the execution of a messianic claimant was "another terrible misfortune" for the Jews. This is the hand of a Christian writer who himself considered the death of Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy (fitting in with his own notions of a stiff-necked race, rejected by God because they themselves had rejected the Son of God).
With paragraph 3 removed from the text the chapter, in fact, reads better. The "aqueduct massacre" now justifies "another terrible misfortune."
4. The final assertion, that the Christians were "not extinct at this day," confirms that the so-called Testimonium is a later interpolation. How much later we cannot say but there was no "tribe of Christians" during Josephus' lifetime. Christianity under that moniker did not establish itself until the 2nd century. Outside of this single bogus paragraph, in all the extensive histories of Josephus there is not a single reference to Christianity anywhere.
5. The hyperbolic language is uncharacteristic of the historian:
"... as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."
This is the stuff of Christian propaganda.
6. The Testimonium is a rather short for a genuine digression in the narrative of Josephus (the material surely was deserving of more attention than it gets). But a copyist, working with scrolls of a fixed length, would have had little space to play with.
REALITY CHECK
In fact, the Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine.
Bishop Eusebius, that great Church propagandist and self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD. This was after the Christians had become the custodians of religious correctness.
Whole libraries of antiquity were torched by the Christians. Yet unlike the works of his Jewish contemporaries, the histories of Josephus survived. They survived because the Christian censors had a use for them. They planted evidence on Josephus, turning the leading Jewish historian of his day into a witness for Jesus Christ ! Finding no references to Jesus anywhere in Josephus's genuine work, they interpolated a brief but all-embracing reference based purely on Christian belief.
Do we need to look any further to identify Eusebius himself as the forger?
Sanctioned by the imperial propagandist every Christian commentator for the next thirteen centuries accepted unquestioningly the entire Testimonium Flavianum, along with its declaration that Jesus "was the Messiah."
And even in the twenty first century scholars who should know better trot out a truncated version of the 'golden paragraph' in a scurrilous attempt to keep Josephus 'on message.'
The "Arabic Josephus"
In a novel embellishment to the notion of an orthodox Jew giving testimony of Jesus, defenders of the faith have in recent times tossed an Arabic version of the Josephus text on to their pile of dubious evidence. The Arabic recension was brought to light in 1971 by Professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Pines himself remained cautious about claims of untampered authenticity but the brethren have no such reservations, such is their desperation to keep Josephus in the witness stand for Jesus.
The work in question is actually a history of the world to the year 941/942 penned by a Christian Arab bishop, Agapius of Hierapolis. His World History preserves, in Arabic translation, a version of the Testimonium minus the most obvious Christian interpolations.
But what does a 10th century copy actually prove?
Claims that the Arabic passage itself dates from the 4th century are untenable (written Arabic barely existed at such an early date). Moreover Agapius was a Melkite Christian (pro-Byzantium) at a time of intensifying Islamization of his native Syria. What he wrote was political correctness for his own times. A new Shia Hamdani dynasty had been established barely 50 miles away in Aleppo. Its first prince, Sayf ad Dawlah ("sword of the state"), began a century of persistent attacks against Byzantium.
Agapius' paraphrase of a Syriac rendition of Josephus from a Greek original rather significantly mentions JC's "condemnation to die" but not the actuality of it and of JC being "alive" 3 days later – in other words, a carefully balanced compatibility with Muhammad's view of a Jesus as a prophet who did not die on the cross.
In short, the Arabic Josephus is no evidence of the Christian godman and serves only to confuse the unwary.
Justus of Tiberias
Justus was also an historian, a rival to Josephus, and from the same region. Perhaps his work was not as easily doctored – his histories did not make it through the Christian Dark Age and are – as they say – "lost to us"!
" I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias ... and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not one mention of Jesus, of what happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did."
– Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 9th Century
Christian apologists, for their own convenience, blur the distinction between evidence of Jesus and evidence of Christians.
It is rather as if a child who believed in the Tooth Fairy was to be presented as evidence that the Tooth Fairy really existed. :roll:
Solitary
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"WitchSabrina wrote in part: QuoteJust to be clear - Roman Mithrasism does not predate Christ. The rest of the planet where Mithras was a god Does predate christianity.
Thank you for clarifying that. I was going off the top of my head from a lecture I heard on YouTube. I forget the modern scholar's name who said that Mithras did not predate Christianty. =D>
If you want more Mithras data (cause I use Mithras to question christians all the time - good weaponry lol) anyway
this article gives some good info without boring you to tears for tedious reading.
Give it a peek when you get spare time: http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm (http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm)
cheers :wink:
Quote from: "WitchSabrina"(cause I use Mithras to question christians all the time - good weaponry lol)
You can also ask them how Osiris fathered a child after he was dead. Not even Jesus did that.
God damn it, making me learn stuff and stuff...
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
[youtube:2f927cus]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yHDBHxAfI[/youtube:2f927cus]
Well, what is your argument?
Quote from: "Solitary"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications. What leap of logic makes you think that. There are historical accounts written when they existed by historians that lived at the same time period, not 40-60 years later :roll: .
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable Reliable? I can remember in grade school where we did a test and someone told a story to the person next to them that no one could hear. This went all around the class room and the last person told the story that didn't even resemble the original.
Give me a break! oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. You would think they would have written such a fantastic story then, not 40-60 years later wouldn't you?Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions. This is not true at all! Get a book on myths and study it.
This actual unbiased historian begs to differ with your evidence:
http://youtu.be/mwUZOZN-9dc (http://youtu.be/mwUZOZN-9dc) :roll: Solitary
How does he account for the early creeds about the life of Jesus? Or Josephus and Tacitus?
Quote from: "Fidel_Castronaut"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications.
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
Nonsense.
The actions of those and countless thousands of others are written and corroborated by countless testimonies from people at the time. Unlike the myth of Jesus where nobody even wrote about him for several decades after he supposedly died, people at the time we writing about the men (such as Caesar) and their escapades. The Romans were very good at documenting things.
You can go to the roman forum in Rome anytime you want and see busts and graffiti of Caesar, and that's not even mentioning all the other corroborating evidence that easily satisfies the question as to whether he existed.
You keep saying 'modern scholars'. Cite examples. Who are they? What have they written? Where can we find their texts so we may validate them ourselves?
Just asserting that the Jesus myth is true doesn't make it so. You need to stop using fallacious reasoning and start admitting that your beliefs are based on un-evidenced faith.
If Jesus did not exist, then Alexander the Great did not exist and thus the Greek Empire was a myth based off of previous empires.
I've cited my sources in this thread. Don't take my word for it. Check out the books for yourself. :)
Quote from: "SGOS"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
That's like saying Edgar Rice Burroughs was evidence for Tarzan.
Paul was a prominent Pharisee with a cushy political position who gave this all up in order to join the sect of people he was trying to exterminate.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
[youtube:w7zhlbut]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yHDBHxAfI[/youtube:w7zhlbut]
Well, what is your argument?
My argument is that I cannot find a single source outside of apologetics websites that backs up your claims. Apolegetics start with the conclusion that the Bible is correct, and seek evidence to support.
Real scientists make observations first,
then draw conclusions. When you can point me toward a source that most scientists studying the subject (read: archaeologists) agree is valid, get back to me. In the meantime, I happen to know that no such source exists, and thus refer you back to the video above for my rebuttal to your all your arguments.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"@Solitary: Modern scholars not only study the reliability of the Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but also the historical accounts written by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Tertellion, and others.
Studying the reliability, rather than studying the document, isn't scholarship, it's apologism. (Studying the reliability starts with the premise that it's reliable, then looking to see if there's anything that would contradict that premise. As far as scholarship goes, that's a few steps down from piss-poor.)
SCHOLARS doubt most of the Bible, Christian apologists are convinced of its reliability.
Quote@Colanth: Could you provide Biblical references for your claims? Paul does talk about Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and Philippians 2, for starters. Paul wrote his letters less than 40 years after the death of Jesus.
1) There's no ACTUAL evidence that the Jesus of the Bible ever existed.
2) There's no extant writing claiming to be Paul's from "40 years after the death of Jesus". Ignatius of Antioch wrote (ca 110 CE) something similar to parts of Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians - which may or may not mean something. (The books could have been quoting Ignatius. Writing in 110, he would have had absolutely no first-hand knowledge of the events. Most likely not even second hand knowledge.) See also //http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Criticism
QuoteMark wrote his Gospel
This is one of the most common marks of a total lack of scholarship. Almost every scholar (not apologists) agrees that the gospels weren't written by people with the names of the gospels.
Quoteabout 50 years after Jesus' death.
See #1 above and, since the earliest writing that could have been part of what later became the Bible dates to 110, we can't know that. The "no later than 60 CE" or "no later than 70 CE" are faulty textual analyses ("the author would certainly have mentioned momentous events occurring later if he had been writing later" - bullshit) by people who need the Bible to have been written by people who actually knew Jesus. If I write a book about Lincoln's last day, now, of course I wouldn't include anything that happened after 4/15/1865, if I wanted it to claim that it was written by someone who knew him. They may have been primitive by our standards, but they weren't morons.
