Scholarly interview on the existence of Jesus

careful

Perhaps this has been linked here before. If that's the case, I'm sorry. However, new people join, others miss things, some forget, so I thought it was worth posting, especially since this issue comes up from time to time and some here have never worked it out or are in the process of trying to do so. The interview, from 4 years ago, is with a chap from Princeton who is very well-published in New Testament studies (Dale C. Allison) and is from a "Christian agnostic" blog (of Steven Jake, a high school math teacher). What is "Christian agnostic" supposed to mean? The blogger says:

"I feel drawn to the Christian message, and I feel that in Christianity religion reaches its maturity in the person of Jesus; yet, I also feel that some of Christian doctrine is vague, wrong-headed, implausible and perhaps even wrong. Therefore, I am perfectly fine with saying, "I do not see the evidence for doctrine such and such, so I will abstain from believing it"; and this is where Christian Agnosticism finds it's home."

Since that is now "cleared up" (?!), here's the interview:

http://christian-agnostic.blogspot.com/2014/01/0-0-1-1963-11194-student-93-26-13131-14.html

Enjoy.

Hanged Man

Breaking news....

Jesus never existed....I know....I visited the sea of Galilee....and can confirm there were no footprints on the water.

venus

I agree with his fourth point that discrepancies in the gospels do not argue Jesus never existed. Such discrepancies could be said about “most decent historical sources … such as contemporary biographies of modern figures” which would not prove they never existed. Husband and wife often disagree about their memories about things that happened years ago, months ago, weeks ago, days ago, or hours ago. Sometimes they both must be wrong; yet this misremembering is related to something that happened. It's faulty memory, not no memory.

An easy approach would be to look at the essence. Behind the details of all the branches of Science we see the essence: Science is the study of laws of nature (with a view to make use of them for our benefit) which means everything in the nature follows certain laws which would further imply that humans also must definitely follow certain laws that contribute to welfare of their own and of others if they want to enjoy their lives.

Similarly, behind the details all the branches of religion we see the essence: All great religious figures such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed …were sent by God to restore the remembrance of God which would help people to be good citizens of their respective countries. Hence what they spoke was truth beneficial for the people in their respective contexts. Later, commercial minded followers added things to the original teachings which make a mess of everything giving a reason for modern readers to doubt the historicity of religious leaders. (Mathew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29, 30) Thus what is of absolute clarity such as stated in Mathew 7:12, 21-23; 25:31-46 …are really from Jesus where as verses such as God-dishonoring (eg. John 9:1-3 …) are fabricated later.

scratchme1010

Thank you. It is well proven and documented that Jesus of Nazareth did exist. He was a real person. There's plenty of evidence from all kinds of sources about the existence of that person.

My personal issue has nothing to do with his existence or his teachings, however, anyone in their right mind, with fair reason and open mind could clearly see that Jesus did in fact existed.

Thank you for sharing the link.

WhatshallIcallmyself

"There's plenty of evidence from all kinds of sources about the existence of that person" - Scratchme

Is there? What contemporary writings document this person?

Half banana

Repeating assumptions is not a good idea. Where is this plenty of proof and documentary evidence Scratchme?

Crazyguy

What’s interesting is one can find writings by people like Plato and others that describe in great detail a guy like Jesus and what he would say and teach before he even existed. It’s almost like someone took these ideas and writtings by others to then invent a guy a messiah named Jesus and then took many of the ideas of the then prevailing messianic religions or cults of the day combined them in to a new deity and again called him Jesus which this name means savior and was already being used in the Greek Septuagint.

Oh wait, that’s exactly what happened.

_Morpheus

Similarly, behind the details all the branches of religion we see the essence:All great religious figures such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed …were sent by God to restore the remembrance of God which would help people to be good citizens of their respective countries. Hence what they spoke was truth beneficial for the people in their respective contexts.

This is a direct copy and paste from another post you made, venus. Any original ideas or are you just regurgitating tripe?

venus

Hi _Morpheus

That was only half this material. This comes with added information and modified for this context.

Diogenesister

I've been learning today that Neanderthals decorated themselves with feathers, almost certainly used language and strung beads together - art works if you like.

I wonder what Jesus would have made of the other, now extinct, hominid species. Presumably since they were without sin he did not die for them. Why, therefore, did they have to die? Not just as as individuals but as a whole species?

Scholarly interview on the existence of Jesus

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