Was Jesus real?

[docyabut2]

Proof of Jesus Christ? 6 Pieces of Evidence Debated | Live Science

[Mr Walker]

On 9/8/2021 at 8:38 AM, zep73 said:

@docyabut2

There is no direct evidence, or contemporary written testimonies, that Jesus ever existed.

Besides, there are two Jesus figures. The gnostic, that was not a living man, but a deity, and the gospel version we know today.

Some evidence suggests that the gospels could be forgeries. They are certainly written later, than the persons supposed to have written them, lived.

That is not entirely true.

This debate has been hashed to bits before, but basically almost every academic historian agrees that Christ was a real person and that "Christ mythers" simply are not reputable historians.

  They don't do this because the y are believers, but because that's what the historical evidences strongly suggest 

The first gospel was probably written down around 70AD only 40 years after Christ's death.

Before that the stories were narratives used in both Judaic christian worship (the original form of Christianity)   and gentile christian worship( Paul's revised version )

There are evidences of wide spread Christianity and multirole  "churches"  from  about 40 AD and certainly 50 AD 

The historicity of Jesus is a question of fact  

The divinity of Jesus is a question of faith or belief 

The two are quite separate issues.

Many historians only see Christ as a liberal Jewish preacher and teacher,  not as any form of divine being 

The stories (which may be  legends and myths) which grew up among early  believers after his death are again unprovable, and thus open to belief or disbelief 

The gospels aren't forgeries but neither are they unadulterated original writings,  and nor is their individual provenance known or undisputed.

Ps the gospel version of Christ incorporates his deistic nature 

He was a deity in the  beginning  of the bible story ("The word", and the word was god)  and again at the end.

He only became human for 30 years or so, to serve two very specific purposes (in tha t story)  

Gnosticism preceded Christianity  and informed a minority pov by some Jews/gentiles after Christ's death

Unfortunately  gnostic Christianity   was almost wiped out much later (although it never was very populist, even in the early years )

It (along with the wider field of Gnosticism) makes for fascinating reading and debate. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

That is not entirely true.

This debate has been hashed to bits before, but basically almost every academic historian agrees that Christ was a real person and that "Christ mythers" simply are not reputable historians.

What part is not entirely true?  What a group of academicians believe, many of whom are biased, is not 'direct evidence' that Jesus existed.

[+Hammerclaw]

2 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

What part is not entirely true?  What a group of academicians believe, many of whom are biased, is not 'direct evidence' that Jesus existed.

That goes for both sides of the issue, so the operative words for skeptics should be, I don't know. No one can prove a negative, be it of The Father, or The Son.

As for believers, well believing is part of their job. They don't have to prove anything--that's what Faith's all about.

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

As for believers, well believing is part of their job. They don't have to prove anything--that's what Faith's all about.

That may be true but Walker is not a believer.  I just didn't see anything even partly untrue about what he quoted from zep.

[+Hammerclaw]

52 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

That may be true but Walker is not a believer.  I just didn't see anything even partly untrue about what he quoted from zep.

Opinions or quoted opinions have little or nothing to do with "truth" whatever that is suppose to mean, contextually, be it religious or secular. There's plenty of questionable evidence and dubious opinions from both camps with a dearth of the factual backing them up. That's why threads like this devolve into pointless, emotional rants. I'm done; have fun.

[zep73]

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

That is not entirely true.

Gnosticism had many branches, and had both a solely spiritual Christ and a physical one, I know. But the spiritual one was only found among gnostics.
I made it sound like gnostics only had a spiritual Christ, which was not entirely true. Hereby corrected.

 

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

The historicity of Jesus is a question of fact 

No, it's a question of consensus, not facts. A consensus mainly rooted in Josephus, who is suspected of concocting the gospels for the Flavians. So not exactly very reliable.

[eight bits]

22 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

Proof of Jesus Christ? 6 Pieces of Evidence Debated | Live Science

Docy, we need some guidance here.

The discussion at that link is very skeptical of the "pieces of evidence" which it discusses. How much leeway would you like for skeptics to argue against a real Jesus, or to discuss reasons for doubt about his historical existence, and still stay within the topic you wanted to explore?

