Did Jesus ever exist?

[Baruch]

From the other string ... yes, of course some of us know who the Bahais are.  Their HQ is in Tel Aviv.

Pops - A good overview of what being a theist is like is: Finding Your Religion by Rev. Scotty McLennan ... who is the real life inspiration for the hip clergyman in Doonesbury.  But you probably already know this ;-)  The psychology and experience of being human, which for most people includes religion/spirituality ... is what I constantly emphasize.  The who did what to whom when and where ... that is history, and I am interested in that, as literature, not as fact.  So the Christian argument that "our savior is historical" is pointless for me.

[fencerider]

If a theist believes in god, but doesnt believe in any specific description of god, how would a theist recognize a god if he met It/Him/Her?

[Baruch]

If a theist believes in god, but doesnt believe in any specific description of god, how would a theist recognize a god if he met It/Him/Her?

If you met some person, but didn't have a prior specific description of that person, how do you know they aren't a reptilian alien?  But yes, you won't know it is John, unless you have met him before, or you have a description (photo) of him.

In my case, I don't have a belief about G-d, I don't have to struggle with an invisible entity like Paul (though he was mostly speaking of the future).  My G-d is quite visible all the time.  This is well explained by Jesus ... if you help person X, then you have helped me.  If you have seen me then you have seen the Father.  Or on the road to Emmaus, they didn't recognize him at first, but after they discussed what had happened that Passover (aka the Logos speaks) then they knew who they had been talking to.  An analogy, not something to be taken literally.  The Logos is a Greco-Roman concept ... not Jewish at all, but it reappears in Kabbalah.  And the Quran is the Logos for Muslims, it is the living word of Allah ... and thus the physical presence of Muhammad as well (as sound, not as a book ... the Quran is speech, not writing).

[trdsf]

Also, for those who put great stock in documentability, we have rather more documentary evidence of, say, Siddhartha Gautama and Mohammed than we do for Jeshua bar-Joseph.  And even photographs of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í faith.  And yet I see no great rush to convert thither.  So I guess actual independent documentation isn't quite as relevant.

[Baruch]

There is no accounting for popularity ... or marketing ;-)

[fencerider]

It makes sense that there is more evidence for Muhamed than Jesus. He was supposed to exist at a much later time period. Less time for evidence to be destroyed by things; like the Roman empire.

I wanted to ask this earlier but I was still figuring out the website when it first came up. Certain individuals have said that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by the next generation and not by eyewitnesses. So how do we know this? How do we know that they weren't written when Jesus was supposed to be alive? How do we know they were't written 500 years later? Or back to the point of evidence how do we know that there was never any record of Jesus by the Roman empire as opposed to all the evidence being destroyed by the Roman empire because Jesus was perceived as some kind of threat? Certainly the lack of substance in those 4 books makes a whole lot of sense if they were written after the fact. (if you met the son of a god and knew who you were talking to, it would make more sense that you would write down everything he said than the lame excuse that is given " if we wrote down everything Jesus said there would not be space for all the books we would have to write")

[Baruch]

It makes sense that there is more evidence for Muhamed than Jesus. He was supposed to exist at a much later time period. Less time for evidence to be destroyed by things; like the Roman empire.

I wanted to ask this earlier but I was still figuring out the website when it first came up. Certain individuals have said that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by the next generation and not by eyewitnesses. So how do we know this? How do we know that they weren't written when Jesus was supposed to be alive? How do we know they were't written 500 years later? Or back to the point of evidence how do we know that there was never any record of Jesus by the Roman empire as opposed to all the evidence being destroyed by the Roman empire because Jesus was perceived as some kind of threat? Certainly the lack of substance in those 4 books makes a whole lot of sense if they were written after the fact. (if you met the son of a god and knew who you were talking to, it would make more sense that you would write down everything he said than the lame excuse that is given " if we wrote down everything Jesus said there would not be space for all the books we would have to write")

Your last sentence, the quote ... is the tell.  If the NT are the deeds of the Church, and the Church is still kicking, then the NT is still being written ... I will give you the short form ..

