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Is this what Jesus looked like? |
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#76 |
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What evidence points towards His existence? I'll accept that there was a preacher who, for the lack of another name, we can call Jesus. I'll accept that this Jesus preached for a few years then was killed for being a pain to the local authorities. I'll also accept that his followers wrote up some of his speeches.
I could accept that Jesus never existed and was the product of mythmakers Everything else is conjecture. I'm not sure what your accepting. Do you think he existed or do you not? |
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#77 |
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Of course you can separate the two - you seem to think that a historical source is either infallible and 100% true or completely made up and wrong in every possible way. Historians don't view their sources in such a black and white way. Quote:
What has the creation story got to do with the historical existence of Jesus? didnt say the creation story had anything to do with jesus.
i was making a comparison between nature/creation, something we can see and understand - the intricacy, the perfection, the huge intertwined web, that supports a wide variety of life on earth..... and the bible, which is diametrically the opposite. i suggest the creator of the two, are not the same. hence the bible is completely discredited as a source from 'god'. Quote:
To understand how critical source analysis works think of it like this - I think that the Daily Mail is a load of rubbish. I treat the Daily Mail with a high amount of scepticism. That doesn't mean, however, that I assume that literally everything in it is made up. Even as a Daily Mail sceptic I can accept that some of the characters mentioned in it are real people and loosely inspired by real events. Sceptical historians can approach the Bible in a similar way.
poor comparison. we can check to see if characters mentioned in the mail are real. we cannot do that with biblical characters so easily, except those who where prominent. and guess what?... yep, no sign of jesus who MUST have been a noteable character IF he ever existed.Quote:
How do you know that there weren't any oral traditions? This it the key question you keep on ignoring.
where are they?..... thats the answer you keep ignoring! jesus supposed to have performed miracles to 5000 people.... oh i believe thats 'men' not including women and children, . if he performed miracles in front of these....or even just preached, how come all these people didnt pass down their story to their decendants? who eventually wrote it down? that 5000 would be 40,000 in 100 years . surely such a person existing would be something you would ignore/forget? after all, that was his very mission! ![]() Quote:
There are 'interesting reads' available only a quick Google away showing how the moon landings were a hoax and Elvis is still alive. I'd rather get my history from professional historians than 'Freethoughtpedia'
but those can be instantly disproven, you cannot disprove the fact that theres no contemporary evidence for jesus existence. Quote:
That's why I put false teachers in inverted commas. Paul believed them to be false.
and they think paul was false..... who says he wasnt? only him because he 'won'. Quote:
Which is exactly my point. If Paul was having to battle to get his ideas heard it doesn't sound to me like Paul was the only leader within the early church or sole inventor of Christianity. In fact it comes across as if when Paul was writing the original founder was no longer around to put forward their vision and as a result there was a lot of infighting. But if that's the case, then Paul didn't invent Christianity.
paul was fighting to get HIS ideas heard?.. exactly what id expect if someone was creating a religion.Quote:
So do you think that a historian should only believe things for which there are multiple contemporary accounts? You do realise that this would mean a lot of what we know about the ancient world would have to get thrown out the window.
no... how do you get that?... a historian should only believe things based on current evidence and what that suggests is right based on known facts. they certainly should not 'believe' anything based on hearsay, unsupported/unproven/unsubstantiated writings.Quote:
Why on earth do you think the Vindolanda tablets should have mentioned Jesus? They were written by soldiers posted on Hadrian's wall before Christianity had ever reached Britain.
i didnt say nor suggest they should..... i was highlighting the fact that writing, even in the most remotest part of the roman empire, was alive and well. therefore why shouldnt writing be commonplace in the holy land at the same time? Quote:
It doesn't matter how many letters were written around the time of Jesus - if hardly any of them survive and are still around today we have no idea whether or not they mentioned Jesus.
of course they would! letters/writings mentioning jesus would be gathered by the early believers and kept safe. thats how they created the bible, gathering what they saw as relevant, ignoring the thousands that were not. Quote:
Scholars believe Jesus existed because they've spent their lives studying the evidence. Has it ever occurred to you that you might be the one with bias problems?
oh the whole 'eat shit, a million flies cant be wrong' attitude?... if they have spent there lives studying the evidence, then why can they not present their findings to prove he existed? my bias can be easily refuted, by providing the evidence that proves me wrong. have you ever thought you might be wrong? Quote:
The Romans tried to stamp Christianity out for its first few hundred years. This might explain why Christianity grew so quickly post-Constantine however is not a great explanation for where it came from in the first place.
you duck the point i made about other religions.the spread of christianity does not prove its real... as that could be applied to every other religion before and since. the very fact that other religions exist makes a mockery of religion. but hey ho, god must want them to exist otherwise he would have permitted them in the first place. |
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#78 |
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no..... historians view things based upon available data, not hearsay, not stories, but on what the current proven facts are telling them.
