by unsure 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Thought I'd start a separate discussion on the subject.
Those who know me know I'm struggling with faith; I want to believe, some days I do but it becomes difficult.
Many believers say there is verifiable proof of Jesus' existence outside of the Bible.
Please post this proof.
Pull up a chair and get comfortable. Its going to be a while. You may want a dictionary handy as the definition of the word "proof" will streetched very thin.
Hi unsure,
i don't know that there is much debate over whether or not a man named Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, despite the little recorded evidence outside the Bible that was already mentioned on other threads. It seems the debate is more over whether he was just a regular man or the actual Son of God on earth.
May I ask why your faith is so dependent on whether or not this man actually existed? Why not consider the fact that there was clearly a huge shift in the first century where hundreds of thousands and even up to millions of people were willing to die and be persecuted over a minority faith both within the realm of Judaism and the Roman Empire. For such a shift in consciousness to have occurred so suddenly within one generation would suggest something real took place.
You can debate whether or not this thing has any real meaning or significance to you or humanity but I think it's pretty evident that something real actually did happen.
I don't know if this will mean anything for you. I really hate to see people lose faith. So much of faith is equated to religion and authoritarianism when it should be more about your individual personal journey through life with God.
The evidence for Jesus seems to pretty much rely entirely on the bible and Josephus. Sometimes you'll also get a list of people from that time that didn't dispute the existence of Jesus and have that presented as evidence for him, but you don't see a lot of folks going around disputing the existence of batman nowadays either, so that's hardly convincing.
On the topic of Josephus - from what (admittedly limited) reading I've done on that, all of his mentions of Jesus are, at best, of questionable authenticity. Stuff written in margins, footnotes added later, that kind of thing. Even if you assume that he did in fact author everything that's attributed to him, he was born after Jesus' supposed death so it'd be a bit like if I were the only independent source to corroborate the existence of Bob Marley.
And so it begins...
"I don't know that there is much debate over whether or not a man named Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, despite the little recorded evidence outside the Bible"
so you have no facts to present and admit there is no evidence outside the bible but you fordge ahead and accept as fact the jesus was a genuine historical figure.
"For such a shift in consciousness to have occurred so suddenly within one generation would suggest something real took place."
Really? Why is that? Culture shifts all the time.
"You can debate whether or not this thing has any real meaning or significance to you or humanity but I think it's pretty evident that something real actually did happen"
And now the crux of your argument.. "Pretty evident"? Ahh yes that word proof has now been disregarded totally. "Pretty evident" is classic weasel words in action. Pretty evident means no actual evidence at all but you want it to be true so you assume it to be so... thats not evidence of anything.
May I ask why your faith is so dependent on whether or not this man actually existed? Why not consider the fact that there was clearly a huge shift in the first century where hundreds of thousands and even up to millions of people were willing to die and be persecuted over a minority faith both within the realm of Judaism and the Roman Empire. For such a shift in consciousness to have occurred so suddenly within one generation would suggest something real took place.
Why would someone rest their faith on whether or not Jesus existed? Are you seriously asking that? It's the keystone of the entirety of Christian doctrine - if there's no Jesus, there's no salvation. The end. Your argument that lots of people died because of this could easily be applied to JWs - or don't you think that the fact that tens of thousands of JWs were willing to die or let their children die for want of a blood transfusion is convincing evidence of the validity of that belief system?
You can debate whether or not this thing has any real meaning or significance to you or humanity but I think it's pretty evident that something real actually did happen.You can debate whether or not it had any significance to humanity, but I think it's pretty evident that something real actually happened in 1914, given all the JWs that have died in concentration camps, for refusal of medical treatment or while taking a stand for their neutrality based on their belief in 1914.
People died for their faith long before Christians. The myth about singled out Christian persecution is mostly that and quite some verifiable accounts in history are about one Christian group throwing another one under the bus, even the Pauline letters and "apocrypha" are clearly showing those rifts between different groups.
But then there were lots of groups that were persecuted under Roman rule (which itself eventually evolved into papal rule during the dark ages) especially those that like Christians espoused a non-Roman political or theocratic rulership.
The new thing about Christianity was that it adapted local customs and beliefs and entered it into its own canon. If you're trying to conquer a world this is very useful trait, that's why you see themes of Jewish, Greek, Roman and later Gaul and Celtic themes popping up in Christianity.
No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people.
There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.
all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts.
Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.
Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay does not provide good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.
The consensus of many biblical historians put the dating of the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, at sometime after 70 C.E., and the last Gospel, John after 90 C.E. [Pagels, 1995; Helms]. This would make it some 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus that we have any Gospel writings that mention him!
Why not consider the fact that there was clearly a huge shift in the
firstseventh century where hundreds of thousands and even up to millions of people were willing to die and be persecuted over a minority faith both within the realm of Judaism andthe Roman EmpireArabia. For such a shift in consciousness to have occurred so suddenly within one generation would suggest something real took place.
Change 2 words and you're defending Islam.
Or.....maybe.....
The fact that "hundreds of thousands or even millions" of people can be duped into believing something stupid really isn't much in the way of "proof".
There is no verifiable proof that a man named Jesus was the son of god outside of the bible account, even early christians who converted after his death and never met him, saw him or heard him needed to put faith in hearsay evidence - hence the need for faith
Although there is the whole calender thing hmmm...