Actual nearly complete manuscripts date from around 200 CE ... based on carbon dating and handwriting analysis.  So at best these are copies of copies.  How were the copies made, and why where they in a codex (book) form instead of a scroll form?  Also these oldest copies have no ascription to any apostle, that was added by church fathers in the 2nd century and later, starting with Papias.  And of course the NT you would read isn't in the right language, not the original Judeo-Greek.  The usual lay view is completely wrong, because of how the NT is printed.  There were no chapters, no verse numberings, those came centuries later.  Judeo-Greek is a soon to be extinct dialect of Jew-speak ... not Greek-speak ... as Yiddish is Jewish, not German.  There are fewer than 50 elderly native speakers left.  Modern Greeks think they can read the NT in the original language, but they really can't, same as you and I can't really read Shakespeare ... because we aren't Elizabethans, and Shakespeare's vocabulary is too complicated, obsolete and invented on the spot by Shakespeare.  Se we don't know exactly how old the originals of the NT would be, we are guessing, as were the folks in Constantine's time (circa 300 CE).  There was no reason for a standardized version of the NT before Constantine, and it was fought over for decades afterward.

Another great tell ... the letters of Paul are the oldest part of the NT, mostly from the 1st century ... and Paul has never heard of the Gospels, doesn't know a living Jesus, only a dead but resurrected one.  This implies we are dealing with a mythical character.  Conventional scholarship says that Jesus the man was real but Jesus the god isn't, that the man became god gradually.  This is apologetic, to please the Christians so they don't burn the scholars.  Jesus started as a god, and became a man thanks to the Gospels, and then became a god again under Constantine (backed by the Roman government).  The Gospels are Roman novellas ... hagiographies, of such exist for the pagan religions.  They were popular literature like women's romance paperbacks.  This is in a culture that knows what tragedy and comedy are at the theater ... the tragedy in this case being the execution of a good man, and the comedy being his resurrection in spite of that.  It is literature, no more real than Star Wars (modern mythology, even for so called atheists).

So here is the short form of Biblical scholarship -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2SvqhfevE

There is zero chance a lay person or average clergy can follow this ... it takes a mad genius ;-)

[Baruch]

PS - Mohammad is more recent, but his scripture wasn't written by him, but scraps of oral speech that were composed into a book decades later.  The first version of the Quran may have came about 12 years after he died.  There is little corroborating evidence for Muhammad either, but since he did no miracles, he is at least plausible.  The only things we know about his life, are inferred from the text of the Quran and the Hadiths.  The final version of the Quran took about a century to form, because his polity had state power within his lifetime.  Muhammad, like Moses and Jesus was illiterate.  Scripture much?  Both Moses and Muhammad got their messages directly from Heaven.  Muslims consider the oral Quran (not the book) as a miracle (it is oracular speech, only Allah is speaking, it isn't a narrative or dialog).  The literate people around him wrote down his favorite sayings, like fortune cookies ... Muhammad says ... and we see this process in what didn't get into the Quran ... the Hadiths.  The Hadiths are of varying quality, and are not independent witnesses.  In spite of death threats, non-Muslim scholars are giving it a good going over, in a neutral way.  It would appear that early Muslims weren't as primitive as they would have you believe, and not as original as they insist they are.  There were Jewish, Christians and Zoroastrian Arabs, in addition to the pagan ones.  Some of them could write.  At least in how the Quran was eventually standardized .. it is like the Psalms of David ... meant to be memorized and used liturgically.  At times Christians have done this with their versions of the Psalms ... be we don't see it much in modern times, because of cheap books and general literacy.  Muslims still hold to an oral ideal.  It is the recitation orally, of the Quran, that is authoritative, and it is on that basis that the text of the Quran is corrected, not primarily on the basis of trees of related manuscripts (as Jews and Christians do).  Of course at one time, the Jewish oral Torah, was oral.  It wasn't written down for several hundred years.  You had to be a memory prodigy to do this stuff.  And we understand in modern times how this works, and it isn't photographic, it is a slightly new composition each time the oral stuff is recited.

Mohammad comes off as a fire breathing anti-social prophet in the mold of Elijah.  Not by cup of tea, but certainly plausible.  If we had more stuff by Elijah, I think it would be very similar ... do this, don't do that, or you will burn in Hell.  This goes back to the Egyptian Book of the Dead ... it isn't original even with Jews.  Even the Hindus and Buddhists have this idea (but a different version of time).

[fencerider]

so yur saying Jesus was a story built up over time?