Archaeology - Remains of buildings, fragments of pottery etc These give a lot of detail about the past but archaeology has its limits, for example discovering arrow heads in a field will tell you that a battle too place but they won't tell you what people were fighting over or some of the details of what happened. Texts - Historians look at what people around at the time claimed happened. To dismiss accounts as 'hearsay' makes a mockery of the historical method. Of course, both methods have their problems. For example we often only have the foundations of buildings and so archeologists need to guess what it looked like from the pieces they've found. Writers are often biased and even the most careful author can make mistakes. Historians have come up with lots of different ways to deal with these problems. Take for example, Josephus, one of the main sources historians use from the period. Josephus wasn't an eyewitness to much of what he wrote and as a Jew had a Jewish bias. That doesn't mean that historians dismiss Josephus as a biased rambling Jew whose writings are full of hearsay! In the same way, historians approach our earliest Christian writings with scepticism, but that doesn't mean they dismiss them as you do. Quote:
hence the bible is completely discredited as a source from 'god'.
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where are they?..... thats the answer you keep ignoring! jesus supposed to have performed miracles to 5000 people.... oh i believe thats 'men' not including women and children, . if he performed miracles in front of these....or even just preached, how come all these people didnt pass down their story to their decendants? who eventually wrote it down? that 5000 would be 40,000 in 100 years .
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but those can be instantly disproven, you cannot disprove the fact that theres no contemporary evidence for jesus existence.
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paul was fighting to get HIS ideas heard?.. exactly what id expect if someone was creating a religion.
If Paul had invented Christianity then I wouldn't expect there to be parts of the church that Paul wasn't in control of. Quote:
of course they would! letters/writings mentioning jesus would be gathered by the early believers and kept safe. thats how they created the bible, gathering what they saw as relevant, ignoring the thousands that were not.
![]() ![]() We only have a fraction of Paul's writings and none of the letters he was replying to. Clearly the early church did not successfully preserve every document that referred to Jesus.Why do you think that the first believers would have prioritised tracking down and preserving every private letter or passing reference to Jesus on the off-chance that it would help historians out thousands of years later? Quote:
thats how they created the bible, gathering what they saw as relevant, ignoring the thousands that were not.
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oh the whole 'eat shit, a million flies cant be wrong' attitude?
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you duck the point i made about other religions.
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#79 |
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It's easy to throw around words like 'data' and 'evidence', but what do we mean by that? There are two ways historians figure out what happened in the distant past:
Archaeology - Remains of buildings, fragments of pottery etc These give a lot of detail about the past but archaeology has its limits, for example discovering arrow heads in a field will tell you that a battle too place but they won't tell you what people were fighting over or some of the details of what happened. Texts - Historians look at what people around at the time claimed happened. To dismiss accounts as 'hearsay' makes a mockery of the historical method. Of course, both methods have their problems. For example we often only have the foundations of buildings and so archeologists need to guess what it looked like from the pieces they've found. Writers are often biased and even the most careful author can make mistakes. Historians have come up with lots of different ways to deal with these problems. if there is no archaeological evidence, then its not treated as fact, but as conjecture. there is no contemporary account of jesus, which is rather damning imho, why wait 40 odd years?... Quote:
Take for example, Josephus, one of the main sources historians use from the period. Josephus wasn't an eyewitness to much of what he wrote and as a Jew had a Jewish bias. That doesn't mean that historians dismiss Josephus as a biased rambling Jew whose writings are full of hearsay! In the same way, historians approach our earliest Christian writings with scepticism, but that doesn't mean they dismiss them as you do.
josephus wrote about christ long after the events, 90 odd years? i cant remember the exact date. what historians have done with people like josephus, pliny, etc is examine what they have said. each point any ancient scribe has made is scrutinised individually. as josephus wasnt contemporary to jesus, what he wrote was 2nd or 3rd hand. he copied what he had been told. now some of what josephus wrote can be proven as fact (?) , but even if most of what he wrote has been proven to be true, it doesnt mean all of it is. so no, of course historians dont dismiss josephus as a rambling jew, they examine every point he makes and determines which bits have historical accuracy based on evidence, and what is unsubstantiated ramblings. Quote:
And has already been explained to you, none of the arguments on this thread rely on the Bible being the word of God.
erm... then where else does all the information on christianity come from? if not the bible... we are talking evidence for jesus existence, all there is is a few contradictory biblical books. Quote:
How do you know that the writings found in the New Testament aren't the product of oral tradition, as you describe?
i dont doubt that they could be..... but wheres all the other testiments from the thousands who supposed to have witnessed his teachings and miracles? Quote:
And has already been explained, historians don't have contemporary accounts for much of what took place in the ancient world. You're like the creationist who keeps going on about the gaps in the fossil record completely oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter.