For example:

34 minutes ago, zep73 said:

A consensus mainly rooted in Josephus, who is suspected of concocting the gospels for the Flavians. So not exactly very reliable.

Just unpacking that one sentence could be a thread just about one flavor of alternative to the faith-based portrait of Jesus which I think you favor.

Edited September 9, 2021 by eight bits

[Rlyeh]

As real as the Easter bunny.

[Will Due]

51 minutes ago, eight bits said:

one flavor of alternative 

 

Poison has many flavors. Its taste all depends on what it's slipped into. While eating, the unsuspecting, never know they're being murdered. But the one who poisons knows exactly what he's doing, thinking he can get away with it.

 

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

2 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

Opinions or quoted opinions have little or nothing to do with "truth" whatever that is suppose to mean, contextually, be it religious or secular. There's plenty of questionable evidence and dubious opinions from both camps with a dearth of the factual backing them up.

I understand that, but what I think is not questionable is that there is no 'direct evidence' for Jesus existing, that's only an 'opinion' in like a, 'evolution is just an opinion' way.  Most biblical scholars I thought admit this, the majority of them just weigh the indirect evidence more in establishing their belief in a historical Jesus, they don't think we'd have all of this indirect evidence without a real Jesus at the core.  Entirely rational position I think, but doesn't change what zep correctly said about no direct evidence existing.

2 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

That's why threads like this devolve into pointless, emotional rants.

Ha I see your point, but how does that differ from almost every thread on UM where there is a debate of some sort?  

There are all kinds of facts surrounding this question that are not just opinions or rely on emotions.  One of the coolest ones I read recently and never heard of, from https://peterkirby.com/the-best-case-for-jesus.html which I think 8 had linked some time ago, involves a Jewish oral tradition (in the link under 'Babylonian Talmud') concerning the trial of Jesus that there is reason to believe is very old:

Quote

Because the Jewish leaders of the first century were in a position to know the circumstances of such an execution, which would have been remembered for taking place on an unusual date, it is plausible to see this rabbinic tradition, late as its written record may be, as stemming from the historical Jewish memory of the execution of Jesus on Passover Eve with charges of sorcery and leading Israel astray.

You could even say that it’s more probable than not, in which case what we have right here is an argument for the historicity of Jesus. I value it more highly than both Josephus and Tacitus, as it certainly did not come from a Christian interpolator (unlike Josephus) and actually has a decent argument to the effect that it did not derive from the Christian tradition about Jesus (unlike Tacitus).

I had never heard of this evidence and argument and I think it's interesting so it's not pointless to me, and it's not ranty or emotional.  I already use my mouse wheel extensively to skip plenty of pointless, emotional rants here, but I'm willing to wade through those to get nuggets like the above.

[+Hammerclaw]

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I understand that, but what I think is not questionable is that there is no 'direct evidence' for Jesus existing, that's only an 'opinion' in like a, 'evolution is just an opinion' way.  Most biblical scholars I thought admit this, the majority of them just weigh the indirect evidence more in establishing their belief in a historical Jesus, they don't think we'd have all of this indirect evidence without a real Jesus at the core.  Entirely rational position I think, but doesn't change what zep correctly said about no direct evidence existing.

Ha I see your point, but how does that differ from almost every thread on UM where there is a debate of some sort?  

There are all kinds of facts surrounding this question that are not just opinions or rely on emotions.  One of the coolest ones I read recently and never heard of, from https://peterkirby.com/the-best-case-for-jesus.html which I think 8 had linked some time ago, involves a Jewish oral tradition (in the link under 'Babylonian Talmud') concerning the trial of Jesus that there is reason to believe is very old:

I had never heard of this evidence and argument and I think it's interesting so it's not pointless to me, and it's not ranty or emotional.  I already use my mouse wheel extensively to skip plenty of pointless, emotional rants here, but I'm willing to wade through those to get nuggets like the above.

Believe anything you want, or not. Nobody gives a damn. If you want to walk your own version of Walker's walk and feast on the crumbs of dead men's consciousness, go right ahead--have fun. Everyone bull****s themselves about something--you're hardly unique.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Hammerclaw

[+Liquid Gardens]

12 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

If you want to walk your own version of Walker's walk and feast on the crumbs of dead men's consciousness, go right ahead--have fun.

