You are confusing different points here.

King Arthur is mythological. Jesus was not.

Historians found documents related to Jesus' reputation as a healer. That Jesus had that reputation and was perceived as doing remarkable deeds, is what is documented.

Clearly you haven't read Ehrman, or at least not his chapter on how historians decide what is reliable. No one can go back in history and prove that an event happened. Someone could say that Lincoln never made the Gettysburg address and that photos were faked. It's the weight of evidence.

You are also arguing with me about things I never said or Ehrman never said.

Historians can't prove that Jesus was the son of God, or even that Jesus claimed that. He said he was the son of Man, and that only God has certain knowledge.

Mushy is wrong that Jesus not claiming that, invalidates Christianity. Jesus never went around preaching the Trinity. He said that his disciples could do greater things than he did.

It is documented why Jesus was crucified. He could not claim to be the son of Man when the ruler was known as the son of Man.

Further, it has nothing to do with bias, as Ehrman is an agnostic atheist.

....There is absolutely no point in furthering this conversation as you have your fingers in your ears and can't cognate the simple points being made, a typically, go running to that one token person to quote with whom your point fits.

If you cannot tell the difference between things recorded decades after, and things recorded at the present (e.g. rambling on about photos - what was that about crap comparisons?!) then there's little point in talking about it.

Keep on living in that little bubble, filtering out what is true/false based on what you like.

Well of course we can't prove anything in history. Nor are there writings about anyone who lived in Palestine at that time.

It's just ignorance of scholarship though, to assume historians can't draw conclusions from what is is known about someone and what was said about him. That's what historians do.

Ehrman has much more documentation than you do.

hiding behind scholars yet again, and still refusing to identify which version of jesus they think might have existed.


no, what im saying is that according to the bible, he drew thousands who witnessed him performing miracles. and that that WOULD certainly have come to the attention of the roman authorities. but there is no contemporary evidence, no accounts, no literature, no letters, no songs or poems.

so there was no magican drawing crowds, there is NO evidence at all and as ive said, all the 'evidence' comes from later biased sources.

therefore the character the bible describes, is either a total construct, a lie, or he is a heavily embelished character based on a nobody.

quite simple really.


yes, if they were wanting to start a sect.... you see this all over the world, each religion starts like this, after all, they cant all the 'the truth' can they!


THAT IS UNTRUE! it cannot be proven that jesus was a real historical character , so it cannot be asserted as fact that he was!

what part of 'there is no contemporary evidence' dont you understand?


then provide the evidence, thats evidence not opinion!


why for once dont you think for yourself and stop hiding behind others opinions?... trained scholars? then where is their evidence? how do they reach their conclusion? how can they when theres NO evidence?

..... and which version of jesus do they think existed? because if its anything less then the whole total biblical character then the religion is based on a complete lie!

you fail to address these issues time and time again.


where? i could find nothing of the sort... is this just something else youve been told and swallowed?


that was written many years after jesus. his information came from those who started the sect. it does not prove jesus existed and josephus himself makes NO reference to him other then what he was told be the followers of the new sect.


exactly! this is the very point that still goes unanswered by these believers. the point being that his job was to be the high profile character the bible depicts, performing miracles to authenticate him being god incarnate.

its ridiculous to think such a character would go unnoticed , if he existed as the bible depicts.

yes we can... we have forensics, we have science, we can prove things.

well according to you hide behind ehrman, there ARE plenty of accounts from the times of jesus and the church holds them.... so you either believe what ehrman says or you dont.

you still will not explain where these historians get their pov from, which jesus existed, nor how they come to the conclusions they do given that there is no evidence for the existence of the biblical jesus.

Sure I'll explain it mushy, if you will explain why you think people 'hide behind' historians instead of 'reference them,' the latter being the smart way to approach any subject you aren't an expert in.

No Ehrman does NOT say there are plenty of accounts from the time of Jesus. There is no physical evidence from his life. Almost no one from Palestine was written about, other than rich people who had a few inscriptions. Your assumption there would be writing from Jesus' time is an erroneous one.

Historians will tell you how it's impossible to go back and see history happening, so they do something like make a prediction about what occurred, although it's more like they post-dict.

History as we know it, is based on probabilities, not certainties. So historians are saying it's more probable than not that Jesus existed. That he was baptized and crucified, that he was a preacher, and that he really was the one behind Christianity (although likely not the same Christianity taught in Sunday School).

And there are rules for doing this, just as in any discipline, rules for determining reliable sources, rules for finding what was said about Jesus, and particularly what was said by secular persons who didn't have a bias.

If you don't understand that history is about probabilities, then of course you are placing the wrong expectations on it.