no they dont, and they only pass off as 'true' what they can reasonably prove. thats another poor comparison, as there are 99% hard evidence found in fossil records in place to support evolution. theres 0% hard evidence to support jesus existed. Quote:
But none of the people Paul was arguing with in the early church disputed Jesus' existence. Therefore, how do you know Paul invented Jesus rather than Peter or somebody else in the early church?
does it really matter who invented him? paul was though the major player in getting this story told. the bottom line is.... there is not 1 iota of hard contemporary evidence that jesus ever existed. thats the point. Quote:
If Paul had invented Christianity then I wouldn't expect there to be parts of the church that Paul wasn't in control of.
thats nonsense.... how could he 'control' all the parts of the church as christianity spread? it was logistically impossible. Quote:
What on earth are you on about 3 years of preaching to thousands, performing miracles, spreading the good news, he was supposed to be the saviour of mankind. and only a few documents and no oral tradition written 40 odd years after the events survived long enough to act as evidence?.... that makes the whole proposition of christianity total bonkers. ![]() ![]() We only have a fraction of Paul's writings and none of the letters he was replying to. Clearly the early church did not successfully preserve every document that referred to Jesus.
5000 at the loaves and fishes event alone, and non of the descendants of these people talked about it? wrote about it? supported jesus when he was being tried? the only explaination that makes any sense is that jesus didnt exist, that he was a creation of paul or someone, at best a highly exaggerated account based on a little known preacher. Quote:
Why do you think that the first believers would have prioritised tracking down and preserving every private letter or passing reference to Jesus on the off-chance that it would help historians out thousands of years later?
because it makes more sense then the thousands of contemporary witnesses shutting up, saying nothing, writing nothing. surely thats not what the purpose of jesus existence was... it supposed to be good news, mankind is saved from the eternal damnation god allows to happen.. its either a colossal failure on jesus/gods hand, or its total nonsense and didnt happen. Quote:
You keep contradicting yourself! Do you think that the gospels were made up as you have implied elsewhere? Or do you think they were they based on hearsay (i.e oral tradition)? Or were they, as you claim here, based on looking through all of the available accounts and filtering though them? At the moment you don't have any kind of coherent or consistent argument.
theres no contradiction. the gospels are made up , cherry picked out of thousands of religious writing going around at the time, to 'prove' a point. the fact that after preaching to thousands for 3 years, there is no oral tradition, there are no accounts from witnesses apart from the contradictory gospels composed 40 odd years later. Quote:
Do you always ignore what the experts think? Or are you one of these people who make a big deal over what the experts think when the experts agree with them however dismiss them the moment they don't like what they're told?
which experts? do you not ignore what the experts who think its all rubbish think? all these pro-jesus experts have to do is present a reasoned explanation along with evidence to support their pov... Quote:
I fully addressed it - I have made very clear, for example, that I fully accept that Muhammed was a historical person and have no issue with a historian researching into the origins of Islam using the Koran as a historical source. Therefore, all I'm doing here is giving Christianity the same treatment I'd give any other religion.
bonkers!..... what daft reasoning! muhammed existed so jesus did! ![]() can muhammeds existence be proven?... i dont know, but im not going to accept it 'because they said he did'... but ill tell you what.... if muhammeds existence can be proven, and jesus cant, that would strongly suggest god is allah and islam is the true religion. |
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#80 |
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Pretty much everything in mushymanrob's post has already been responded to. To recap...
Why don't we have lots of contemporary accounts for Jesus? The same reason we don't have lots of contemporary accounts for any event from ancient history (I gave the eruption of Vesuvius as an example, for which we have one written account from 25 years after the event. We don't have lots of contemporary accounts for any religious leader from that period of history.) Here's an experiment for you - try burying a piece of paper in the ground and see what condition it is in when you dig it up in six months time. Now ask yourself whether it is likely to still be around in 2000 years time. Or try this - go to your local museum and ask to see their collection of Roman documents. Point out that they must have a few letters or books written by those living in your area at the time. Watch as you get laughed out the building. The reason we don't have lots of contemporary accounts of Jesus has been explained to you over and over again. We need other data The New Testament corroborates with archaeology in many places (e.g the towns and locations existed, government officials mentioned in Acts fit with what we know, groups like the pharisees were real etc etc) But, archaeology does not corroborate with anything beyond that because archaeology doesn't record what ordinary people talked about over lunch or if somebody preached a sermon on a particular spot. For that historians look at textual sources and have to piece together the parts of the jigsaw puzzle that survive. Remember, not everything written 2000 years ago is still around today. It all goes back to Paul Just because Paul's letters survive doesn't mean that everything goes back to him. When historians critically study his writings they get the impression that Paul was trying to establish his authority in a movement that he didn't start. Historians think... You've failed to name a single historian who denies Jesus' existence. You really don't know what you're talking about. |
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#81 |
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Pretty much everything in mushymanrob's post has already been responded to. To recap...
