Was Jesus real?

[Mr Walker]

On 9/10/2021 at 3:14 AM, zep73 said:

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.

 

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.

 You missed my point 

The question of jesus's existence is a question of fact ie it is capable of being proven true or false.

He either lived or he did not  

I was not saying that his existence is a proven fact .

The question of his nature is (almost entirely)  one of belief.

it simply is not  capable of being proven true or false 

The historical consensus atm is that Christ was  a real Jewish teacher /preacher,  but that was not my point.

   His physical existence is a question  potentially  capable of being proven or disproven, making it a question of fact.

  Proving he was a god is much more problematic, and has to be taken on faith.

quote

In law, a question of fact is a question which must be answered by reference to facts and evidence, and inferences arising from those facts. 

https://www.definitions.net/definition/question+of+fact

 

[Mr Walker]

On 9/10/2021 at 7:47 AM, 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.

Neither my own nor Saul/Pauls experiences go to the nature of Christ.

  The y speak only  about our own relationship with "god" /the cosmic consciousness /a powerful interventionist and compassionate alien being.

However, I would be careful about dismissing our experiences and understandings,  just because the y seem incredible to you.   

Id never really thought about it but, in one way, Saul/Paul and I, have more than our name in common   

He met god on the road to Damascus (maybe) 

I met the cosmic consciousness on the New West  Road   

Both experiences totally changed our lives and understandings about the world we lived in. 

 

 

[eight bits]

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

1. There is evidence that people alive when Christ lived wrote  at least the first  the gospel 

No, nobody knows who wrote the canonical gospels, so even for the earliest of them (which for literary reasons most accept that that was Mark), there's no evidence (= something observed with the senses) that its author was a contemporary of Jesus.

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

There are evidences in roman records,

No, there aren't. As for those "tax records" you habitually fantasize about after 70 CE, I've asked you in an earlier thread to produce a link to them and you failed.

There's a good reason why you failed: no such records exist. The way Roman taxes were usually administered, there never would have been centralized records of that kind. IF there had ever been a question about whether a given person were liable for the tax, then that was the local tax collector's problem, not the Roman tax administration's.

As to forgery, an anonymous document can be forged. The American common law (= use of the term developed by the judiciary) definition is:

Quote

Under common law, forgery is committed when a person makes or alters a writing so that it is false with the intent to defraud.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forgery

So, in a contemporary example, a false American covid vaccination card would correctly be termed a forgery, even though it does not bear the name of the person who filled it out.

Forgery would also include putting different names on different documents in order to hide that they were all written at the same place and time by the same person or group working together. I believe that may be one kind of forgery that the other poster had in mind.

 

 

 

[Mr Walker]

45 minutes ago, eight bits said:

No, nobody knows who wrote the canonical gospels, so even for the earliest of them (which for literary reasons most accept that that was Mark), there's no evidence (= something observed with the senses) that its author was a contemporary of Jesus.

No, there aren't. As for those "tax records" you habitually fantasize about after 70 CE, I've asked you in an earlier thread to produce a link to them and you failed.

There's a good reason why you failed: no such records exist. The way Roman taxes were usually administered, there never would have been centralized records of that kind. IF there had ever been a question about whether a given person were liable for the tax, then that was the local tax collector's problem, not the Roman tax administration's.

As to forgery, an anonymous document can be forged. The American common law (= use of the term developed by the judiciary) definition is:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forgery

So, in a contemporary example, a false American covid vaccination card would correctly be termed a forgery, even though it does not bear the name of the person who filled it out.

Forgery would also include putting different names on different documents in order to hide that they were all written at the same place and time by the same person or group working together. I believe that may be one kind of forgery that the other poster had in mind.

 

 

 

Last point first 

My argument is that the gospels were never intended to deceive.  They were written by believers.  

Uncertainty  of authorship  is NOT forgery.

Middle point 

Its true that  I had trouble  finding  the source again. I should have book marked it  Nonetheless i know what I read, and what it indicated 

Basically  the argument is this 

Until about 70 AD Roman tax law treated Christians  as Jews  for taxation purposes  Around this time new punitive taxes were placed on the jews and gentile christians  were motivated to seek separation  from  Jewish christians  as a religious group 

quote.

Smaller tributa as well as other dues (e.g., aurum coronarium “gold wreaths, crowns”) are treated in Neesen (1980). Greater attention has been devoted to the fiscus Iudaicus (Jewish treasury), which was the treasury for the τιμὴ δηναρίων δύο Ἰουδαίων (tax of two denarii of the Jews) exacted from the Jews after the Roman-Jewish War of 66–70 ad (cf. Günther 2013 with further literature).

