SpiritWriter, on 02 October 2012 - 01:36 AM, said:
It seems that the name Jesus stirs up alot of controversy and "feelings",
why is it upsetting?
what is your biggest grief with religion
My religious teachers taught the Bible and about Jesus as if there were incontrovertable evidence to support what they said. When I started looking into it for myself, I found there was almost no evidence at all to support anything they told me - they had just parotted stories they had heard without making any effort to verify them. While not exactly a lie, this was a lot less than the truth. And it was a major disappointment at the time.
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Jesus - what does this name do to you on the inside.
I submit that anger at any of these names is misplaced. It is not the legend that is at fault, but the abusive way in which "believers" try to inflict their unsupported and unwanted opinions on the rest of the world.
The historical evidence supporting even the existence of Jesus is miniscule at best. It consists of two statements by Papias, Bishop of Hieronymous. In one he says he "has the words of John ringing in my ears." In the other he relates a story he says was told to him by "the daughters of Philip." By "John" Papias probably meant John the Apostle; though, there are several Johns he might have been talking about. Papias calls him a "presbyter." I note that he never called anyone else a "presbyter" and he never referred to anyone else as an apostle, so he probably meant John the Apostle. Papias was an "ear-witness" to the existence of John. As far as I know, that is the only report by a person claiming to be a witness to the existence of Jesus or any of the apostles.
Papias did not claim to have met Philip, only his daughters (The Bible says there were four.). Thus, he was not a witness to the existence of Philip.
Not even Paul, who lived in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' execution, ever claimed to have seen him or heard of the execution. Everything Paul claimed to "lnow" about Jesus came to him in a "vision" - a hallucenation.
That's as close to direct evidence of Jesus as there is. Where there was an apostle, presumably there was a teacher. Thus, the existence of the teacher is a reasonable assumption. But NOBODY anywhere gives an eye-witness account of Jesus. Nobody says "I had breakfast with Jesus yesterday." or "I saw them nail him to the cross." Not even the Gospels claim to be eye-witness accounts.
There is also a statement by Irenaeus that Polycarp was a student of John. Polycarp, himself, never said any such thing, but Irenaeus was a very careful scholar and if his sources were right, he was right. But that, too, is hearsay evidence.
What can a historian really say about Jesus? "Such a person MIGHT have existed."
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The concept does not appear in the Bible. It was a later invention.
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A probable misquote by Justin the Martyr of a verse in John. The verse says that to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must be born of water - in other words, baptized. Justin rendered it "born again," thus kicking off the whole born again thing.
Doug
If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants. --Albert Einstein
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for thou art crunchy and go good with ketchup.
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