That brings to mind the story of the creation of the Jade Emperor (one of the bigger gods in China)... I dont remember all the details.

A man set out to increase his fortune (supposed to be a real person) on the road, leaving his wife at home. She didn't trust him not to cheat on her so she secretly followed him. Following him wasn't enough. They finally arrived in a far off town and the wife decided to trick the husband. She put on a disguise and danced for him. The man said to her you dance so much like my wife and you are the same size as she is. Then the wife took off her disguise. The man was so embarrassed that he jumped into the fireplace to kill himself. The woman didn't trust her husband but she loved him very much, so she lit some candles for him. Every year she would come to the town to light more candles for him. As the story slowly spread across China it changed to her worshipping the god of the kitchen to bring wealth and goodness into her life... slowly over time this god of the kitchen was changed into Jade Emperor....

It was a few years ago that I saw that, not much more detail

[Baruch]

so yur saying Jesus was a story built up over time?

That brings to mind the story of the creation of the Jade Emperor (one of the bigger gods in China)... I dont remember all the details.

A man set out to increase his fortune (supposed to be a real person) on the road, leaving his wife at home. She didn't trust him not to cheat on her so she secretly followed him. Following him wasn't enough. They finally arrived in a far off town and the wife decided to trick the husband. She put on a disguise and danced for him. The man said to her you dance so much like my wife and you are the same size as she is. Then the wife took off her disguise. The man was so embarrassed that he jumped into the fireplace to kill himself. The woman didn't trust her husband but she loved him very much, so she lit some candles for him. Every year she would come to the town to light more candles for him. As the story slowly spread across China it changed to her worshipping the god of the kitchen to bring wealth and goodness into her life... slowly over time this god of the kitchen was changed into Jade Emperor....

It was a few years ago that I saw that, not much more detail

Yes.  What people think of Jesus today (which is what is most relevant to us) has been a process over the last 2000 years, obviously.  What people thought of Jesus 2000 years ago (apostles, not Jesus himself, who wrote nothing) is clear from the Gospels, but not from the Epistles.  As to what Jesus was; human, god or fiction ... we can't tell ... but I think it is safe to assume anyone associated with miracles is a fiction, just as much as Zeus is.  This didn't bother most people 2000 years ago, nor today.  We all want our particular fiction to be The Truth.  My theism doesn't depend on any of that, or I couldn't be a theist ... as many others witness here.  The Jesus of the Church in particular took at least 300 years to form, in ways it is hard for us to fathom, though the writings of the Church Fathers is clear enough on part of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Emperor

Basically the personification of good government, and personal cultivation.  I confuse him with the Yellow Emperor ;-)

Most recent Americanized version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJJjP51Dim4

[trdsf]

It makes sense that there is more evidence for Muhamed than Jesus. He was supposed to exist at a much later time period. Less time for evidence to be destroyed by things; like the Roman empire.

I wanted to ask this earlier but I was still figuring out the website when it first came up. Certain individuals have said that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by the next generation and not by eyewitnesses. So how do we know this? How do we know that they weren't written when Jesus was supposed to be alive? How do we know they were't written 500 years later? Or back to the point of evidence how do we know that there was never any record of Jesus by the Roman empire as opposed to all the evidence being destroyed by the Roman empire because Jesus was perceived as some kind of threat? Certainly the lack of substance in those 4 books makes a whole lot of sense if they were written after the fact. (if you met the son of a god and knew who you were talking to, it would make more sense that you would write down everything he said than the lame excuse that is given " if we wrote down everything Jesus said there would not be space for all the books we would have to write")

I think the earliest fragments have been dated to the second and third centuries CE and the earliest full copies of individual books to the third, so they weren't half a millennium later.  Even so, that's well after the purported events, and well after the times of the alleged witnesses and writers.  At a temporal distance that, it might as well be fanfic -- and in a thousand years time, historians may well think that Sherlock Holmes was a real historical figure, based on the Baring-Gould "biography" (highly recommended, BTW, for my fellow Holmes fans).

And you would think that a god who's supposed to be able to work universe-altering miracles could work up something as simple as a complete transcript.  Y'know, in case his boy said something it was really important for us to know.  Then there wouldn't be any question about what exactly he said, or whether he even said it in the first place.