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935390.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935390-e-38

After that date the y were treated differently ie as  a separate religious group.  This was formalised in Ad 96

 Historians  debate if Christians were treated differently prior to AD 96 (^ but there is no debate after that )

quote

 However, modern historians debate whether the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in 96, from which point practising Jews paid the tax and Christians did not.^[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity

Tax laws in Rome varied according to your religion  

Jews were more heavily taxed and the growing gentile christian worshippers didn't want to pay those extra taxes  and the romans adapted the law to treat them separately  

First point last 

I might have been unclear in what i wrote 

I meant to say that, when the first gospel was written, it was only a few decades after Christ's death 

Thus, not only is it possible that the writer lived when Christ did, but that  some of his readers also lived in that  period 

I was arguing that it is by no means certain that the gospels were written by people who were not contemporary with Jesus. Indeed its likely that they were  if they were older men  ( I am a contemporary of Stalin,  Churchill,  Kennedy, and Lennon )

But we don't know if any of them ever observed him in person  (as I never observed any of the above in person)  

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Mr Walker

[Abramelin]

On 9/8/2021 at 1:53 AM, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Jesus wouldn’t have a tomb, would he?

According to the bible it was Joseph of Arimathea's tomb:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_of_Arimathea

 

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

16 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

According to the bible it was Joseph of Arimathea's tomb:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_of_Arimathea

 

For three whole days. 

[Abramelin]

21 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

For three whole days. 

Yeah.

What I always found kind of odd is that after Jesus was supposedly risen from death, no one recognized him:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Emmaus_appearance

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_20:15

[SHaYap]

Yeah, a God that can make a planned resurrection but can't organize a transitional religious belief without wanton mass genocides, suicides and massacres. Maybe that's the membership perks, one way ticket to paradise... 

Too much heaven on their minds

~

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

40 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Yeah.

What I always found kind of odd is that after Jesus was supposedly risen from death, no one recognized him:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Emmaus_appearance

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_20:15

Well, Jesus was apparently a Super-Saiyan at that point, so thr blonde glowing hair might have distracted people.

[eight bits]

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Its true that  I had trouble  finding  the source again. I should have book marked it  Nonetheless i know what I read, and what it indicated 

The dog ate your homework again?

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Until about 70 AD Roman tax law treated Christians  as Jews  for taxation purposes ...

I understand your theory of the case. Gentiles weren't liable for either the original tax or its Roman continuation, Jews were.

The "parting of the ways," is an active field of study, the tax would only be one issue among many in the formation of distinct and recognizable post-Temple Jewish and Christian identities, probably more-or-less completed sometime in the second century.

A major factor was that as time passed, the proportion of Gentile Christians plausibly became progressively greater at the expense of a shrinking proportion of Jewish Christians. In other words, "Christianity" included people liable for the tax as well as people who weren't.

Also, one thing Roman law did (at least in some jurisdictions) take into account is convert versus cradle status. If your parents were whatever religion, and you were, too, then the Romans tended to see your adherence to your religion as legitimate. Judaism had long had a cradle emphasis (in Roman concepts, it was an ehnicity), and Christianity developed from a religion of converts to growing a substantial cradle-Christian population.

Bottom line: there were a lot of changes, some of legal significance, going on at the same time. That, and there are no records of the kind you describe, and probably never were in the first place.

Thank you for your clarification of the other point. But we come full circle: no author whose writing we have claims to have met, seen or heard Jesus during his natural life. Or as another poster put it, there is no direct evidence that Jesus was a single, specific real man who actually lived.

Edited September 11, 2021 by eight bits

[SHaYap]

Lads, meet Karl... 

Quote

...

http://scua.library.umass.edu › kraus...

Kraus, Karl - Special Collections & University Archives

Karl Kraus was born on April 28, 1874 in Gitschin, Bohemia (modern Jicin, Czech Republic), then part of the ...

 

 

 

 

 

https://us.macmillan.com › author

Karl Kraus | Authors - Macmillan Publishers

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) was an Austrian satirist, playwright, poet, aphorist, and journalist.

~

 

[docyabut2]

Remembering  watching a documentary  about a cross found in a deep cave in Jerusalem, and they said that all of the writings the writtens  about Jesus were destroy. and only one  letter by john mark survived and the Vatican  has the gospel of mark thats in the bible.  

Edited September 11, 2021 by docyabut2

[docyabut2]

I`m trying to prove Jesus was real

[Will Due]

6 hours ago, eight bits said:

evidence (= something observed with the senses)

 

That's right. None more important than the spiritual sense.

 

 

[Mr Walker]

13 hours ago, eight bits said:

The dog ate your homework again?

I understand your theory of the case. Gentiles weren't liable for either the original tax or its Roman continuation, Jews were.

The "parting of the ways," is an active field of study, the tax would only be one issue among many in the formation of distinct and recognizable post-Temple Jewish and Christian identities, probably more-or-less completed sometime in the second century.

A major factor was that as time passed, the proportion of Gentile Christians plausibly became progressively greater at the expense of a shrinking proportion of Jewish Christians. In other words, "Christianity" included people liable for the tax as well as people who weren't.