QuoteLuke, Matthew, and John wrote their Gospels within the century of Jesus' death, so these documents were not written centuries later. :)
Again - no. If you can present a manuscript that confidently dates (C-14 will do) from, say, 70 CE or earlier, everyone would be interested.
But "we have documents written by so-and-so that we know were written no later than 73 CE and mention Yeshua ben Yosuf"? That's Christian myth, not verified history. Only people with degrees that DON'T qualify them to know any more about it than anyone else claim that as an expert opinion. Experts say "we don't have any evidence".
Oh, we DO have evidence that a lot of the claims are FALSE. Like Jesus of Nazareth? The town that didn't exist until long after he was dead? (Where Nazareth is were 2 farms in the 1st century.) We even know where the myth came from. It was Jesus the Nazorite, one dedicated to God from birth. It got mistranslated to Nazarene. Once people believed that Jesus came from a place named Nazareth, they started going "there" (like they go to his "tomb", even though its actual location, if it even exists, is pure conjecture). And, if you like Josephus as an accurate source, he made an exhaustive list of all cities and towns in the area - and never mentioned anyplace called Nazareth. (And his reference to Jesus is such an obvious forgery to scholars that it's not disputed.)
There's a lot more actual evidence that the Jesus of the Bible never existed than there is that he existed (which is actually none at all).
1. That's why I'm not talking about most of the Bible, just the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
2. 1 Corinthians and Galatians are confirmed to be written by Paul. Check out my sources.
3. Though all of the Gospels were written anonymously (another mark of authenticity), the early church knew who wrote them because their writers were still alive when the tradition was started.
4. Even if the first reliable NT document we have came from 110 AD, that would still be more reliable than the documents we have on Alexander the Great.
5. Scholars have studied the documents and are talking about their dates. Again, check my sources in this thread for yourself. They are written by people with PhDs and Masters.
6. The Nazareth dispute has been settled already, in The Case for Christ. It was a small insignificant village, not even a Roman city. Actually, this further validates the stories about Jesus since He did not live in a huge metropolis.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate
There are no historical accounts of Jesus, there are only Biblical accounts. And, since the "history" of the Bible is so obviously wrong in so many places, it's not an historical source.
QuoteBefore the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition
No evidence of that AT ALL. The disciples, the martyrs - all later Christian myth as far as actual evidence is concerned. The fact that Christianity asserts that the Pauline works date from around 70 CE isn't evidence that they do. The fact that Ignatius' documents (which may actually be the SOURCE of the Pauline documents) DO date from around 110 CE DOES mean that they do.
QuoteMoreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers.
As I've said before, a) "Jesus' closest followers" is myth, and we have absolutely no idea when the gospels were written (or by whom).
QuoteFurthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
And again, no, for reasons I gave you upthread.
QuoteWe could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
You could argue all day. Most Christians could argue all day. Scholars laid this to rest by the end of the 19th century. From there on, it's just more of the myth being propagated.
1. Except for Josephus and Tacitus, that is.
2. Scholars who are experts in first century Judaism know that the oral tradition was taught in their schools in order to preserve their laws and texts. Paper was rare and expensive, so the minds of young people had to cultivated early on in order to train them in the skill of large-scale memorization. Check out my sources. By the way, I'm glad you brought up the martyrs, because this serves as validation of their claims.
Even if the earliest document we have about Jesus was 110 AD, it would still be more reliable than the documentation we have on Alexander the Great. But we do have earlier documentation.
3. The Gospels were written within 'Jesus' century' (30 AD-130 AD). Check out my sources and see for yourself. Don't take my word for any of this.
4. The funny thing is that the Pagan Copycat Theory was created about the 19th century and was laid to rest by most scholars by the next century. It's already been disproved by people who are smarter than I am, so check out my sources.
Quote from: "SGOS"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition
The oral tradition! Yeah, like that's really reliable. There is absolutely no record of the original story, so no one can go back to see what the original story even said. There's nothing magical or superior about the oral tradition. It was just the only thing available to illiterate primitive people who passed on stories, much the way people pass on gossip and rumors today.
First-century Jewish oral tradition was way better than twenty-first-century American oral tradition for reasons I've stated upthread. Research the area for yourself. :)
Quote from: "drunkenshoe"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"One could debate the 'similarities' between Jesus and pagan gods for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that there is no pagan myth which compares to the story of Jesus' Resurrection. :)
Jesus' Resurrection is the last ressurrection story in the very ancient and looong sacrificed and ressurrected kings cycle in pagan myth(s). It's not original.
The way Jesus was killed is the one of the most ancient sacrificial rituals; an 'imitation' of a sacred king being sacrificed on an oak tree bended backwards, tied in what is called '5 folds' (you don't want me to describe that) with willow branches by 12 men -and women- who dance around him in violent ecstasy with joy -really high on natural lsd- beat and castrate him, cut him into pieces (he is intoxicated) and eat some of his flesh, keep his head and genitals for prophetic rituals, so people would continue to thrive in good health. One of the 12 men (tanist who leads the ritual) gets to be the 'scared king' and mates with women (priestess of goddesses) and killed in the same way... Needlessly to say this is a 'Jewish' tradition in the first place, actually what is adopted by them from as a mixture of some cults descending from the same one. These 'tanists' wear a 'buck's head' during this ritual. Hence old depictions of Moses with horns, a tradition misunderstood -naturally they had no accumulation or historical process of thought to connect their 'monotheist' religion with its matriarchal pagan roots- and conveyed in Christian period till 500 years ago and beyond. (Michalengelo's Moses has horns for example, but not buck horns of course. Alexander the great has horns...all kings wear horns. A buck is a scared animal, it's powerful and it has horns. This horn even has a certain description. It has 9 branches, aspects of the Goddess.)
Jesus is the last 'sacred king' sacrificed to the god -which was a goddess in it first form- for the goodness and salvation of all people. The pieta scene for example is a changed form of this. A young man is lying dead in the lap of a woman whose -who is depicted young, because she is an ever virgin, again very ancient pagan- hands are looking upwards in an gesture between offering and praying. (As a prototype, it could vary) While the mother was the goddess in the original cult -no male figures then; no fathers or gods, only sons and lovers which are the same thing that transformed to each other, hunted down, mated and killed- in thousands of years, Mary became the shrine that Jesus was offered to the God himself.
So if he existed, he would be comparable to countless poor men, who were sacrificed very violently.
....Jesus' Resurrection was nothing like those stories.
Not even gonna bother with the first two.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"3. Though all of the Gospels were written anonymously (another mark of authenticity)
"Anonymous" means "anyone could have written it." Which means for all you know, the early Church wrote it themselves and made the whole thing up.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"4. Even if the first reliable NT document we have came from 110 AD, that would still be more reliable than the documents we have on Alexander the Great.
The writings documenting Alexander's life were written in his time. That alone makes them more reliable.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"5. Scholars have studied the documents and are talking about their dates. Again, check my sources in this thread for yourself. They are written by people with PhDs and Masters.
Name one of these anonymous scholars. I'm dying to hear who they are. Somehow I suspect your reason for keeping them anonymous is because they have no degrees in archaeology whatsoever.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"6. The Nazareth dispute has been settled already, in The Case for Christ. It was a small insignificant village, not even a Roman city. Actually, this further validates the stories about Jesus since He did not live in a huge metropolis.
Nazareth didn't exist in the 1st century C.E. (//http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html) "The Case for Christ" and its author can go suck a nut.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"....Jesus' Resurrection was nothing like those stories.
Repeating this statement doesn't make it less of a lie.
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Not even gonna bother with the first two.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"3. Though all of the Gospels were written anonymously (another mark of authenticity)
"Anonymous" means "anyone could have written it." Which means for all you know, the early Church wrote it themselves and made the whole thing up.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"4. Even if the first reliable NT document we have came from 110 AD, that would still be more reliable than the documents we have on Alexander the Great.
The writings documenting Alexander's life were written in his time. That alone makes them more reliable.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"5. Scholars have studied the documents and are talking about their dates. Again, check my sources in this thread for yourself. They are written by people with PhDs and Masters.
Name one of these anonymous scholars. I'm dying to hear who they are. Somehow I suspect your reason for keeping them anonymous is because they have no degrees in archaeology whatsoever.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"6. The Nazareth dispute has been settled already, in The Case for Christ. It was a small insignificant village, not even a Roman city. Actually, this further validates the stories about Jesus since He did not live in a huge metropolis.
Nazareth didn't exist in the 1st century C.E. (//http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html) "The Case for Christ" and its author can go suck a nut.
The authors of the Gospels were among the early church and made it known that they were writing Gospels. Mark received information from Peter, who was an early church leader. Luke traveled with Paul, another early church leader. Matthew and John were an early church leaders themselves. What's more interesting is that Mark, Luke, and Matthew were chosen by God to write Gospels, even though they were 'insignificant' in human terms.
