by Tyler 83 Replies latest watchtower bible
does it really matter if Jesus existed or not? I mean if we can better ourselves and our world by believing in anything---does it have to be 'proven true'? I don't believe 'truth' exists. Not like that. Seems to me Christians get hung up on the whole 'I am better than you are coz I am the ONLY TRUE religion' thing. Who cares? We can learn from fairytales and nursery rhymes--so why does Jesus HAVE to be for real? Don't we all make our own realities anyway?
Ravyn
seedy 3 said: You know this subject really goes no where. I have yet to see any credible accounts from historians that mention "Jesus" as a person, from the time period that he lived or even a few decades afterwards.
Church Historian Luke's writings (early 60's to A.D. 90), Josephus's Antiquities (96 A.D), both date in the first century (by most scholars). Also the original "Acts of Pontius Pilate" (if a real document - which I believe is the case ) would probably have been written within a relatively few years of the crucifixion. In addition to these historians there are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. (which most scholars from conservative to moderately liberal) date to the first century, as well as the letters of Paul and Peter.
All of the "Evidence" that anyone has shown was written either as a forgery (as in Josephus),
There are two references to Jesus Christ in Josephus. 1. the Testimonium Flavianum,
Antiquities 18.3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.Scholarly opinion on the Testimonium can be divided into three camps. 1. Those that accept all of it as being genuine. 2. Those that accept some of it as being genuine (the reference to the crucifixion by Pilate is in a section that is considered by these scholars to be genuine). 3. Those that accept none of it.
Probably a majority of scholars accept at least some of the Testamonium as being authentic. Even some of those who write for the skeptic websites such as Jeff Lowder accept part of the Testamonium as being authentic. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html "the writings of Josephus also provide two independent, authentic references to Jesus." 2. The James passage
Antiquities 20.9.1 But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.This passage is accepted by almost all scholars.
Lowder (of the atheistic skeptics site) states:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html#josephus
"According to Josephus scholar Louis Feldman, the authenticity of this passage "has been almost universally acknowledged."[18] However, since there a few scholars who deny the authenticity of this passage, let's consider the arguments for and against authenticity."
from christian tradition (as in the case of Tacitus),
"Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius:"This passage (see my first post for the complete passage) is accepted as being genuine by most scholars. We do not know where Tacitus received his information from for this passage. The facts are that Tacitus was a Roman historian who discussed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ under Roman Pontius Pilate, during the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberus.
or from what their mommy and daddy said (as in the case of the NT)
The evidence for the New Testament being an ancient (first century) witness comes from extant ancient greek manuscripts, ancient versions, as well as citations by ancient writers such as Clement of Rome and Iganatius. Clement of Rome (A.D. 95) who quoted from: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict p. 44
Ignatius (A.D. 70-110) who quoted from: Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, 1Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Collossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, James, and 1 Peter The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict p. 44 Also the books of the New Testament were written by different ancient writers, hense the New Testament is not just one witness of the historicity of Jesus Christ, but several witnesses. Even Lowder said that the New testament provides sufficient evidence for the historicity of Jesus: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html
"McDowell quotes John Montgomery, who states the New Testament documents are reliable and therefore provide good evidence for the historicity of Jesus. Although I disagree with McDowell (and Montgomery) over the degree of reliability of the New Testament, that disagreement is irrelevant here. There is simply nothing intrinsically improbable about a historical Jesus; the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) are reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus.[3] On this point, it is important to note that even G.A. Wells, who until recently was the champion of the Christ-myth hypothesis, now accepts the historicity of Jesus on the basis of 'Q.'[4]"
"I think there is ample evidence to conclude there was a historical Jesus. To my mind, the New Testament alone provides sufficient evidence for the historicity of Jesus, but the writings of Josephus also provide two independent, authentic references to Jesus."
Show me one, just one historian, that wrote anything about Jesus between 20ad and 70ad. You can't becasue there is nothing,
According to many scholars Church Historian Luke wrote during this time. The original "Acts of Pontius Pilate" (if a real document - which I believe is the case ) would probably have been written pre-Ad 70. .
Even Philo, who was a homie of Jesus, from the same town, grew up in what should have been together, has not a single word to say about him (although the writings of Philo are lost today, they are mentioned by Justin Martyr and his comment was "I can't beleive he never mentioned a single word about Jesus). So please explain why not one person wrote a single thing about this "Great Man/God" until after 70ad/ce what ever you want to use?
I believe that Philo lived mostly in Alexandria Egypt. The fact that Philo never mentions Jesus is an argument from silence. Philo never mentioned Christianity either! However even most liberals believe that Christainity in some form was in existence during Philo's life. J.P. Holding (a conservative) comments: http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_D02_4SQf.html "The overall silence of Philo and Justus (which means nothing -- Philo may not have lived long enough to see Christianity become a threat, and make Jesus worthy of note; to report nothing about someone in your history was a typical means of oblique insult; and we know Philo at least never mentions Christianity either, so the silence about Jesus is hardly problematic);"
So please explain why not one person wrote a single thing about this "Great Man/God" until after 70ad/ce what ever you want to use?