Why don't we have lots of contemporary accounts for Jesus? The reason we don't have lots of contemporary accounts of Jesus has been explained to you over and over again. the reason that there are no contemporary accounts is because he simply did not exist. Quote:
We need other data
if a historical text says 'this king had this battle there and married that queen from that country and they had this son who went on to rule after the kings death'.... that is plausible. its not fact until hard evidence can be provided, but its not beyond the realms of possibility.thats totally different from a story about a magician who performed miracles. how can THAT be taken seriously? yet you seem to want to give a supernatural story the same credence as a perfectly plausible one. Quote:
It all goes back to Paul but it doesnt mean that everything doesnt go back to him either. you cannot prove it didnt, and that christianity was a construct of paul. Just because Paul's letters survive doesn't mean that everything goes back to him. When historians critically study his writings they get the impression that Paul was trying to establish his authority in a movement that he didn't start. Quote:
Historians think... ..... and you havnt named one who does!.... but who are these historians? from what ive read they are divided on the subject, your suggestion that all historians believe he existed is actually untrue. You've failed to name a single historian who denies Jesus' existence. You really don't know what you're talking about. i see you dodge the salient, killer arguments i made... who after preaching to thousands of people for 3 years, performing miracles, and bringing the message of salvation, is there no contemporary accounts? no oral tradition that would have spread through generations ? he supposed to be the saviour of mankind yet his very existence is in serious doubt. thats what id call an 'epic fail'. i pointed out that in the natural world, everything is so intricately constructed, exact, precise, in order for life to flourish. IF the biblical god created all that with such accuracy, how the hell could he make such a pigs ear of the salvation story? and the point about islam..... how could god allow that to happen just 500 years or so after jesus came to save us?... if god really wanted jesus to save us, why allow islam to flourish? we didnt need that distraction... clearly. the link to 'the silence that screams' is a factual account, it provides the no nonsense facts, what we DO know. the points that site makes can be verified . its clear, to any free thinking person, that the whole concept of christianity is utter nonsense. theres not one jot of hard evidence to support the myth. it simply does not add up. |
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#82 |
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If you want to know what Jesus looked like I think the answer lies here.
http://blog.godreports.com/2012/01/f...s-is-for-real/ I realise it takes a leap of faith and the assumption that one persons vision is the same as another but at least 2 people have attributed this face to Jesus. Not everyone will agree but I think it's the real deal. |
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#83 |
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but there ARE contemporary accounts for other high profile figures from this period.
Here's a list of them from Wikipedia to help you - you'll notice that pretty much all of them are not mentioned outside of the Talmud (written 200-500AD) I'm giving you an easy way to prove me wrong - either do so or stop repeating your argument on an endless loop. Quote:
the reason that there are no contemporary accounts is because he simply did not exist.
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if a historical text says 'this king had this battle there and married that queen from that country and they had this son who went on to rule after the kings death'.... that is plausible. its not fact until hard evidence can be provided, but its not beyond the realms of possibility.
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yet you seem to want to give a supernatural story the same credence as a perfectly plausible one.
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..... and you havnt named one who does!..
Now it's your turn - name one historian, at any university anywhere in the world, who doesn't think Jesus existed. Quote:
i see you dodge the salient, killer arguments i made....
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#84 |
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Then prove it - name one Jewish Rabbi from the first century for which we have multiple contemporary accounts.
Here's a list of them from Wikipedia to help you - you'll notice that pretty much all of them are not mentioned outside of the Talmud (written 200-500AD) I'm giving you an easy way to prove me wrong - either do so or stop repeating your argument on an endless loop. from 'the silence that screams "Even though there are writings that have survived from the time periods, before, during and after Jesus, and the Christian church has these records" .. Quote:
And the reason there are no contemporary accounts of Caesar crossing the Rubicon is because he didn't? The reason we have no contemporary accounts of Hillel the Elder is because he didn't exist?.....that's not how ancient history works.
yes there are - http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/caesar.htm.the point is, and you keep avoiding this, is that jesus was supposed to come to save us, his mission was to be a high profile preacher and spread the word of god. if he ever existed of course. the absence of any such accounts of his life suggest its a construct. Quote:
In the same way, we have multiple sources that suggest Christianity was started by a man named Jesus and not a single jot of evidence that it was started by somebody else. Nobody on this thread has claimed that Jesus' existence is a fact, rather it is the only explanation of the available data that makes sense. If the gaps in the evidence for Jesus are suspicious, then the complete absence of any evidence for an alternative founder of Christianity should be far more suspicious.