Which documents were those?
The scholars can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus ... ting+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus-J-Ed-Komoszewski/dp/082542982X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727370&sr=8-1&keywords=reinventing+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-J ... for+christ (http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-Journalists-Investigation/dp/0310209307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727388&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+christ)
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection ... n+of+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas/dp/0825427886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727406&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+the+resurrection+of+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defendin ... uard+craig (http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/dp/1434764885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727415&sr=8-1&keywords=on+guard+craig)
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"How does he account for the early creeds about the life of Jesus? Or Josephus and Tacitus?
Josephus is known (except by Christian apologists) to be a later insertion (IOW, a forgery). The language is not Josephus'.
Tacitus never mentions Jesus, he says that the people took their name from the fact that their leader was anointed (christus). "Christ" isn't Jesus' last name, "Jesus Christ" means "Jesus the anointed one".
ALL supposed saviors (there were dozens of them in 1st century Jerusalem) were anointed, so Tacitus could have been writing about the followers of any of them.
Next?
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
Well, what is your argument?
1-5 are all assertions. Where is your evidence? (The fact that someone said something isn't evidence that what he said is true.)
1. No evidence that Jesus existed or died.
2. See #1, and no evidence that he had any disciples.
3. See #2.
4. See #1 and exactly (to the nearest 10 feet) is this tomb? And what is the actual evidence that it's the tomb of Jesus?
5. Assertion. Evidence that any of it's true?
See? The argument is that you have no argument, just a repeat of a 1,700 year old assertion.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If Jesus did not exist, then Alexander the Great did not exist and thus the Greek Empire was a myth based off of previous empires.
A few hundred years after I die, there won't be any proof that I exist, so you're saying that I don't exist.
Or you just don't understand the difference between the claim that A the G existed and the one that Jesus existed.
QuoteI've cited my sources in this thread.
The "sources" are written by people who aren't experts in the fields needed to prove their assertions. All they have expertise in is what Christianity claims, and it's those claims we need evidence for. Evidence that they're not qualified to present, since they have no special education in the relevant fields.
Having a PhD in religion doesn't make you an expert in history. Or archaeology. Post sources by historians (people with PhDs in ancient Roman history) or archaeologists specializing in ancient Rome. Books about Jesus by theologians or dentists aren't authoritative sources.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "SGOS"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
That's like saying Edgar Rice Burroughs was evidence for Tarzan.
Paul was a prominent Pharisee with a cushy political position who gave this all up in order to join the sect of people he was trying to exterminate.
Again - Christian myth isn't evidence. An assertion isn't proof that the assertion is true - and
ALL you've
EVER posted is Christian assertion. (Even your "sources" are nothing more than Christian assertion, which is all a theologian is an expert on).
If you want us to take you seriously, post some actual evidence. Archaeological evidence. Historical evidence (not myth, that's not historical evidence). Physical evidence. Evidence. Assertion by 425 generations of Christians still isn't worth one potsherd. And the potsherds say that the Bible is a fairy tale.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"The scholars can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus ... ting+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus-J-Ed-Komoszewski/dp/082542982X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727370&sr=8-1&keywords=reinventing+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-J ... for+christ (http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-Journalists-Investigation/dp/0310209307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727388&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+christ)
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection ... n+of+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas/dp/0825427886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727406&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+the+resurrection+of+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defendin ... uard+craig (http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/dp/1434764885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727415&sr=8-1&keywords=on+guard+craig)
Daniel Wallace: Theologian. Not an archaeologist; arguably not a scholar at all.
Lee Strobel: Journalist. Not any kind of scholar.
Gary Habermas: Historian, philosopher. Not an archaeologist.
William Lane Craigh: Theologian. See above.
So out of your four "modern scholars," you are 0 for 4 finding actual archaeologists arguing this position. Why am I not surprised?
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"1. That's why I'm not talking about most of the Bible, just the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Which comes from the Bible. There's no independent source. (Sources that refer to the Bible story aren't independent sources.)
Quote2. 1 Corinthians and Galatians are confirmed to be written by Paul. Check out my sources.
Theological sources are only authoritative inasmuch as what Christianity claims, not as to what is true. (A degree in theology teaches you what theology says, it doesn't teach you what actually happened - or how to research what actually happened.)
Quote3. Though all of the Gospels were written anonymously (another mark of authenticity)
Only to apologists. To historians it's a mark of fiction.
Quotethe early church knew who wrote them because their writers were still alive when the tradition was started.
Yes - and when were the writers of the early Church alive? IN THE SECOND CENTURY. This has been authenticated scientifically. (See Ignatius of Antioch, one of the first early Church leaders.)
Quote4. Even if the first reliable NT document we have came from 110 AD, that would still be more reliable than the documents we have on Alexander the Great.
Not in the slightest. (And there's not enough room in a forum post to explain why to you. That's merely the claim of Christian apologists - who use EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE assertion about the Koran.)
Quote5. Scholars have studied the documents and are talking about their dates.
And the earliest verified date is 110 CE, not something written by an eye witness.
QuoteAgain, check my sources in this thread for yourself. They are written by people with PhDs and Masters.
OF THEOLOGY, not of history or archaeology or any RELEVANT subject.
Quote6. The Nazareth dispute has been settled already, in The Case for Christ.
More assertion. It hasn't been settled at all.
QuoteIt was a small insignificant village, not even a Roman city.
There were NO Roman cities in Judea. Not even Jerusalem was a Roman city.
QuoteActually, this further validates the stories about Jesus since He did not live in a huge metropolis.
And if the Bible said that he had lived in Jerusalem you'd say that the fact that he DID live in a huge metropolis validates the story.
Bottom line? Everyone in Jerusalem had heard of Nazareth, but Josephus, listing all the towns in Judea, had never heard of it. Nonsense, unless you just need the story to be true.
You're still not showing that you're anything more than a Christian who starts with the premise that the Bible is true, and has VERY LITTLE actual knowledge of the place and times, or about how research is done. (And research starts with the premise that the Bible is just a book, like any other book, and it may or may not be true, like any other book.)
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate
There are no historical accounts of Jesus, there are only Biblical accounts. And, since the "history" of the Bible is so obviously wrong in so many places, it's not an historical source.
QuoteBefore the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition
No evidence of that AT ALL. The disciples, the martyrs - all later Christian myth as far as actual evidence is concerned. The fact that Christianity asserts that the Pauline works date from around 70 CE isn't evidence that they do. The fact that Ignatius' documents (which may actually be the SOURCE of the Pauline documents) DO date from around 110 CE DOES mean that they do.
QuoteMoreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers.
As I've said before, a) "Jesus' closest followers" is myth, and we have absolutely no idea when the gospels were written (or by whom).
QuoteFurthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
And again, no, for reasons I gave you upthread.
QuoteWe could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
You could argue all day. Most Christians could argue all day. Scholars laid this to rest by the end of the 19th century. From there on, it's just more of the myth being propagated.
1. Except for Josephus and Tacitus, that is.
See upthread. Neither is evidence of Jesus. (Josephus isn't evidence and Tacitus isn't necessarily about Jesus.)
Quote2. Scholars who are experts in first century Judaism know that the oral tradition was taught in their schools in order to preserve their laws and texts.
Actually they know that the written Bible was used. The actual tradition (you advertise your lack of knowledge of what you claim to know about by not knowing this) was (and still is) that every single line of the text be preserved - and left-justified. IOW, if you get to the last word that's supposed to be on that line, and you're not at the left edge of the text, you stretch a letter or two to make that line end with the right word and at the right place.
Look at any hand-written Torah scroll if you don't believe me. The stretched letters are easy to spot and, if you compare a few scrolls from different sources, you'll see that different letters on different lines are stretched.
THAT'S how the text was preserved. (The Law is part of the text. The traditions- the law [small 'l'] - aren't in the Bible, they're in the Midrash for the most part.) Oral tradition only applies prior to the Exile (which is when the Bible was written) and we know that prior to that any claim of "preservation" is nonsense.
QuotePaper was rare and expensive
But this was "the word of Yahweh", so expense didn't matter. (We're not talking about 1,500 BCE here.) Oh, and the Bible wasn't written on paper (or papyrus), it was written on velum. If you know so much about the period and Christianity, why don't you know that?
QuoteCheck out my sources.
This is the last time I'm going to say this: Your sources are authoritative about what Christianity claims, not about the history of the region at the time. We already know what Christianity claims. Your job is to present evidence that the claims are true, not that Christianity makes them.
QuoteBy the way, I'm glad you brought up the martyrs, because this serves as validation of their claims.
Claims of martyrs validate the claims that there were martyrs? How does a claim validate that the claim is true? Why doesn't Superman comics validate the claim that Superman is real?
QuoteEven if the earliest document we have about Jesus was 110 AD, it would still be more reliable than the documentation we have on Alexander the Great. But we do have earlier documentation.
Answered upthread.
Quote3. The Gospels were written within 'Jesus' century' (30 AD-130 AD).