I am.  If you want to just take a dump on what others post without engaging with the substance, same to ya, go ahead, have fun.  "Nobody gives a damn".

 

[+Hammerclaw]

15 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I am.  If you want to just take a dump on what others post without engaging with the substance, same to ya, go ahead, have fun.  "Nobody gives a damn".

 

Good. In any event, there's no "substance" to engage in on this topic, merely an endless rehashing of 2,000 years of speculation. At this point in time, barring an incredible discovery of a cache of contemporaneous documents, that's all we have, other than a collection of religious writings of uncertain origin and a word or phrase or mention here or there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the goddamn evidence is still absent. Walker talks to beams of light and Saul of Tarsus talked to donkeys--who are are you going to consult? Just kidding, but I've grown weary of half a century of clutching at straws.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Hammerclaw

[+joc]

9 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Good. In any event, there's no "substance" to engage in on this topic, merely an endless rehashing of 2,000 years of speculation. At this point in time, barring an incredible discovery of a cache of contemporaneous documents, that's all we have, other than a collection of religious writings of uncertain origin and a word or phrase or mention here or there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the goddamn evidence is still absent. Walker talks to beams of light and Saul of Tarsus talked to donkeys--who are are you going to consult? Just kidding, but I've grown weary of half a century of clutching at straws.

Half a century of clutching at straws...   That's about right...so where are you?  No longer clutching or just merely frustrated beyond caring?  ...I'm being serious...even though you won't take it serious I am anyway...

I will tell  you where you are.  You want to believe because you have always believed...you have searched most of your life looking for the answers and there don't seem to be any.

so let me help you out...

True or False:   2000 years ago a virgin could become pregnant without any human male sperm.   False

True or False:   A 200 pound man can walk on the surface of water (not ice, water)      False

True or False:   Dead people...not NDE  but people who are actually physically dead can come back to life after being dead for three days.   False

So no matter what you believe about whether the actually story of Jesus is true.  We know the anecdotes are False.  and these anecdotes are the very things that the church tells us we have to believe.  But you don't believe them.  So...you have found the truth...the question is what do you do with it?

How about taking the concepts of the stories that are good and right and employ them in your own life?  You know...like...do unto others as you would have them do unto you...things like that.  

If the premise for a belief system is false...then the belief system is false.  

And you spend most of your life and never figured that out for yourself.   Hey...I hear ya!  I spent most of my life trying to figure it all out as well.  The Bible only makes sense in the context of ...The Bible.   In the real world it doesn't.   I only figured it out after I got my own head out of the context and asked myself those three True or False questions.  And when I answered them honestly...the truth set me free.   

If you feel strongly that you want to pay me handsomely for freeing you of your doubt and frustration, pm me and I will give  you my Venmo information.   

[+Liquid Gardens]

25 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Good. In any event, there's no "substance" to engage in on this topic, merely an endless rehashing of 2,000 years of speculation. 

That's fine if you view it that way but keep in mind that not everyone here is as familiar with the first hashing of some of the evidence and arguments and speculation here as you may already be.  

[+Hammerclaw]

25 minutes ago, joc said:

Half a century of clutching at straws...   That's about right...so where are you?  No longer clutching or just merely frustrated beyond caring?  ...I'm being serious...even though you won't take it serious I am anyway...

I will tell  you where you are.  You want to believe because you have always believed...you have searched most of your life looking for the answers and there don't seem to be any.

so let me help you out...

True or False:   2000 years ago a virgin could become pregnant without any human male sperm.   False

True or False:   A 200 pound man can walk on the surface of water (not ice, water)      False

True or False:   Dead people...not NDE  but people who are actually physically dead can come back to life after being dead for three days.   False

So no matter what you believe about whether the actually story of Jesus is true.  We know the anecdotes are False.  and these anecdotes are the very things that the church tells us we have to believe.  But you don't believe them.  So...you have found the truth...the question is what do you do with it?

How about taking the concepts of the stories that are good and right and employ them in your own life?  You know...like...do unto others as you would have them do unto you...things like that.  

If the premise for a belief system is false...then the belief system is false.  