[Mike Cl]

Fencerider, for most of my life, I thought of Jesus as a person who had an embellished career.  But the more I have looked into his history, the more I am amazed by the utter silence about him by early historians.  I also used to think there were few historians in the first and second centuries.  Wrong.  One author researched 118 or so from the first century.  From these historians not a peep, not a word not a hint of this so called man.  Nothing.  And the more I think about it, the louder that silence becomes.  I just don't think it possible Jesus lived so quiet a life that no historian noticed him.  He is a fiction created to further the political power of his creators.

[SGOS]

I had a fascinating discussion with some Jehovah's Witnesses a couple of days ago.  They were shocked at the question.  I saw them comong and put on my Atheist hat.  THAT really discombuberated them.  So we had a nice discussion for 20 minutes on my front porch. 

I wasn't surprised that they hadn't the slightest idea what "evidence" was. To them, "evidence" is faith.  They said the Bible tells them Jesus was real. 

I had an almost identical conversation with them years ago.  I felt in the mood, so I let them in, which resulted in several return visits.  The first couple of times, it was with some kids, probably new to their obligation of testifying door do door, I asked them how they knew the Bible was telling the truth.  They didn't handle that very well.

The second or third visit, the preacher from the church came instead.  We pursued the same questions, but he didn't do that well either.

The next visit, they sent an older woman about my age.  I remember she drove a Cadillac.  I wondered what she was like in bed.  I asked her how she knew the Bible was telling the truth.  Now this lady was ready.  Out came the Bible with several bookmarkers she could use to address the important issues.  Same old shit:  "Look here, the Bible says it is telling the truth."  And here, "The Bible is the word of God."  She looked up suddenly and caught be laughing.  I wasn't laughing to insult her.  I was just laughing at the absurdity of her failing to understand the absurdity of what she was doing.  I felt guilty.  She asked, "Is something wrong?"  All I could think of to say was, "No, there's nothing wrong."

She returned once more in her Cadillac.  I wondered if she would have sex with me.  We continued the conversation, with her racing through the bookmarkers, quoting the Bible and its alleged truths.  She never returned, and I was relieved that it was over.  I still wonder if I had been more accommodating if I could have had sex with her.  It's too bad too.  If things had been different, maybe there could have been something good come out of it.

A couple of years later, I needed a cement pour for a garage floor in a hurry.  The contractors were all busy at the time, but the preacher at that church was also a contractor, and I gave him a call.  He said he was busy, but he could send his two sons to do the job.  He said, "You don't have to worry, these two have poured a lot of cement, and they are very good at it.

Out they came two days later on the date he had promised (very unusual with cement contractors in my town.  Usually, they would be three weeks late).  Those two kids poured the best slab I had ever hired out, and I had 5 of them poured over the years.  They were fast, (which you have to be pouring cement), left it with a smoothest finish from magnesium floats on long poles that I had ever seen, and poured a slab that never even cracked in that two car garage that I owned for several more years.

We never talked about religion, although they were confirmed JWs.  They even gave me a hand hoisting a heavy overhead beam which I couldn't do myself.  The two of them just grabbed that beam and horsed up overhead as I stood by and watched.  After that, I could lock it into position on my own.  Great kids they were, and a very satisfying business transaction.  So there was something good that came out of the incident after all.

[popsthebuilder]

Fencerider, for most of my life, I thought of Jesus as a person who had an embellished career.  But the more I have looked into his history, the more I am amazed by the utter silence about him by early historians.  I also used to think there were few historians in the first and second centuries.  Wrong.  One author researched 118 or so from the first century.  From these historians not a peep, not a word not a hint of this so called man.  Nothing.  And the more I think about it, the louder that silence becomes.  I just don't think it possible Jesus lived so quiet a life that no historian noticed him.  He is a fiction created to further the political power of his creators.

More likely wasn't written about due to fear of the Romans. Documents could have been written in nominal amount due to fear and the rest gathered and destroyed either intentionally or not.

It is feasible.

[Blackleaf]

More likely wasn't written about due to fear of the Romans. Documents could have been written in nominal amount due to fear and the rest gathered and destroyed either intentionally or not.

It is feasible.

It's also feasible that an alien race planted life on this planet and has secretly been observing us ever since. Just because it's possible doesn't make it true, and the possibility that real evidence once existed but was destroyed does not substitute for observable evidence.