Someone writing in 110 CE wouldn't be an eye witness, he'd be writing hearsay or making things up.
Quote[s:ueesqvrt]Check out my sources and see for yourself. Don't take my word for any of this.[/s:ueesqvrt]
Warned you.
Quote4. The funny thing is that the Pagan Copycat Theory was created about the 19th century and was laid to rest by most scholars by the next century. It's already been disproved by people who are smarter than I am, so check out my sources.
Last time for this one. "Christian apologists say that" isn't "laid to rest", it's "laid to rest in the minds of those who want to believe". We don't believe so you'll have to do better (as far as actual evidence) when talking to us.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"1. That's why I'm not talking about most of the Bible, just the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Which comes from the Bible. There's no independent source. (Sources that refer to the Bible story aren't independent sources.)
Quote2. 1 Corinthians and Galatians are confirmed to be written by Paul. Check out my sources.
Theological sources are only authoritative inasmuch as what Christianity claims, not as to what is true. (A degree in theology teaches you what theology says, it doesn't teach you what actually happened - or how to research what actually happened.)
Quote3. Though all of the Gospels were written anonymously (another mark of authenticity)
Only to apologists. To historians it's a mark of fiction.
Quotethe early church knew who wrote them because their writers were still alive when the tradition was started.
Yes - and when were the writers of the early Church alive? IN THE SECOND CENTURY. This has been authenticated scientifically. (See Ignatius of Antioch, one of the first early Church leaders.)
Quote4. Even if the first reliable NT document we have came from 110 AD, that would still be more reliable than the documents we have on Alexander the Great.
Not in the slightest. (And there's not enough room in a forum post to explain why to you. That's merely the claim of Christian apologists - who use EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE assertion about the Koran.)
Quote5. Scholars have studied the documents and are talking about their dates.
And the earliest verified date is 110 CE, not something written by an eye witness.
QuoteAgain, check my sources in this thread for yourself. They are written by people with PhDs and Masters.
OF THEOLOGY, not of history or archaeology or any RELEVANT subject.
Quote6. The Nazareth dispute has been settled already, in The Case for Christ.
More assertion. It hasn't been settled at all.
QuoteIt was a small insignificant village, not even a Roman city.
There were NO Roman cities in Judea. Not even Jerusalem was a Roman city.
QuoteActually, this further validates the stories about Jesus since He did not live in a huge metropolis.
And if the Bible said that he had lived in Jerusalem you'd say that the fact that he DID live in a huge metropolis validates the story.
Bottom line? Everyone in Jerusalem had heard of Nazareth, but Josephus, listing all the towns in Judea, had never heard of it. Nonsense, unless you just need the story to be true.
You're still not showing that you're anything more than a Christian who starts with the premise that the Bible is true, and has VERY LITTLE actual knowledge of the place and times, or about how research is done. (And research starts with the premise that the Bible is just a book, like any other book, and it may or may not be true, like any other book.)
So many points. I don't even know how to award soooo many points for this one, Colanth! Well. Done. You!
(1) It's amazing when christians wish to try and confirm their bible as *fact* when it is myth and assertion defended.
(2) It's amazing when christians cannot give proper credit to where MUCH of their *religion* came from; ie pagan background, practices, etc. Candlemass is a good one to pick apart. See Brigid & Imbolg in Celtic mythology.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"The authors of the Gospels were among the early church and made it known that they were writing Gospels.
"Gospel" means "news". So they claimed that they were writing news. The title "Fox News" doesn't mean that what they present is true. (In fact, they fought in court for the right to present stories that aren't true and still use the title 'news'.)
And once more - an assertion by an author isn't EVIDENCE that the assertion is true. But that's all you keep posting - assertions with no actual evidence. Post something from an archaeologist or a physical chemist or ... that relates to actual evidence.
"The Bible says" or "a document written by a Church leader says" isn't evidence of fact, just evidence that someone said something.
QuoteMark received
The books weren't written by people with the names of the books - that was established a long time ago. (IOW, "Mark" wasn't written by a guy named Mark.)
Quoteinformation from Peter
Assertion, not fact.
QuoteLuke traveled with Paul
Assertion,
QuoteMatthew and John were an early church leaders themselves.
"Matthew" wasn't written by a guy named Matthew and "John" wasn't written by a guy named John. And this is merely assertion, not evidence.
QuoteWhat's more interesting is that Mark, Luke, and Matthew were chosen by God
No evidence that any of the 4, Mark, Luke, Matthew or God, existed.
(And Luke itself claims that it's merely an explanation of the previous texts.)
Quote[s:3k1txvkt]The scholars can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus ... ting+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Jesus-J-Ed-Komoszewski/dp/082542982X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727370&sr=8-1&keywords=reinventing+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-J ... for+christ (http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Christ-Journalists-Investigation/dp/0310209307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727388&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+christ)
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection ... n+of+jesus (http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas/dp/0825427886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727406&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+the+resurrection+of+jesus)
http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defendin ... uard+craig (http://www.amazon.com/On-Guard-Defending-Reason-Precision/dp/1434764885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375727415&sr=8-1&keywords=on+guard+craig)[/s:3k1txvkt]
Just more "Christianity claims", but no evidence. (One more time - quoting a theologian isn't evidence of fact, it's just evidence of assertion.)
Quote from: "WitchSabrina"(1) It's amazing when christians wish to try and confirm their bible as *fact* when it is myth and assertion defended.
(2) It's amazing when christians cannot give proper credit to where MUCH of their *religion* came from; ie pagan background, practices, etc. Candlemass is a good one to pick apart. See Brigid & Imbolg in Celtic mythology.
None of it is amazing. When you have a physical need that's almost as stong as the need to survive (or maybe it's even more fundamental, since you need it TO survive) to believe that your beliefs are true, you can't see that your beliefs are based on myth.
It's not that they want to argue, it's that the Bible being true, and the story of Jesus coming from actual events, is as vital to their existence as oxygen.
As far as long posts and patience, I've been saying the same things (with changes as new facts come to light) for over 60 years. It's about as difficult as boiling water is to a retired chef, and takes about as much patience. Don't give me more credit than is warranted.
maybe this will be helpful:
http://archaeology.about.com/cs/educati ... story3.htm (http://archaeology.about.com/cs/educationalresour/a/history3.htm)
http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-bibl ... f-evidence (http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-bible-is-fiction-a-collection-of-evidence)
You atheists and a witch are so smug with your sound logic and critical thinking when "EVERYONE" knows the truth can only be found by faith in Jesus Christ our savoir who along with God and the Holy Spirit have infinite knowledge and can never be wrong. I pray for your souls and love you. Go to hell! A true Christian
:rollin: :rollin: :rollin: Solitary
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"First-century Jewish oral tradition was way better than twenty-first-century American oral tradition for reasons I've stated upthread. Research the area for yourself. :)
:rolleyes: I can just see Watson and Crick saying, "You know this double helix discovery is just too important to put in writing. We had better pass it on using the Jewish oral tradition."
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Okay, so modern scholars agree (in super majorities) that these historical facts from the Gospels are absolutely true:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples went from despairing over His death to boldly believing in His life.
3. Jesus' disciples claimed to have seen Him in Resurrected form.
4. Jesus' tomb became empty for some reason.
5. The top Pharisee and rabid persecutor of Christians named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus completely changed his lifestyle after he claimed to have seen a Resurrected Jesus. He left his top political position to become one of the people he was persecuting, who did not even accept him at first.
Paul is probably the most dynamic evidence for the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection.
People do not come back to life after being dead for three days--or after being dead at all. It simply doesn't happen. To say that it happened just this ONE time, only nobody living at the time happened to notice and therefore did not bother writing about it, is nothing more than special pleading. Besides, even in the Bible, resurrections are not unique to Jesus.
1 Kings 17:17-24 Zarephath's widow's son died of sickness and Elijah brought him back to life.
2 Kings 4:35 A Shummanite woman's son was raised to life by Elisha. (This story obviously combines elements from the story of Abraham, whose wife was past childbearing age yet miraculously had a baby in her old age; and the above-mentioned story of Elijah and the widow's dead son.)
Luke 7:13-15 Jesus brings back the widow's dead son at Nain.
Matthew 9:25 Jairus' daughter is brought back to life.
John 11:43-44 The famous story of Lazarus
Matthew 27:51-53 A number of saints came out of their graves upon Jesus' death, and apparently walked around the city, preaching and testifying.
Resurrections? So common that people wrote about it as if it were no big deal. It was simply assumed that God could bring people back to life if he so chose. There is never a sense that a resurrection could happen
only to that one special person who happened to be God in the flesh; it could happen to anyone who was in the right place at the right time, whom God chose to bless. But please note that you never hear of dead people coming out of their graves these days, or a three-day-old corpse coming back to life. It does not matter how much faith a person has, or how closely they obeyed God, if their loved one dies, a miracle-working preacher is not going to come along and bring that loved one back to life. Miracles, like the magic in fairy tales, happens only in stories from long, long ago.