Even liberals date some New testament books pre-70. Some scholars such as A. T. Robinson date all of the New Testament pre-ad 70! Redating the New Testament (Robinson is not even considered by many as being a conservative!)
I read somewhere that there were somewhere around 20 historians that we still have a record of in some way or another that wrote during that time and not a single one of them makes any mention of this "Jesus".
Jesus is mentioned by church historian Luke, Jewish historian Josephus, Roman historian Tacitus.
In addititon there is the referenced document "Acts of Pontius Pilate" mentoned above (also see my first post on this Thread).
There are also references by Julius Africanus in his Chronography, to historian Thallus discussing the darkness at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (hense also an indirect witness to the crucifixion itself), though this is not as reliable as the above three references.
There is no more "Clear" evidence for Jesus then there is for any other Man/God, Attis, Dyonysis, Mithra, Mithras, Osris, and the list goes on.
Earlier I listed 8 specific ancient witnesses for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by Pilate, do any of these above "Gods" have this many witness (or even 1historical witness) to their death? Even the Encyclopedia Brittanica (Micropaedia Vol. 3 p.762) says (with no qualifying statements!): "in about AD 32 Pontius Pilate had Jesus of Nazareth put to death by crucifixion." While Encyclopedic arcticles refer to the above "Gods" as myths they refer to Jesus Christ as an historical person. Jesus Christ is also linked (by ancient historians and writers) to known historical persons such as Pontius Pilate, Tiberus, John the baptist, and James.
Ravyn said:
does it really matter if Jesus existed or not? I mean if we can better ourselves and our world by believing in anything---does it have to be 'proven true'? I don't believe 'truth' exists. Not like that. Seems to me Christians get hung up on the whole 'I am better than you are coz I am the ONLY TRUE religion' thing. Who cares? We can learn from fairytales and nursery rhymes--so why does Jesus HAVE to be for real? Don't we all make our own realities anyway?
I agree absolutely!
Seedy:
"...All of the "Evidence" that anyone has shown was written either as a forgery (as in Josephus),..."
Not true:
. According to Feldman's discernible statistics [Feld.JosMod, 684-91] , 4 scholars regard the larger passage as completely genuine, 6 more as mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation as Wells does.) Twleftree [Twel.GosP5, 300] , offering an unusual view, rejects the smaller passage on rather thin terminological grounds, but strangely, accepts most of the larger passage as genuine
I tend to believe that the Christ myth is indeed based upon the life of a real person, (possibly) named Jesus. However, it's pretty obvious that the ridiculous miracles (still waiting to hear about those dead folks that came out of the memorial tombs as "Matthew" talked about ) , etc., which have never been mentioned by other people, are made up, and indeed a great deal of the Christ myth was ripped off from pagan sources.
Regarding the James passage, The following comes from from the research of Mike Licona:
http://www.risenjesus.com/articles/index.asp?pagea=acharya-s
Feldman writes, "The passage about James [Antiquities Book 20, Sections 197-200] has generally been accepted as authentic."(81) Elsewhere he mentions this text and "the authenticity of which has been almost universally acknowledged."(82) Another Jewish scholar, Zvi Baras, states that this passage "is considered authentic by most scholars."(83) Yamauchi comments, "Few scholars have questioned the genuineness of this passage."(84) Van Voorst writes, "The overwhelming majority of scholars holds that the words 'the brother of Jesus called Christ' are authentic, as is the entire passage in which it is found."(85)
crown boy said: "and indeed a great deal of the Christ myth was ripped off from pagan sources."
I don't think that this is true at all. The pagan sources are not very parallel at all, and many elements date from post-christian sources.
Belief and faith in Jesus is what will give eternal life according to Christians.
Yet.............all we have to go on regarding this lifesaving man are documents that have been copied by religious men and claimed to be unaltered. Gee, god isn't asking much from us! We should believe these men shouldn't we? After all.....the early church has such a NICE record going for itself.
Why the hell doesn't god just speak or perform some feat for us to believe him by? He did it for Israel didn't he? He even did it for the pagans according to the bible.........yet since the bible was written...........he has done none of these things. Why........because as the scriptures say...........he now speaks to us through his son and the spirit also guides us. How convienent.
Gumby
Doncha ya know seedy........they found Jesus sandles with his name etched in the side? In fact......I have THE COIN he got from the fishes mouth that he payed his taxes with!
So you were the one that bought it from me! I remember it well. It had the face of Caesar, and even the date: 31 AD, or was it CE?
The issue is not Christ's Faith, but if he existed as a real person.................