but you are assuming that he existed, when in reality theres no contemporary evidence to support this, only the ramblings of a very few people 40 odd years later.it cannot be assumed he existed, as theres more evidence to suggest he didnt.... like a 40 odd year gap - no testimonies from people at the time, no oral tradition passed down the thousands of families who were supposed to have witness him. it makes more sense that he was a construct. Quote:
The idea that Christianity was started by a man named Jesus is not a supernatural claim.
surely for the religion to be real, he had to be the son of god, and perform miracles. if he wasnt the son of god, the supernatural magician and just another bloke - then where does that leave christianity? a hollow lie... Quote:
Yes I have - Professor Bart D. Ehrman from the University of North Carolina, USA and Professor James Crossley from the University of Sheffield, UK. Both known for being sceptics yet despite their hostility towards religion accept that Jesus existed.
really? "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 Ehrmanehrman proves there were contemporary writings, but not 1 mention of jesus.... Quote:
Now it's your turn - name one historian, at any university anywhere in the world, who doesn't think Jesus existed.
robin lane foxrtichard carrier john howard smith its written that historians are divided on the subject, your suggestion that all historians accept he existed is untrue. Quote:
I've responded to it multiple times over. The reason we don't have multiple written accounts of Jesus is the same reason we don't have multiple written accounts for any event at the time - very few Roman writings have survived 2000 years. Stop just repeating your argument and try actually responding to my reply.
but we have... as ehrman points out, but not 1 contemporary account of him at all. you still have not addressed the issue of oral tradition... you have not explained why these thousands of people who supposed to have witnessed miracles have not passed down these stories... dont you think its odd that when this religion started to take off there werent thousands of people who could/would testify to what they saw/heard? supporting paul/the gospels? you have not explained the rise of islam, and why god would allow it to turn so many away from christianity after 'sending his son to die for our sins'.. and you have not addressed the 40 year gap.... why wait? what possible reason was there such a gap? how could all those who witnessed jesus miracles cry for barabas to be released and not the miracle man? nothing adds up...... nothing. |
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#85 |
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erm... jewish?... what about roman accounts?...
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Your link mentions one source - Suetonius. The problem is that Suetonius wasn't contemporary to Caesar.Suetonius was born in 69AD. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49BC, over 100 years before Suetonius was even born. Therefore I am correct is stating that we have no contemporary accounts for Caesar crossing the Rubicon - only something written over 100 years after the event. This doesn't mean that it didn't happen, but is proof that very little of what was written back then has survived 2000 years. Quote:
the point is, and you keep avoiding this, is that jesus was supposed to come to save us, his mission was to be a high profile preacher and spread the word of god.
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but you are assuming that he existed, when in reality theres no contemporary evidence to support this, only the ramblings of a very few people 40 odd years later.
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surely for the religion to be real, he had to be the son of god, and perform miracles. if he wasnt the son of god, the supernatural magician and just another bloke - then where does that leave christianity? a hollow lie...
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There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates
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even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era
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ehrman proves there were contemporary writings, but not 1 mention of jesus....
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robin lane fox
rtichard carrier john howard smith Richard Carrier doesn't teach at any university or publish in any mainstream journals. He is the nearest you'll get to a historian that thinks Jesus didn't exist which says a lot! John Howard Smith, according to his Amazon page, has published nothing on this topic as his area of expertise is religion in the 18th century. I therefore can't find any reference to his views on this matter to confirm if he denies Jesus' existence. Quote:
you have not explained the rise of islam, and why god would allow it to turn so many away from christianity after 'sending his son to die for our sins'..
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#86 |
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DW2, your forbearance is fast approaching Level Awesome.
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#87 |
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snipped . no, im not eductated enough to name 1st century scribes from jesus time. does that mean there wasnt any?... if there was absolutely non then it would be plausible that a jesus character would go unnoticed. but according to ehrman, "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 ". its a fact that there is no contemporary accounts of jesus. it is a fact that theres no oral tradition passed down by the thousands who supposed to have witnessed him - and you still ignore that elephant in the room. it is a fact that the existence of jesus cannot be proven. it is a fact that jesus might not have existed in any shape or form. it is also a fact that anything less then the biblical character would mean the whole religion was constructed on a lie. oh and it is a fact that christianity could be a total construct, a complete lie. now i accept that he might have existed (but not the miracle worker) and a whole religion was created around some character. that is possible. but its equally possible that there was no such person and the whole religion is based on a lie. |
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#88 |
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Christ Myth Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory ... or watch the first half hour of Zeitgeist and then start researching the info given. I'll go with the ancient 'ages' theories myself. |
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#89 |
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its a fact that there is no contemporary accounts of jesus. it is a fact that theres no oral tradition passed down by the thousands who supposed to have witnessed him - and you still ignore that elephant in the room. it is a fact that the existence of jesus cannot be proven. it is a fact that jesus might not have existed in any shape or form. it is also a fact that anything less then the biblical character would mean the whole religion was constructed on a lie. oh and it is a fact that christianity could be a total construct, a complete lie. now i accept that he might have existed (but not the miracle worker) and a whole religion was created around some character. that is possible. but its equally possible that there was no such person and the whole religion is based on a lie. |
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#90 |
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going around in circles here, off at differing tangents, you keep repeating yourself but do not answer or even address several major points.