Please note, also, that we are expected to believe that, upon the death of Jesus, a whole slew of corpses--presumably dead for a very long time--popped out of their graves with shiny new bodies, and "appeared to many people." If this is the case, why is there not even ONE eye-witness story about it other than this brief blurb in Matthew? You would think that something this dramatic would have been mentioned in all four gospels, at the least; but moreover, there should be loads of other stories of dead people coming to life and walking around the city. But, no, there is nothing at all. Why, it's as if the event never even happened.
Why is it that all the fantastic events in the Bible don't happen today accept to the devout, those with delusional illnesses, schizophrenics, those with epilepsy, and magicians? :roll: Solitary
Quote from: "WitchSabrina"maybe this will be helpful:
http://archaeology.about.com/cs/educati ... story3.htm (http://archaeology.about.com/cs/educationalresour/a/history3.htm)
"Did the events that are described in these texts happen? Some of them did" And we have archaeological evidence that some of them didn't. That's a lot stronger than not having evidence that they did, which is what the sentence is implying by omission.
Quotehttp://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-bible-is-fiction-a-collection-of-evidence
There are dozens of sites like these, some written by amateurs, some by experts. I'd like to see Carrier write one, but he seems to be too busy doing actual scholarship. (Not an argument - we need more scholarship, not less.)
I'd like to ask that IF/When the ""oral tradition"" of christians are taken into consideration then why is it they disallow all other forms of 'oral traditions' - like witchcraft, for example? I mean fair is fair and logical is logical - no?
a durrr
Most supposed Pagan myths that Jesus is claimed to be a rip-off of are bullshit, and those videos seem to have a number of them. :(
Quote from: "WitchSabrina"I'd like to ask that IF/When the ""oral tradition"" of christians are taken into consideration then why is it they disallow all other forms of 'oral traditions' - like witchcraft, for example? I mean fair is fair and logical is logical - no?
a durrr
I suppose it's because the oral traditions of Christians and Jews are magically blessed by God for greater accuracy. Anything outside of God's domain is Satan based, and Satan will mess with the historical accuracy of the witch's oral communication for no other reason than just to be a jerk. But he won't mess with the accuracy of the Christian oral tradition.
But seriously, the Christian oral tradition is flawed as much as any other. And knowledgeable Christians understood that well enough. When Paul came along, he decided some of this stuff better get written down or it would be corrupted even more than he himself and those who came before him had already corrupted it. And when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, the first book he printed was the Bible. All that work, because everyone with a brain knew how flawed the oral tradition was.
Even today, in spite of the written Bible, Christians still carry on an oral tradition passing baseless claims back and forth between each other, claims often not even found in or supported by the Bible. The Christian oral tradition continues on as Christians modify their religion through a process of wishful thinking whenever their needs conflict with the so called inspired word of God.
@Colanth: Who has said that Josephus is a forgery? Tacitus makes explicit mention of Jesus Christ. I have provided my sources regarding the Resurrection argument, so I cordially ask you to provide yours. :)
Regarding Alexander the Great, what I mean is that the earliest reliable historical document about Alexander the Great comes five hundred years after his death. Five hundred years is plenty of time for legends about Alexander the Great to form and to coalesce around a central figure. For all we know, Alexander the Great could have been based on myths about previous empire leaders. Maybe the Greek Empire didn't exist as we believe today because of this.
In the same way, I could attack 'secular' sources based on bias. The sources I have provided have examined every angle of the story, and two of them either began their research out of doubt or skepticism.
The earlier the source is the better and the more consistent sources are as time goes on, the better. All of the research sources I have presented have explored physical evidence.
I encourage you the read the books I have presented in this thread, even if it is to ridicule them. What harm is there in reading them?
@drunkenshoe: The point is that not enough time passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of the first document about Him for there to be embellishment or copying. Besides this, none of the deities of pagan mystery religions even resemble the Jesus of the Bible.
@Hijiri Byakuren: These scholars not only explored the work of 'secular' scholars, but also the work of archaeology.
@ApostateLois: You bring up very valid points. The difference between Jesus and the other people who were raised from the dead is that Jesus was Resurrected, while Lazarus and the others were merely revived. Jesus had a new body and no one else in the world has yet been Resurrected.
@Solitary: It's unrelated to this thread, but I think the medical community needs to have a major dialogue about the true nature of schizophrenia. Just something to think about.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"@Hijiri Byakuren: These scholars not only explored the work of 'secular' scholars, but also the work of archaeology.
They start with a conclusion and find evidence to support it; this is the
opposite of science. It does not matter what they have "explored" if their methodology was flawed from the get-go.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"Quote from: "Fidel_Castronaut"Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"If you don't believe that the historical accounts about Jesus are accurate, then you have to cease to believe that other historical accounts, such as the accounts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, are also fabrications.
Before the historical accounts of Jesus were written down, they were preserved through a very reliable oral tradition while Jesus' followers were still performing their ministries. Moreover, the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of Jesus' closest followers. Furthermore, the writings of Paul can be dated earlier than Mark's Gospel and are very well validated by modern scholars.
We could argue all day as to why Jesus is different from pagan deities, but it really comes down to the simple fact that Jesus' Resurrection stands apart from all pagan mystery religions.
Nonsense.
The actions of those and countless thousands of others are written and corroborated by countless testimonies from people at the time. Unlike the myth of Jesus where nobody even wrote about him for several decades after he supposedly died, people at the time we writing about the men (such as Caesar) and their escapades. The Romans were very good at documenting things.
You can go to the roman forum in Rome anytime you want and see busts and graffiti of Caesar, and that's not even mentioning all the other corroborating evidence that easily satisfies the question as to whether he existed.
You keep saying 'modern scholars'. Cite examples. Who are they? What have they written? Where can we find their texts so we may validate them ourselves?
Just asserting that the Jesus myth is true doesn't make it so. You need to stop using fallacious reasoning and start admitting that your beliefs are based on un-evidenced faith.
If Jesus did not exist, then Alexander the Great did not exist and thus the Greek Empire was a myth based off of previous empires.
I've cited my sources in this thread. Don't take my word for it. Check out the books for yourself. :)
None answer, also, fallacies of bare assertions and false equivocation.
Your logic goes as follows:
Caesar [or Alexander the great] exists therefore Jesus exists.
That is really rather terrible and not really worthy of a thought out reply. There is nothing similar to Caesar and ATG [existance backed up by literally mountains of evidence] and Jesus [nothing except the bible and spurious accounts several decades after his supposed death].
And it's also wrong of you to say you've cited sources. You've cited nothing. Who are these modern scholars? Where are they agreeing that Jesus existed? Are you referring to the mountain of apologists that agree with something that they themselves believe in?
Here, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)
Awaiting impartial unbiased sources that corroborate your bare assertions. Otherwise I'm chalking your bare assertions down to your own confirmation bias and hence that they are based on a religious position, not a reasoned one.
And don't worry, at this point I wouldn't take you at your word if you said the sky was blue.
Quote from: "PilatesQuestion"@Colanth: Who has said that Josephus is a forgery?
Do your own scholarship. Just about every single Bible scholar says that not "Josephus", but that one passage IN Josephus, isn't a forgery but a later Christian insertion. (If you knew enough to ask the right question, I'd have pulled a few names for you, but since you obviously don't know the subject well enough for it to make any difference, I won't bother.)
QuoteTacitus makes explicit mention of Jesus Christ.
WRONG! He makes explicit mention of a Christus. If you don't know the difference, learn it.
QuoteI have provided my sources regarding the Resurrection argument
Only insofar as what Christianity believes. We already KNOW what Christianity believes. Provide sources with EVIDENCE.
QuoteRegarding Alexander the Great, what I mean is that the earliest reliable historical document about Alexander the Great comes five hundred years after his death.
We KNOW that the accomplishments claimed for him were actually accomplished, so the claims are believable. The documents are mere commentary, not assertions that he did what they claim he did.
I refuse to discuss historicity with someone who obviously knows nothing about it. Learn about Alexander, learn about historicity, learn how documents pertain to events - then maybe your questions will sound informed. (They don't. You sound like the people who ask for "the missing link" between Archaeopteryx and dinosaurs or Archaeopteryx and birds.)
QuoteIn the same way, I could attack 'secular' sources based on bias.
"Secular" doesn't mean "anti-Christian", it means "not based on religious assertion, but on fact". You attack fact?
QuoteThe sources I have provided
Were written by people whose ONLY qualification is that they've studied what Christianity asserts. As I said, we already KNOW what Christianity asserts. We want EVIDENCE that the assertions are true.
QuoteThe earlier the source is the better and the more consistent sources are as time goes on, the better.
Now tell us about how the shadow on the wall is evidence that there's a monster under your bed - because what you said sounds about as childish. Later sources are less accurate. Earlier sources aren't more accurate DUE TO BEING EARLIER. That's what a layman might think, but it's not true. A source from the time of the event can be as false as pure fiction, but a source from thousands of years after the event is PROBABLY not very accurate. There's a HUGE difference.