And you spend most of your life and never figured that out for yourself.   Hey...I hear ya!  I spent most of my life trying to figure it all out as well.  The Bible only makes sense in the context of ...The Bible.   In the real world it doesn't.   I only figured it out after I got my own head out of the context and asked myself those three True or False questions.  And when I answered them honestly...the truth set me free.   

If you feel strongly that you want to pay me handsomely for freeing you of your doubt and frustration, pm me and I will give  you my Venmo information.   

That's a nice little house of cards you built, but like every other prophet or iconoclast here, you don't know jack, either  and you certainly can't read minds. I do love the way you talk the walk, 'though.

[+Hammerclaw]

21 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

That's fine if you view it that way but keep in mind that not everyone here is as familiar with the first hashing of some of the evidence and arguments and speculation here as you may already be.  

Perhaps, but I can't recommend them--or the Last three Star Wars movies, either. In any event, this all began when I interrupted you taking exception to Walker for the zillionth time, hardly an argument worth remembering.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Hammerclaw

[+joc]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

That's a nice little house of cards you built, but like every other prophet or iconoclast here, you don't know jack, either  and you certainly can't read minds. I do love the way you talk the walk, 'though.

so...uh...     ...does that mean you don't want my Venmo information...

I might add that today's lecture was half price and if  you act before midnight tonight, I'll throw in an introspective self discussion I had on the way to work one day concerning gypsies and how bees are the wave of the future.

[+Hammerclaw]

4 hours ago, joc said:

so...uh...     ...does that mean you don't want my Venmo information...

I might add that today's lecture was half price and if  you act before midnight tonight, I'll throw in an introspective self discussion I had on the way to work one day concerning gypsies and how bees are the wave of the future.

Gypsies are free and told you you shouldn't have gotten off the boat. Don't drink her absinthe. 

 

[Guyver]

18 hours ago, joc said:

 

True or False:   2000 years ago a virgin could become pregnant without any human male sperm.   False

True or False:   A 200 pound man can walk on the surface of water (not ice, water)      False

True or False:   Dead people...not NDE  but people who are actually physically dead can come back to life after being dead for three days.   False

So no matter what you believe about whether the actually story of Jesus is true.  We know the anecdotes are False.  and these anecdotes are the very things that the church tells us we have to believe.  But you don't believe them.  So...you have found the truth...the question is what do you do with it?

How about taking the concepts of the stories that are good and right and employ them in your own life?  You know...like...do unto others as you would have them do unto you...things like that.  

If the premise for a belief system is false...then the belief system is false.  

Joc, you bring a logical argument.  In our “normal” world, these things are false because they can’t happen.  We can’t violate the laws of nature and physics.  But, for the believer they can be true because they believe in the realm of the miraculous.  So, raising the dead, restoring sight to the blind, cleansing the lepers, walking on the water, multiplying the fishes and loaves, the virgin birth, for you and I these things are impossible, but believers accept that Jesus could and did do miracles.  You don’t accept that miracles can happen, so you’re not going to believe in the Bible stories.  Personally, Indont either, but I do believe miraculous things can and do happen from time to time, so this separates me from most other skeptics, and puts me out in a field all my my lonesome.  Sigh.

[+joc]

4 hours ago, Guyver said:

Joc, you bring a logical argument.  In our “normal” world, these things are false because they can’t happen.  We can’t violate the laws of nature and physics.  But, for the believer they can be true because they believe in the realm of the miraculous.  So, raising the dead, restoring sight to the blind, cleansing the lepers, walking on the water, multiplying the fishes and loaves, the virgin birth, for you and I these things are impossible, but believers accept that Jesus could and did do miracles.  You don’t accept that miracles can happen, so you’re not going to believe in the Bible stories.  Personally, Indont either, but I do believe miraculous things can and do happen from time to time, so this separates me from most other skeptics, and puts me out in a field all my my lonesome.  Sigh.

You are out there in the field all by your lonesome because you are holding two things...you must let go of one of them.   The reason I answered false to those questions is because...never in the history of the world has anyone ever come back to life that was dead.  Never in the history of the world has a young virgin become pregnant.  Never in the history of the world has anyone ever walked on the surface of the ocean.  These aren't true.  The believers belief doesn't make them true.  They cannot be true.  The belief is therefore Wrong.  If it is true that, With God all things are  possible....then the laws of physics don't really apply.  One is true the other is false.  I will go with the laws of physics.