Yes, but you're ignoring what historians actually agree on - which, as I've said, it's basically birth and death. Even the teachings, what they could be, they disagree on. The reason for his crucifixion is debated...

wrong
"What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.": - Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, pp55-56, 2001"


lol.... waffle! i asked how they can say that, seeing as there are no contemporary accounts of him. so to me, its not 'probable' that he existed.... and even if he did, these experts still dont say which version! its perfectly acceptible to say that the biblical jesus was based on a real person... but the laws of 'probabilities' will NOT confirm the miracle worker! it is NOT 'probable' that there was the biblical jesus, miracles simply do not happen and you will not find a single respected scholar who says they do.

that leaves the religion being based on a complete fabrication, a lie.

there are NO 'reliable sources', this is the very point! you are saying that biased sources are reliable, but if the whole religion is based on a fabrication then you cannot use these biased writings as evidence!

it is perfectly possible, that jesus did not exist. theres no hard evidence for it.

it is perfectly possible that the biblical character was based on an ordinary person, but embellished.

either of those possibilities are feasible.

what isnt feasible , and what no scholar can unbiasedly, reasonably say is that this mythological magican existed. he clearly didnt.

You're only talking about the evidence of physical events. You're not talking about Jesus' effect on his followers, and how he was perceived by his others, even by secular writers of the time.

And perceived in a way that was not like Greek or Roman myth, in fact was very different from Greek and Roman myth.

Of course Jesus could have been embellished. That doesn't mean that the basic truths of how he was perceived as a great teacher, a doer of remarkable deeds, someone almost not human in behavior, was made up.

If you apply your conspiracy theory to history, anything could have been made up. In fact that's what happens when conspiracy theorists claim things were all an act. And very hard to talk them out of it, too.

Why we look to credible historians to give us the right information.

P.S. You are quoting from Ehrman, who does accept the historical Jesus and goes to great pains to show what we do know of him.

The same Ehrman who said (edit) no one from Palestine had physical evidence, other than rich people and then some inscriptions.

If you keep saying "prove" and "unreliable' if not contemporary, then you (and noodkle) will get nowhere other than misunderstanding what historians do and how they make conclusions.

Even secular writers did not think Jesus was perceived as an ordinary person.

If the whole point of his 'job' was to be a high profile character, he wouldn't have been born a peasant of carpenter or laborer parents. He would have been born a emperor or into the aristocracy.

His job was that he served others, taught them and even washed their feet.

He didn't go unnoticed. He was noticed and rejected, noticed and killed.

It isn't clear that he claimed to be God incarnate.

As said before, no accounts of the time say he was "noticed and killed". He was crucified, according to historical opinion, but the reasons why are debated. Many people were crucified, not least, for going against authority. We know this from documents of the time.

Did you know that the earliest written reference we have to the first few Roman Emperors are to be found in the New Testament ???

It's well documented that Jesus was a threat to the state. As a religious preacher and teacher.

Again, documented AFTER the event.

And plenty of people were killed in that era for going against/disrupting the state - or even attempting to. "Threat" is perhaps overstated...

Are you sure about that? Do you have any sources for that claim? I'm not saying you're wrong, but as far as I was aware, the Romans were quite keen on recording their history, as were the Ancient Greeks...

Yes of course (documented after). That's how historians draw conclusions when contemporary physical evidence is missing or lost. The same way historians would do it tomorrow if written records were lost or destroyed. They 'post-dict' what most likely occurred.

What do you mean by not an "ordinary person"? Or "almost not human"? That's embellishment right there....

That's not from me. That's from Josephus, an independent source. He described Jesus as a man, "if you could call him a man."

So Jesus was not perceived as an ordinary man.

You can't change people's perceptions. You can say 'Jesus was just an ordinary man,' but it's only your word against those who wrote about him. Your opinion based on someone you never knew or experienced. Whereas some of them knew the disciples.

....Loads of people are not perceived as 'ordinary'. Hitler wasn't ordinary. Myra Hindley wasn't ordinary. David Bowie wasn't ordinary, neither was Elizabeth I, Nero, Oliver Cromwell, Dusty Springfield, Oscar Wilde...

Doesn't mean they were 'superhuman'. And if that's not your point, then what in God's name is?

Not to mention that Josephus never met Jesus, nor was witness to anything that Jesus supposedly did...

No one has said he did meet Jesus. But Josephus was a historian and an aristocrat, who didn't mention 99% of the people who lived in Palestine. Yet he mentioned Jesus of Nazareth, who was thought to be the messiah. That shows that Jesus' reputation had spread by the time of Josephus.

Further, Eusebius wrote about Papias, who talked to people who knew the disciples. Who did witness what Jesus did.

There were also earlier writings on Jesus and an Exposition on his words, that were lost. There is no reason to think Luke was lying about reading the earlier works.

Historians conclude it is more probable than not, that Jesus existed, and that he had a reputation for being the messiah, or the Christ, from his teaching and his deeds.

Ruling out that he never existed, was based on a myth, or a nobody.

I would trust Josephus and Eusebius over anonymous internet bloggers 2000 years after the fact.