QuoteAll of the research sources I have presented have explored physical evidence.
From the point of view of "this is what the Bible says, let's see if we can find evidence to back it up". If they were really looking for evidence that the Bible is false, they didn't have to explore anything. There are hundreds of easily-obtained examples.
QuoteI encourage you the read the books I have presented in this thread, even if it is to ridicule them. What harm is there in reading them?
It would be a waste of time to read a chemistry book written by a professor of literature. It's the same waste of time to read proof that the Bible is true written by a theologist (who assumes, a priori, that it is).
QuoteThe point is that not enough time passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of the first document about Him for there to be embellishment or copying.
No? How long does it take to copy or embellish? A week? A whole month? The first document ABOUT A MAN NAMED JESUS dates to almost the
3rd century. That's not enough time? (Yes, we know that the assertion is that the whole Bible was written by about 70 CE. The EVIDENCE is that the first mention of Jesus as a man, not as Paul's sky-godlet, is from around 190 CE.)
QuoteBesides this, none of the deities of pagan mystery religions even resemble the Jesus of the Bible.
Many of them do - sky-godlet mixed with the local religion. In the case of Christianity it's Judaism mixed with a sky-godlet. In the case of Mithraism it's the Persian religion mixed with a sky-godlet. Etc.
Don't get hung up on the details, Jesus left an empty tomb, Osiris was brought back to life by his widow, etc. They're ALL stories of the previous religion mixed with a sky-godlet.
QuoteThese scholars not only explored the work of 'secular' scholars, but also the work of archaeology.
Since they're not archaeologists, so what? They're not educationally qualified to analyze archaeological finds. They found things that back up their previously-held beliefs and presented them as evidence that the beliefs are true. That's about as opposed to reality-based research as you can get.
QuoteYou bring up very valid points. The difference between Jesus and the other people who were raised from the dead is that Jesus was Resurrected, while Lazarus and the others were merely revived.
As I said, you're getting hung up on the details. Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs are both fairy tales, even though there are no pigs in the former and the latter has no human girl. All the godlet stories from the Middle East of 2,000 years ago are myths, regardless of the details.
If you have evidence that yours is actual history, post it. The default position is "nah".
QuoteJesus had a new body and no one else in the world has yet been Resurrected.
Evidence? Posting an assertion as proof of an assertion is silly. (And another reason I won't read your sources - that's all they do is make assertions that other assertions are true. There's no
evidence in any of them that any of the assertions are true, they're like your [incorrect] assertion that Tacitus mentions Jesus because he says that the leader of the people he's talking about was anointed.)
Quote from: "Colanth"WRONG! He makes explicit mention of a Christus. If you don't know the difference, learn it.
I came across another Christian elsewhere using the Tacitus reference. I agree it is not very strong. But, I guess I don't fully understand Colanth's point here. The relevant passage in Tacitus, says:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. "
So, here are things I know of:
1. It is disputed that Nero ever did scape-goat the Christians for the fire.
2. Christus is not necessarily Jesus Christ.
3. The original text may have referred to the group as Chrestians not Christians.
4. Some question Tacitus using the title as procurator instead of prefect for Pontius Pilate. But, Richard Carrier says he probably had both titles so this is not an issue.
So, as I said, I do understand there is some dispute around whether he really meant Christ and Christians. Yet, given the whole passage, which indicates that there are a group of followers, who took the name of their movement from the guy executed by Pontius Pilate, well, I'm inclined to accept that the passage is about Jesus Christ and Christians, unless there is something more in doubt here that I am not understanding.
I read the Wikipedia article, and the Secular Web article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ojfaq.html (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html)
Yeah, I know that Wikipedia isn't scholarly, but, seems to be reasonably balanced article. It brings up the points in question, and says that most scholars accept the passage as genuine, and referring to Christ.
Now, as the Secular Web points out, Tacitus is likely just repeating what Christians say about Christ and thus is not independent attestation to his existence.
But, for those, like Clanth, who argue that the passage isn't even about Jesus Christ, well, it looks more likely to me that it is is.
Can someone explain what I might be missing?
Quote from: "caseagainstfaith"Quote from: "Colanth"WRONG! He makes explicit mention of a Christus. If you don't know the difference, learn it.
I came across another Christian elsewhere using the Tacitus reference. I agree it is not very strong. But, I guess I don't fully understand Colanth's point here.
Christus (Christos, Chreestos) refers to an "anointed one". It doesn't refer to any particular anointed person, just that their leader was anointed. The claim of that group was that their leader was anointed, and was killed by Pilate. Tacitus was born in 55 CE, so he was just relating what he had heard, not even necessarily from Christians.
QuoteSo, here are things I know of:
1. It is disputed that Nero ever did scape-goat the Christians for the fire.
It is disputed that the Romans ever scapegoated Christians at all. The stories of early Christian martyrdom may have been just that - stories made up much later (like after 325 CE).
Quote2. Christus is not necessarily Jesus Christ.
Any more than "president" is Abe Lincoln.
Quote3. The original text may have referred to the group as Chrestians not Christians.
Followers of an anointed leader, in either case. Nothing about the name or identity of that leader. If "Jesus Christ" had been an actual Jewish man in the Jerusalem area in the 1st century, his name would have been Yeshua Chreestos (as nearly as the Aramaic can be rendered in Latin script). Yeshua, in English translation referring to any other man of that name, is Joshua, not Jesus.
Quote4. Some question Tacitus using the title as procurator instead of prefect for Pontius Pilate. But, Richard Carrier says he probably had both titles so this is not an issue.
Many dispute Carrier on this point, and say that the more likely situation is that this was a later interpolation (someone added it to Tacitus' writings later) - so much later that the interpolater wasn't sure of what Roman titles had been.
QuoteSo, as I said, I do understand there is some dispute around whether he really meant Christ and Christians.
Only among Christian apologists. The only debate among scholars is whether it was a later interpolation, meant to bolster the 4th century religion that usurped the Jesus character, or if it was just Tacitus, referring to the Jewish sect of the 1st century.
QuoteYet, given the whole passage, which indicates that there are a group of followers, who took the name of their movement from the guy executed by Pontius Pilate
Which lends more credence to the former (post-4th-century) interpretation, since there are no 1st century records of any execution of a great leader of the Jews.
Quotewell, I'm inclined to accept that the passage is about Jesus Christ and Christians, unless there is something more in doubt here that I am not understanding.
No scholar takes that view any longer. The debate is some anointed 1st century minor Jewish leader or post-4th century addition. (Remember, 1st century Jesus - Paul's Jesus - was a godlet living in the 7th heaven, who came down to the 1st heaven, never to Earth, to be killed - then returned to the 7th heaven. There was no 1st century "God in the form of a man" Jesus. The earliest reference we can find to that is very late 2nd century.)
QuoteYeah, I know that Wikipedia isn't scholarly, but, seems to be reasonably balanced article.
"Balanced" has nothing to do with "accurate". A "balanced" report of WWII would include the claim that the Holocaust never happened. An accurate one would say that some people try to show that it didn't, even though we have proof that it did.
QuoteIt brings up the points in question, and says that most scholars accept the passage as genuine, and referring to Christ.
If you define "scholar" to include Christian apologists who have studied, at most, what the Bible says. If you ignore them, and look, instead, to only scholars - those who study the time and place in question - you'll find few who take either Tacitus or Josephus as evidence of Jesus. Apologists look for proof that Jesus existed just the way the Bible says he did. Scholars look to see what the actual evidence says, whatever it says.
QuoteCan someone explain what I might be missing?
History. Language. Actual evidence that, in the 1st century, "Jesus" was anything but a myth written by Paul (or whoever used that name in his writings). Lots and lots of things.
But if you take as "scholarly" the writings of people who
need "Jesus" to be more than a myth (i.e. Christians), you're looking at confirmation bias, not scholarly research. (And if you take what's written on Constantine's Column, you'll find history that blows the Jesus story back to the world of myth, where it belongs.)
Quote from: "Colanth"Tacitus was born in 55 CE, so he was just relating what he had heard, not even necessarily from Christians.
I'm totally on board with you here. Regardless of whether it is about Jesus Christ or not, he is probably just relating "common knowledge".
QuoteQuoteYet, given the whole passage, which indicates that there are a group of followers, who took the name of their movement from the guy executed by Pontius Pilate
Which lends more credence to the former (post-4th-century) interpretation, since there are no 1st century records of any execution of a great leader of the Jews.
First, if it was a Christian interpolation, wouldn't they have used the right names for Christ and Christians. Doesn't the fact that it has ambiguous words argue against it being a Christian interpolation?
And, if, hypothetically, Jesus did exist, but, a lot smaller time than Christians say he ways, then we might not have a record of his execution.
Quote from: "Colanth"The stories of early Christian martyrdom may have been just that - stories made up much later (like after 325 CE).
I'm aware that the stories of martyrdom are at least exaggerated. I think it is is generally accepted that it did happen some, prior to Constantine's conversion, but likely a lot later than Nero who probably never even heard of the Christians.