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no, im not eductated enough to name 1st century scribes from jesus time. does that mean there wasnt any?...
Either you can't be bothered to fact check your argument or you've looked and are trying to wriggle out of the fact it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. This is what annoys me with people like yourself who are self-describe free-thinkers and sceptics - they talk a lot about the importance checking things out and the dangers of just assuming, however they never put this into practice when assessing their own beliefs. Quote:
if there was absolutely non then it would be plausible that a jesus character would go unnoticed.
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but according to ehrman,
Imagine a creationist quoted a respect scientist acknowledging that there are gaps in the fossils record, but fail to provide the full quote where they go onto explain why this isn't a problem. Wouldn't you consider this to be disingenuous? You're doing the same thing with Ehrman. Quote:
its a fact that there is no contemporary accounts of jesus.
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it is a fact that theres no oral tradition passed down by the thousands who supposed to have witnessed him - and you still ignore that elephant in the room.
You can say that we have no record of non-christian oral traditions concerning Jesus however this still wouldn't prove that no non-Christian ever spoke about Jesus - that would be like saying that because there's no evidence that I told my wife something last Tuesday that definitely means I never told her. Quote:
i
it is a fact that the existence of jesus cannot be proven. it is a fact that jesus might not have existed in any shape or form. it is also a fact that anything less then the biblical character would mean the whole religion was constructed on a lie. oh and it is a fact that christianity could be a total construct, a complete lie. Quote:
i but its equally possible that there was no such person and the whole religion is based on a lie.
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i guess thats too uncomfortable reading for those of you who chose to believe.
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#91 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: derby
Posts: 14,735
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I have addressed all of your points - you might not like my answers however they've certainly been addressed.
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We live in an age when a quick Google search would let you find out who the top rabbis were around that time and what evidence we have of their existence. Ignorance is no excuse.
nope, i couldnt be bothered to search too far, but i found no listings for early 1st century scribes of any nationality nor religion.Quote:
Either you can't be bothered to fact check your argument or you've looked and are trying to wriggle out of the fact it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. This is what annoys me with people like yourself who are self-describe free-thinkers and sceptics - they talk a lot about the importance checking things out and the dangers of just assuming, however they never put this into practice when assessing their own beliefs.
oh, so you can assume jesus existed because some scholars said so, but i cannot assume there were a lot of contemporary writings that failed to mention jesus existence despite my posting a quote from ehrman saying as much?.. bickering about this though, whether i can prove there were writings or not is a smoke screen. there either WAS early 1st century accounts, of the variety erhman describes, or there was non. whether i can prove it or not is irrelevant. Quote:
Which is why your whole argument hangs on the assumption that lots of textual sources survive from that era. This is an assumption that's easy to check and yet you're refusing to do so.
how can i check if nothing exists?... surely the point of jesus was to spread the good news of salvation, id suggest its inconceivable that if he really existed that nothing was mentioned of this highly popular miracle worker. on the other hand, if he didnt exist we would get ..... nothing.... which is precisely what we have. Quote:
But if you take four minutes to watch the Youtube video I linked to in my previous post, you'll see that Ehrman also says "but it's also true of virtually everyone who lived at his time". If you're willing to trust Ehrman when he says that we have no contemporary accounts for Jesus, why are you not willing to trust him when he goes onto say that this is true for virtually everyone around at the time?
i am..... but we DO have contemporary accounts for all the major characters. why not this hugely popular preacher?Quote:
No, it's a fact that there are no surviving contemporary accounts of Jesus. Historians cannot rule out the possibility that somebody at the time wrote an account that's rotted away and has since been lost.
true..... surviving..... because they have been lost over time, OR they never existed. Quote:
No, there's a very strong case that the New Testament is, in part, based upon oral traditions. Therefore you cannot say this is a fact.
yep, i can accept that a few of the new testiment books MIGHT have been constructed by oral tradition.... but where are the familiar stories for the THOUSANDS who supposed to have witnessed him?... c'mon... this is the point, he supposed to be the saviour, those thousands were supposed to spread the word.. yet theres nothing, apart from the odd few chosen for the new testiment., Quote:
You can say that we have no record of non-christian oral traditions concerning Jesus however this still wouldn't prove that no non-Christian ever spoke about Jesus - that would be like saying that because there's no evidence that I told my wife something last Tuesday that definitely means I never told her.
only you wouldnt need to be a non christian to know about or talk about jesus, the hugely popular miracle worker.Quote:
But words like 'might' are very vague - outside of mathematics very little is 'proven' in that sense. It's a fact that the moon landings might have been faked. It's a fact that UFOs might have visited earth. Those things are incredibly unlikely, but there always an infinitesimally small chance. You can cast doubt on anything by saying that it might not be true.