OK, you really MUST try and read what is written.

Firstly, I h ave repeatedly said that I do not subscribe to the Christ Myth Theory. So all this talk about him existing - yes, it is MOST LIKELY (not definitively conclusive, however) that there was a Jesus. I scrutinise the Myth theory as much as I do with the 'Jesus existed' claim. (As for the repeated rubbish about Arthur and Robin Hood - we've been through this, yet you persist, so I only assume you're being willfully ignorant on this point, or attempting to discredit arguments by-proxy. Either way, it's ridiculous).

Secondly, the debate is about what is attributed to Jesus and the events of his life (aside from baptism and crucifixion). That isn't conclusive or agreed upon. If you think it is, you're wrong.

Thirdly, there were loads of messiah claimants at the time. Jesus just happens to be the most famous - in no small part, down to his post-death fame which also included a lot of embellishment, as well as highly improbable claims - e.g. the resurrection, the knowing he was to be crucified, etc), as well as suspected appropriation of other religious themes, stories and folklore; we certainly know Christianity as a religion has a history of this.

If you can't see the obvious problem with accuracy in writing of people's lives after death without contemporary history; or in writing based on "people who knew the disciples", then you're already subscribing to a willful bias.

Essentially, all we have is that a Jesus was baptised, and a Jesus was crucified (as to why is debated too).

And I'm sure you're aware that there are other issues regarding the writings of Josephus which means that the writings cannot be taken completely at face value (unless you're far more reluctant to scrutinise his writings than those that oppose, simply because he says what you want him to say).

but anything less of true, according to the bible, invalidates the whole religion... see, the biblical version HAS to be true, if its not, what else isnt true?... the whole religion collapses.


completely different. conspiracy theorists use untruths and bad science to support their claims. im suggesting that as theres no first hand contemporary accounts of this high profile messiah , from any source, then its perfectly feasible to suggest the biblical version of jesus didnt exist. thats not untrue, thats not bad science, thats a simple fact.


who decides whos 'credible'?... no credible historian would accept supernatural events happened.


but WHICH version of jesus?.... the actual biblical messiah, son of god, spiritual entity ? ..... or does ehrman think hes just a high profile preacher, not the son of god, not the magician? you keep ducking that question.


the only think i dont get is why these historians (probably mostly biased) accept jesus existed when theres a huge hole of evidence contemporary to this high profile miracle man..... unless they dont think he was the biblical son of god, but just a normal preacher.



erm.... how much is wrong with this?

he was the saviour, according to the bible, the one we need to get back to god or we perish.. dont you think he HAD to be high profile?

but those making the story up, simply DID NOT HAVE THE OPTION OF HAVING HIM BE ARISTOCRACY. because no such person existed! if he was born to nobility, there WOULD be records of him.... so the construct HAD to be an ordinary person.


if he didnt go unnoticed, where are all the accounts of him from independent sources? roman authorities?

the story goes that he was rejected (seriously? thousands saw him perform miracles but still rejected him?... seriously? thats utterly bonkers!) and killed.... theres not 1 jot of evidence for this, nor that the magician was the one killed.


even if thats true.... so what? the salvation of mankind doesnt rely on whether these roman emporers existed or not (we have coins, statues, inscriptions though).


so what?.... that doesnt mean jesus existed, it means the christian sect had by the time josephus wrote.


hot air..... that cannot be proven, nor that jesus the miracle man existed or if he did perform miracles.


huh, thats convenient, we have the evidence but lost it, its here honest.... yeah right. it does not explain why theres nothing wrote, mentioned, accounted for, for 30 years after the event. this huge gap has no satisfactory explaination, theres no reason why this should be. unless of course he didnt exist and was a later fabrication.


more waffle... this means, it proves, its evidence for - absolutely nothing.


how strange..... youd chose josephus who doesnt mention jesus, over paul?...

josephus, anyone, has not got any more evidence then we have. he could not prove anything , the bottom line is that there is no contemporary evidence for jesus, nothing, not 1 jot, and all early 'evidence' is from a biased source.

you will not ever agree that jesus might not have existed, you want, you need, to believe he did. but it cannot be proven, by anyone, therefore its perfectly reasonable to suggest he didnt, and the whole religion is a construct.

You called Jesus a nobody. He was far from that.

He was reputed to have healed the sick. If he didn't really heal the sick, then he would be an imposter or trickster. Yet there is nothing in Jesus' recorded behavior or teachings that make us think he was a trickster. Rather, a sincere and genuine person. A remarkable preacher. Not incongruous to think he was connected to healing. We have unexplained healing in our own time, via placebo.

There is no Robin Hood. If there was, he was a far cry from the Robin Hood we know.

We don't have any reason to think that Jesus was a far cry from how he was observed to be.

Hitler didn't do anything that any despot couldn't do, with enough military power. He was a little man hiding his own failure.

Can't see anything in your comparisons that rings true.