QuoteQuote2. Christus is not necessarily Jesus Christ.
Any more than "president" is Abe Lincoln.
Well, it put "President" in the passage, you get that there were a group of people called the presidents, who took their name from some president. Or if use anointed, you get that there was a group called the anointeds who took there name from someone anointed. This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Quote"Balanced" has nothing to do with "accurate". A "balanced" report of WWII would include the claim that the Holocaust never happened. An accurate one would say that some people try to show that it didn't, even though we have proof that it did.
I also read the Secular Web article, which did not argue that the passage wasn't about Jesus or Christians, only that it likely isn't an independent account.
QuoteIf you define "scholar" to include Christian apologists who have studied, at most, what the Bible says. If you ignore them, and look, instead, to only scholars - those who study the time and place in question - you'll find few who take either Tacitus or Josephus as evidence of Jesus.
Well, I of course know that Christians really really need Tacitus and Josephus and thus have a lot of bias. But, you also can't just dismiss scholars because they are Christian. There are Christians with legitimate historical credentials.
Further, I can't say I've ever taken up a survey of secular scholars on Josephus and Tacitus, but, I think that there indeed a lot of secular scholars who find them to be evidence of a real Jesus. You do know that the mythist position is a minority opinion even among non believers, right? And, don't get me wrong, I am favorable to the mythist position and overall agree with you that Josephus and Tacitus are not good evidence. But, I am just trying to point out that what I think is correct, that many secular scholars do think so. Maybe they haven't studied the issue very much and thus haven't really made a really informed opinion. But, it is still a fact that mythism is a minority position.
Quote from: "caseagainstfaith"Quote from: "Colanth"QuoteYet, given the whole passage, which indicates that there are a group of followers, who took the name of their movement from the guy executed by Pontius Pilate
Which lends more credence to the former (post-4th-century) interpretation, since there are no 1st century records of any execution of a great leader of the Jews.
First, if it was a Christian interpolation, wouldn't they have used the right names for Christ and Christians. Doesn't the fact that it has ambiguous words argue against it being a Christian interpolation?
No, in that place at that time, "Christus" might have been understood to mean Jesus. When most of the people are illiterate there's really no way to tell what the speech of the common people was. Even as recently as Shakespeare, the slang is impossible for some. His use of "nunnery" was Elizabethan slang for "brothel". How do we know, now, how "Christus" was used somewhere in the centuries following Constantine?
QuoteAnd, if, hypothetically, Jesus did exist, but, a lot smaller time than Christians say he ways, then we might not have a record of his execution.
If there was one proclaimed by the populace to be "King of the Jews", the Romans would have noted this treason. They kept pretty good records of petty thievery, but not of treason?
If some minor itinerant preacher named Yeshua was roaming the streets in 1st century Jerusalem, who cares? That's not the Jesus of the Bible. Is there someone in a large US city named Clark? Sure. Does that make Superman real?
QuoteQuoteQuote2. Christus is not necessarily Jesus Christ.
Any more than "president" is Abe Lincoln.
Well, it put "President" in the passage, you get that there were a group of people called the presidents, who took their name from some president.
Their title. And there were anointed religious leaders. So what?
QuoteOr if use anointed, you get that there was a group called the anointeds who took there name from someone anointed. This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Not if the people understood the word. But the people involved here were Aramaic-speakers. Only the literati would have been fluent in Latin. And that's discounting the scenario in which "Christus" was just a leader of a small group of Jews. (Rabbinic Judaism was just getting started in those days. A rabbi was merely a teacher, not a religious leader.)
Or the word could be interpreted (remember, usage isn't always the same as definition, especially when almost no one is literate, and the concept of a dictionary lay many centuries in the future) to mean "chosen" - as in "the chosen people". That group may have thought that it was special in Yahweh's eye. So yes, they were the "anointeds" - the specially chosen ones. We have very little knowledge of the speech of the common people.
QuoteI also read the Secular Web article, which did not argue that the passage wasn't about Jesus or Christians, only that it likely isn't an independent account.
That's not an argument, it's a fact. You can't make an independent account of something that happened before you were born. It HAS TO BE hearsay.
QuoteQuoteIf you define "scholar" to include Christian apologists who have studied, at most, what the Bible says. If you ignore them, and look, instead, to only scholars - those who study the time and place in question - you'll find few who take either Tacitus or Josephus as evidence of Jesus.
Well, I of course know that Christians really really need Tacitus and Josephus and thus have a lot of bias. But, you also can't just dismiss scholars because they are Christian.
I can just dismiss the Jesus myth on three grounds.
1) It's the same sky-godlet myth as MANY other cultures in the region used. Mithras was the sky-godlet with Persian trappings. Osiris was the sky-godlet with Egyptian trappings. Jesus was the sky-godlet with Jewish trappings. They were all born of a virgin. They all died and came back. That's the sky-godlet myth.
Read Paul. His Jesus wasn't a man. That was invented in the late SECOND century.
2) No actual evidence of the Jesus of the Bible.
3) Constantine's Column.
(We can also add in the fact, and it's well-known, that Christianity has lied over and over through the centuries. Even as early as the second century, one of the early Christian fathers said that lying in furtherance of Christianity was just fine. One doesn't normally take the word of a known liar without evidence to back it up - and there's none in this case.)
QuoteThere are Christians with legitimate historical credentials.
I worked with a Christian biologist who believed in miracle cures. Many Christians have no problem being rational with everything but Christianity.
QuoteFurther, I can't say I've ever taken up a survey of secular scholars on Josephus and Tacitus, but, I think that there indeed a lot of secular scholars who find them to be evidence of a real Jesus.
The field changes daily. What a scholar may have said 5 years ago, and what he says in light of evidence found last week, may be entirely different. Make sure that you're reading a scholar's current views.
QuoteYou do know that the mythist position is a minority opinion even among non believers, right?
So was the heliocentric position in the early 17th century. Most people, believers and non-believers, and even many scholars, have no idea what Constantine's Column is, let alone what's on it.
QuoteBut, it is still a fact that mythism is a minority position.
Anyone who understands what Constantine's Column represents, and still maintains that the Biblical Jesus was a real person, isn't paying attention. But it's going to take decades before the column is as well known as, say, Tacitus. (And many people still don't know who Tacitus was, let alone what he wrote.)
Quote from: "Colanth"QuoteI also read the Secular Web article, which did not argue that the passage wasn't about Jesus or Christians, only that it likely isn't an independent account.
That's not an argument, it's a fact. You can't make an independent account of something that happened before you were born. It HAS TO BE hearsay.
Sure, but his source *could have been* a good source, such as a Roman records that are lost. There is no good reason to think so. I once discussed this point with the infamous tool JP Holding, who, of course, insisted that Tacitus was a careful historian who wouldn't take the word of Christians and so he "certainly" would have looked it up. But, of course, that is just apologist nonsense. There isn't any good reason to think he used Roman records.
But, my primary point was that the Secular Web did not seem to have a problem with the passage being about Jesus and Christians, or it being an interpolation. Their only problem is that we don't know the source, and that it was probably just from "common knowledge".
Of course that article is now pretty old, and indeed, the author could have more nuanced opinion on the subject now.
QuoteIf some minor itinerant preacher named Yeshua was roaming the streets in 1st century Jerusalem, who cares? That's not the Jesus of the Bible. Is there someone in a large US city named Clark? Sure. Does that make Superman real?
This of course raises the question of what exactly would count as a "real historical Jesus"? How similar to the Biblical Jesus would he need to be to be considered the "real Jesus"? My take on the issue is, if there was a real human being, that was the single source upon which the Jesus story was built, no matter how different from the portrayal in the Bible, if this one person was the inspiration or germination of the Jesus story, then he was the real Jesus.
Thus, in my view, the "historical Jesus" could have been minor enough to escape much notice. I think the case for it being purely myth is stronger, so, I think that there was no historical Jesus. I'm just saying that I consider it not totally ruled out, based on my definition of a historical Jesus.
QuoteRead Paul. His Jesus wasn't a man. That was invented in the late SECOND century.
I'm familiar with that argument, most well known to be argued by Doherty. And now by Carrier. It depends on how you interpret some passages, of course.
QuoteEven as early as the second century, one of the early Christian fathers said that lying in furtherance of Christianity was just fine.
I think you are speaking of Eusebius. Carrier argues that the evidence that Eusebius actually said this isn't strong, it is heresay. I think we have good reason to conclude that there have always been a lot of fraud in the Christian church. And Eusbius might have said that. But, he might not have.
Quote from: "caseagainstfaith"Quote from: "Colanth"QuoteI also read the Secular Web article, which did not argue that the passage wasn't about Jesus or Christians, only that it likely isn't an independent account.
That's not an argument, it's a fact. You can't make an independent account of something that happened before you were born. It HAS TO BE hearsay.
Sure, but his source *could have been* a good source
Quoting anyone else is hearsay - that's what hearsay means, that it's not your testimony.