'might' is accurate.... i cannot say jesus didnt exist, i cannot prove it, therefore its accurate to say he might not have existed.Quote:
But if Jesus didn't kickstart Christianity then who on earth did? On the one hand we have multiple early, by the standards of ancient history, sources suggesting Jesus started Christianity. We have evidence of multiple traditions, pre-dating those sources, all centered around Jesus being a historical person. We have non-Christian sources such as Tacitus and Josephus who are considered reliable sources for other stuff. We have more evidence of Jesus existence that we have for most other people from that period of history. Then on the other hand we have no evidence, not even one very late source, suggesting somebody else started Christianity. These two things are not equally possible. paul..... anybody... who kick started robin hood or arthur?... tacitus and josephus merely wrote what they had heard about christ many years after the event. their accounts are accurate, but the content clearly not.Liking and commenting on your own posts is the height of desparation ![]() ![]()
but the overall point stands.... jesus might not have ever existed, it all might be a construct, the biblical story cannot be proven. |
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#92 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 265
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where have you explained why thousands of eye witnesses to jesus miracles chose to shut up about it? thus rendering his message of good news a failure?
You might as well start a thread entitled 'why didn't the Romans put roofs on their houses?' or 'Why was Hadrian's wall only a meter or two high?' The fact that no contemporary accounts survive does not mean that 'everybody chose to shut up.' The majority of people at the time would have been illiterate, as there was no state eduction system. Moreover, writings tend to be done on materials that rot away incredibly easily and as a result very few texts from that era are still around today. To try and put it as simply as I can, we simply don't know what the vast majority of people said or wrote. How do you know that nobody spoke or wrote about Jesus, if 99.9% of the writings from that era are no longer here? Quote:
nope, i couldnt be bothered to search too far, but i found no listings for early 1st century scribes of any nationality nor religion.
The fact that you couldn't find any references to any 1st century scribes should have acted as massive hint that maybe you're assumptions around the amount of evidence historians have access to are wrong. Quote:
oh, so you can assume jesus existed because some scholars said so, but i cannot assume there were a lot of contemporary writings that failed to mention jesus existence despite my posting a quote from ehrman saying as much?..
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bickering about this though, whether i can prove there were writings or not is a smoke screen. there either WAS early 1st century accounts, of the variety erhman describes, or there was non. whether i can prove it or not is irrelevant.
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on the other hand, if he didnt exist we would get ..... nothing.... which is precisely what we have.
Like a lot of fundamentalists, you want to think that everything you believe has been conclusively proven and everything you reject conclusively debunked. To claim that we have nothing is to go into a state of denial. Quote:
but we DO have contemporary accounts for all the major characters. why not this hugely popular preacher?
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true..... surviving..... because they have been lost over time, OR they never existed.
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yep, i can accept that a few of the new testiment books MIGHT have been constructed by oral tradition.
We know that Matthew and Luke's gospels were written independently from one another (i.e. they didn't just copy one another) as there are too many differences between the two texts (i.e those contradictions atheists like to talk about). However, there are also some of Jesus' saying that are word for word identical in those two gospels. Therefore, scholars recon that the authors of Matthew and Luke must have shared some source that predates their writings, commonly know as 'Q source'. Q source is just one example of scholars identifying pre-existing traditions and sources in the New Testament writings (another example being creeds that Paul quotes). Therefore there is actual evidence that the New Testament writings were based on earlier sources and traditions. Quote:
only you wouldnt need to be a non christian to know about or talk about jesus, the hugely popular miracle worker.
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who kick started robin hood or arthur?.
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#93 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: derby
Posts: 14,735
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waffle snipped there are 3 options that explain 'jesus'. option 1 .... he didnt exist at all in any shape or form. this renders the bible as a complete fabrication. of course this option is ignored by believers, however it is certainly an option. option 2 ..... the biblical character was based on one or more little known preachers of the time. many favour this and it could be correct. however, this too makes the bible a complete work or fiction as the character depicted wasnt the miracle worker. option 3 ..... the biblical account is correct, and is the only option that supports the religion. so option 3 HAS to be the right one for the religion to be real. so we have to look for the evidence to support it.... and there is NONE! id suggest that its inconceivable that the bloke, whos job it was to come to earth to preach salvation, to save all of mankind... should go totally unnoticed in his time by the thousands who saw him. the thousands who went home and told their neighbours, who told other family members, who passed these stories down by oral tradition to their descendants and out of that spreading thousands NO ONE wrote about it. it was his job to be noticed, it was his job to reach as many as possible, but there are no such stories other then a very few gospels written long after the event, no oral tradition, no writings, nothing. now believers will overlook this, they will huff and puff and make feeble excuses, because as believers they will , they HAVE to, believe anything to prop up what the rest of us can see is a very dodgy load of nonsense that simply does not add up. it makes no sense. the evidence for christianity being a construct if clear. oh and you still cannot explain the rise of islam and why god allowed that..... unless islam is the true religion of god. |
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#94 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 7,401
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most of that has no bareing on this argument. it doesnt metter whether i can name 1st century rabbis or not, whether i can name atheist historians or not, behind this smoke screen you keep creating are the basic arguments.