[Festina]

Jewish Jesus

Jewish Mary

Jewish Joseph

Jewish apostles 

Jewish “Paul”

Jewish blood sacrifice for a first born son for sin atonement of the innocent for the forgiveness of the guilty. Very odd.

I dunno.  Seems to me rather suspicious.  The god of the Bible seems to only like Jewish people and sets out to have all those that don’t worship him murdered by the Israelites.  Is god Jewish?   

NOT ONE SINGLE PHILOSOPHER is mentioned in the Bible.  Mostly Jewish people are named.  It’s a curious work to be sure.  I wonder who complied it and why? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Festina

[Guyver]

5 hours ago, joc said:

You are out there in the field all by your lonesome because you are holding two things...you must let go of one of them.   The reason I answered false to those questions is because...never in the history of the world has anyone ever come back to life that was dead.  Never in the history of the world has a young virgin become pregnant.  Never in the history of the world has anyone ever walked on the surface of the ocean.  These aren't true.  The believers belief doesn't make them true.  They cannot be true.  The belief is therefore Wrong.  If it is true that, With God all things are  possible....then the laws of physics don't really apply.  One is true the other is false.  I will go with the laws of physics.

Well good for you.  Since you don’t know how it feels to be me, you can’t relate to my reality.  I have observed the laws of physics suspended in some fashion and I would be a liar if I tried to deny it.

[Mr Walker]

On 9/9/2021 at 9:49 PM, Liquid Gardens said:

What part is not entirely true?  What a group of academicians believe, many of whom are biased, is not 'direct evidence' that Jesus existed.

There is no direct evidence, or contemporary written testimonies, that Jesus ever existed.

Besides, there are two Jesus figures. The gnostic, that was not a living man, but a deity, and the gospel version we know today.

Some evidence suggests that the gospels could be forgeries. They are certainly written later, than the persons supposed to have written them, lived.

1. There is evidence that people alive when Christ lived wrote  at least the first  the gospel   The y would have been contemporaries of his and thus their writings, contemporary 

There are evidences in roman records, but also in the writings of Paul,  that Christ  existed and plenty of evidence that  there  were followers of his among the jews within 20 years of his death.

Indeed within 30 years of his death it became necessary to define one form of Christianity (Paul's version for the gentiles)  from  the other  (the original Judaic Christians ) and Roman tax records do this from about 70 AD

Indeed there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus the man than for most people from  his era 

2. There are not necessarily two different Jesus figures.
There is only one who was definitely human and may have been ( if you  so believe)   an aspect of god itself  Gnostic Christians applied  Gnosticism to how the y perceived this figure. Gentiles applied Hellenic  or Roman cultural principles  while the original  Jewish Christians  applied Judaic understandings and beliefs .  

 3. I am  not absolutely certain but my understanding is that academic historians do not believe any of the gospels to be forgeries.

As i explained, they may not have been written by the authors attributed to them and their provenance is not certain, but forgery implies a copying  or a deliberately false construction, with an intent to deceive Those who wrote the gospels almost certainly  believed they were writing truth  and no not all the gospels were written later than the time span of their authors.   Indeed given later additions and alterations it is impossible to know exactly what the original gospel stories included or left out   and thus when they were written 

I assume you might be using Bart  Ehrman's  argument 

First, something is not a forgery simply because we dont know its author, and second; indeed we can be fairly certain of the authorship of a t least 2 of the gospels 

Historians are the experts, and most of them are not biased. 

The y just apply the same rules of scholarship  to Christ, as to any historical figure.  

Unlike some, I trust experts in any field, more than non experts. 

Ps dating of the gospels ranges from AD  50 or so to AD110  but most historians think that a range from  AD late 60s to 110 is most likely 

This means that  some  could have been written by people alive when Christ  was,   although we may never know if any were actually eyewitness to his preaching

Unless you believe via faith, then of course much of the gospels is mythological in nature (I'd call it allegorical or mystical, for a specific teaching purpose)  but that  doesn't mean that  Christ himself was.  

Edited September 11, 2021 by Mr Walker