Quotesuch as a Roman records that are lost.
They didn't lose counts of bread loaves, but they lost one of the most important cases of treason against the Empire? You're accusing an anal empire of being sloppy. No historian would even contemplate that, let alone go along with it.
QuoteI once discussed this point with the infamous tool JP Holding, who, of course, insisted that Tacitus was a careful historian who wouldn't take the word of Christians and so he "certainly" would have looked it up. But, of course, that is just apologist nonsense. There isn't any good reason to think he used Roman records.
The same passage in Annals that supposedly refers to Jesus also refers to the martyrdom of Christians - which we STRONGLY suspect is a fairy tale, invented by later Christians.
Oh, another thought. You know how Christians claim that Christians were fed to lions in the Colosseum? By Nero? Because he blamed them for the fire?
When the Colosseum was built by Vespasian after Nero was dead. Jesus was REALLY powerful. Or the whole thing was made up by people who didn't know history. No one, during Nero's time (or, I suspect, even 100 years after his death), would have told of Christians being martyred in the Colosseum - since there was no Colosseum yet. It would be like a book written in 1980 talking about 9-11 and the fall of the Twin Towers.
QuoteBut, my primary point was that the Secular Web did not seem to have a problem with the passage being about Jesus and Christians, or it being an interpolation.
The web is not an authoritative source.
QuoteTheir only problem is that we don't know the source, and that it was probably just from "common knowledge".
As was the slaughter of Christians? That's what the passage claims. And written 40 or 50 years after the fact?
QuoteOf course that article is now pretty old, and indeed, the author could have more nuanced opinion on the subject now.
The facts discovered in the past couple of years could make it all moot.
QuoteQuoteIf some minor itinerant preacher named Yeshua was roaming the streets in 1st century Jerusalem, who cares? That's not the Jesus of the Bible. Is there someone in a large US city named Clark? Sure. Does that make Superman real?
This of course raises the question of what exactly would count as a "real historical Jesus"? How similar to the Biblical Jesus would he need to be to be considered the "real Jesus"?
The one in the Bible. The one who healed the sick with a touch, raised the dead, walked on water, fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, etc., etc. If that Jesus didn't exist, the entire New Testament is in question, since it's basically the story of THAT Jesus.
QuoteMy take on the issue is, if there was a real human being, that was the single source upon which the Jesus story was built, no matter how different from the portrayal in the Bible, if this one person was the inspiration or germination of the Jesus story, then he was the real Jesus.
Not the Jesus of the Bible, though. Just some teacher who had a following almost 2,000 years ago. Big deal. There were a lot of them who had followers. If Constantine had chosen Mo to make the story about, Islam would be Christianity.
QuoteThus, in my view, the "historical Jesus" could have been minor enough to escape much notice.
Minor enough that he wouldn't be any more important than any other Jerusalem rabbi of the 1st century.
QuoteI think the case for it being purely myth is stronger, so, I think that there was no historical Jesus. I'm just saying that I consider it not totally ruled out, based on my definition of a historical Jesus.
I've said it many times before: Is there a man in NYC now named Joe? Of course. So what? He's as important as some man in Jerusalem in the 1st century named Yeshua. They're both common names for the time and place.
And neither one has anything to do with the Biblical Jesus being totally a myth. The fact that someone there and then had the name has nothing at all to do with the myth.
QuoteQuoteRead Paul. His Jesus wasn't a man. That was invented in the late SECOND century.
I'm familiar with that argument, most well known to be argued by Doherty. And now by Carrier. It depends on how you interpret some passages, of course.
It depends on how you "interpret" actual manuscripts. The very earliest document that mentions a human Jesus is dated to about 187 CE. Nothing any earlier. That takes it out of the realm of reporting and into the realm of being made up.
And the story on Constantine's Column *is* evidence - that Constantine pretty much invented the entire Christian religion that sees Jesus as the son-of-God savior. We'll have to wait for the entire translation. But if we have actual evidence that a story was invented in the 4th century (and it sure looks as if we do), all the theories about it actually having happened in the 1st century, and not being all a myth, are so much fodder for the trash heap of history. If something actually happened, there's no sense in trying to decide how likely it is that it could or couldn't happen. The probability of an event that occurred is 1.0, and the probability that it happened any other way is 0.0.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quoting anyone else is hearsay - that's what hearsay means, that it's not your testimony.
So what? In historical study, we often accept second hand information if we feel that the person had a good source. In this case, we do not have reason to think so.
Quote from: "Colanth"They didn't lose counts of bread loaves, but they lost one of the most important cases of treason against the Empire?
I was saying the records are lost to us. And lots and lots of Roman records are lost to us.
QuoteQuoteBut, my primary point was that the Secular Web did not seem to have a problem with the passage being about Jesus and Christians, or it being an interpolation.
The web is not an authoritative source.
The Secular Web is actually fairly scholarly. They have a pier review process before articles are posted. I know, I have a couple of articles on that site and they were peer reviewed by people like Kieth Augustine.
QuoteThe facts discovered in the past couple of years could make it all moot.
Can you tell me more about the column you refer to? Others of these discoveries you refer to?
QuoteQuoteMy take on the issue is, if there was a real human being, that was the single source upon which the Jesus story was built, no matter how different from the portrayal in the Bible, if this one person was the inspiration or germination of the Jesus story, then he was the real Jesus.
Not the Jesus of the Bible, though.
Not *THE* Jesus of the Bible, but the *origin* of *THE* Jesus of the Bible. And for that such a person, if he existed would be notable for that, even if he was, at the time, not particularly notable.
QuoteAnd the story on Constantine's Column *is* evidence - that Constantine pretty much invented the entire Christian religion that sees Jesus as the son-of-God savior. We'll have to wait for the entire translation.
Reference? I'd like to learn more about this.
Quote from: "caseagainstfaith"Quote from: "Colanth"Quoting anyone else is hearsay - that's what hearsay means, that it's not your testimony.
So what? In historical study, we often accept second hand information if we feel that the person had a good source. In this case, we do not have reason to think so.
Sure we do. Tacitus had a good source that some group called itself "anointed" or the followers of someone who was anointed.
Considering the times, be careful that you don't yawn to death over that one. Remember, "son of God saviors" were about as common as used car salesmen are now. So the leader of one such group was executed. That would have made half a column inch at the bottom of page 8.
QuoteQuote from: "Colanth"They didn't lose counts of bread loaves, but they lost one of the most important cases of treason against the Empire?
I was saying the records are lost to us. And lots and lots of Roman records are lost to us.
Not the counts of bread loaves, but ALL the records of the WORST treason in Roman history?
The Christians supposedly claimed that this man, Jesus, was above Caesar. Since NO ONE in the entire world was above Caesar, not even the rulers of other empires, that was probably the single greatest crime ever committed against the empire. And all records of that have been lost?
The only way it wouldn't have been written on the sky is if it were fictional, and told about a previous time.
QuoteQuoteThe facts discovered in the past couple of years could make it all moot.
Can you tell me more about the column you refer to? Others of these discoveries you refer to?
The column is an ongoing research project. Access was only granted in, I believe, 2012. It's going to take years to copy the story. (It's engraved in the stone, winding around the entire length of the column.) Then it'll take years to translate it all and figure out which parts are fable and which are history.
But from what they've seen so far, Constantine needed a religion for the masses. (Mithraism was for officers and nobles.) So he, or someone under him, invented a religion that used the "chreestos" myth of 3 centuries earlier, but with elements of Mithraism (eating of the god's flesh, etc.) The statue at the top of the column is Constantine as Apollo/Jesus.
This is just what I've gotten from someone involved, but it's going to be a long time before anything else comes out of it.
QuoteQuoteQuoteMy take on the issue is, if there was a real human being, that was the single source upon which the Jesus story was built, no matter how different from the portrayal in the Bible, if this one person was the inspiration or germination of the Jesus story, then he was the real Jesus.
Not the Jesus of the Bible, though.
Not *THE* Jesus of the Bible, but the *origin* of *THE* Jesus of the Bible.
The origin of the character was Paul's sky-godlet who lived in the 7th heaven. Does it really matter what name he chose for this mythical character? Yeshua was a common Hebrew name at the time. (Remember Yeshua who brought down the walls of that city that didn't have walls, Jericho?)
QuoteAnd for that such a person, if he existed would be notable for that, even if he was, at the time, not particularly notable.
Notable for what? Having his name used as the name of a character in a story? (You're not seriously suggesting that some man actually lived in "the 7th heaven"?)
The question of whether there was a real Jesus doesn't revolve around whether there was a real man in 1st century Jerusalem named Yeshua. OF COURSE THERE WAS. It's almost unbelievable that an entire century could have passed, in what was a large Jewish city, without at least one boy being given a pretty common name. So what?
A teacher who performed miracles? That would be very interesting - and relevant. A man with a name that was common for the time? Maybe someone cares, but I sure don't. But why would a character in a myth be given the name of a real person, when just a name would do?