there are 3 options that explain 'jesus'. option 1 .... he didnt exist at all in any shape or form. this renders the bible as a complete fabrication. of course this option is ignored by believers, however it is certainly an option. option 2 ..... the biblical character was based on one or more little known preachers of the time. many favour this and it could be correct. however, this too makes the bible a complete work or fiction as the character depicted wasnt the miracle worker. option 3 ..... the biblical account is correct, and is the only option that supports the religion. so option 3 HAS to be the right one for the religion to be real. so we have to look for the evidence to support it.... and there is NONE! id suggest that its inconceivable that the bloke, whos job it was to come to earth to preach salvation, to save all of mankind... should go totally unnoticed in his time by the thousands who saw him. the thousands who went home and told their neighbours, who told other family members, who passed these stories down by oral tradition to their descendants and out of that spreading thousands NO ONE wrote about it. it was his job to be noticed, it was his job to reach as many as possible, but there are no such stories other then a very few gospels written long after the event, no oral tradition, no writings, nothing. now believers will overlook this, they will huff and puff and make feeble excuses, because as believers they will , they HAVE to, believe anything to prop up what the rest of us can see is a very dodgy load of nonsense that simply does not add up. it makes no sense. the evidence for christianity being a construct if clear. oh and you still cannot explain the rise of islam and why god allowed that..... unless islam is the true religion of god. The only person in this thread to offer no evidence and reply on blind faith is you. As has been said, the vast majority of historic scholars accept that Jesus was a real historical character, and that he was crucified by the Romans. Why? Because by ancient history standards, the evidence for it is staggering G. |
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#95 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 213
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I often saw Jesus do his stand up act.
To be honest, it wasn't that good. He was doing the old joke about nailing things up to a crucifix, then on returning someone had nicked the nail. He was booed off stage one night, he was pelted with loaves and fishes , poor guy. To be fair, he collected it and went outside and gave it away. |
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#96 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 11,679
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I assumed he looked like Russell Brand.
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#97 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 265
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most of that has no bareing on this argument. it doesnt metter whether i can name 1st century rabbis or not, whether i can name atheist historians or not, behind this smoke screen you keep creating are the basic arguments.
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so option 3 HAS to be the right one for the religion to be real.
So why aren't I defending Jesus' miracles? Partly because I don't see much point. If you are incapable of understanding even a very simple topic, such as why not every text from the ancient world is still around today, then I don't think I'm going to have much luck discussing a more advanced, controversial, topic with you. Secondly, although lots of people like to base their beliefs on simple sound bites, I don't want to go down that path. I'd therefore rather discuss one aspect properly. Otherwise it's like the creationist who gets hammered in a debate over evolution, but thinks that throwing in a 'ah, but you haven't shown that God doesn't exist' makes their defeat go away. If you were a true sceptic then you'd see discussion as being more than proving atheism right or wrong. A true sceptic would always want to review their arguments and happily revise them if it turned out that any aspect of it was wrong. You are an evangelist for atheism, not a true sceptical enquirer! Quote:
oh and you still cannot explain the rise of islam and why god allowed that..... unless islam is the true religion of god.
Sometimes atheists see denying Jesus' existence as a 'heads I win, tails you lose' type approach. If they win the argument then they've shown Christianity to be false. It they lose, then it doesn't mean anything else we know about Jesus is true and therefore they've also won. My advice would be that such an approach doesn't work because it simply makes the atheist look unreasonable and stupid. If you came across as a reasonable atheist who has thought through their arguments and willing to concede something if the evidence is there then maybe I'd be willing to discuss this more advanced topic with you. Quote:
I honestly don't know how DW2 has the patience to debate with you.
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#98 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: A bunker
Posts: 5,957
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I've found Jesus... (well, some **** that thinks he is anyway)
http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/arti...nce-2015-Day-5 |
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#99 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Black Country lad in Yorkshire
Posts: 118,029
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If he even existed Yeshua ben Yosef would have looked something like this.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XhLtvYhvbsU/maxresdefault.jpg ![]() Quote:
but there ARE contemporary accounts for other high profile figures from this period.
There are many well reasoned arguments on this thread which you and some others are totally ignoring. However, you are a DS expert and DS experts know more than real experts. |
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#100 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 13,888
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He was probably just some demagogue whose exceptional charisma got him lots of attention.
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