Also, one thing Roman law did (at least in some jurisdictions) take into account is convert versus cradle status. If your parents were whatever religion, and you were, too, then the Romans tended to see your adherence to your religion as legitimate. Judaism had long had a cradle emphasis (in Roman concepts, it was an ehnicity), and Christianity developed from a religion of converts to growing a substantial cradle-Christian population.

Bottom line: there were a lot of changes, some of legal significance, going on at the same time. That, and there are no records of the kind you describe, and probably never were in the first place.

Thank you for your clarification of the other point. But we come full circle: no author whose writing we have claims to have met, seen or heard Jesus during his natural life. Or as another poster put it, there is no direct evidence that Jesus was a single, specific real man who actually lived.

Well i did say that the claims were not entirely true 

There may be some truth in them depending on individual  interpretation or bias, 

Eg some scholars say that at least one of the gospels was most  probably written by an eye witness based on the voice of the writer and the words he used 

I am a bit more like you.

I wouldn't make absolutist claims about anything other than that Christ was( With about 99% certainty )   a real jewish preacher /teacher who, along with other liberal preachers and adherents., ws executed or killed, either directly by the  armed zealots of the conservative faction, or through Roman law 

You will just have to take my word for it (or not ) that i found, read and a t one time provided the source to indicate  agitation by gentile Christians after the Jewish revolt, to be taxed less punitively than jews .

Until this time, the Romans classified christians as  just another sect of the Jews (quite correctly because basically they were ) Paul  changed that

 

There must be some evidences for this, to generate academic debate on the issue  

The basic point is that,  by this time, (AD 70)  gentile Christians not only existed, but were growing in numbers  large enough to be seen as a separate religion.

It helps support and confirm Paul's writings, and the rest of Acts,  as to the growth and spread of Christian numbers, churches and divisions within 3 decades of Christs death

In turn this strongly supports, in historical and logical terms, the existence of a  liberal Jewish preacher/ teacher who began the religion, and whose martyrdom was quickly  mythologised. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Mr Walker

[eight bits]

7 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Eg some scholars say that at least one of the gospels was most  probably written by an eye witness based on the voice of the writer and the words he used 

Bible scholars include religious conservatives, some of whom continue to hold an "eyewitness evangelist" view. Against this Luke says his gospel is the fruit of research and John says he has consulted written testimony by an eyewitness. For his part, Matthew copies from Mark and possibly also from a "sayings gospel," which is implausible behavior for an eyewitness telling his story. That leaves Mark, and even in ancient times, Mark was at best somebody who supposedly recorded Peter's sermons, not an eyewitness himself.

Thomas is widely admired in scholarly circles, and claims to be an ear witness account of Jesus's sayings. Unfortunately, our only complete copy is a Coptic translation from the Nag Hammadi cache, and that has many obvious alterations and differences from the Greek fragments that also survive.

There is a theory, not so much about the writers as about their hypothetical sources, that there is an Aramaic "flavor" to some of the sayings of Jesus in the canonical gospels. The inference, then, is that original Aramaic sayings of Jesus were preserved until they were translated into Greek and reach us in that translated form.

The problem with the theory is obvious: there are lots of ways for a saying in one language to have the "flavor" of things typically said in a different language. For example, the root story is Mark's, and he knows some Aramaic, demonstrated by including a smattering of Aramaic phrases in his otherwise Greek composition.

Is that what you meant by "the voice of the writer and the words he used," or is there some other way that you believe that word choice might distinguish an eyewitness from any other kind of narrator?

[Mr Walker]

47 minutes ago, eight bits said:

Bible scholars include religious conservatives, some of whom continue to hold an "eyewitness evangelist" view. Against this Luke says his gospel is the fruit of research and John says he has consulted written testimony by an eyewitness. For his part, Matthew copies from Mark and possibly also from a "sayings gospel," which is implausible behavior for an eyewitness telling his story. That leaves Mark, and even in ancient times, Mark was at best somebody who supposedly recorded Peter's sermons, not an eyewitness himself.

Thomas is widely admired in scholarly circles, and claims to be an ear witness account of Jesus's sayings. Unfortunately, our only complete copy is a Coptic translation from the Nag Hammadi cache, and that has many obvious alterations and differences from the Greek fragments that also survive.

There is a theory, not so much about the writers as about their hypothetical sources, that there is an Aramaic "flavor" to some of the sayings of Jesus in the canonical gospels. The inference, then, is that original Aramaic sayings of Jesus were preserved until they were translated into Greek and reach us in that translated form.

The problem with the theory is obvious: there are lots of ways for a saying in one language to have the "flavor" of things typically said in a different language. For example, the root story is Mark's, and he knows some Aramaic, demonstrated by including a smattering of Aramaic phrases in his otherwise Greek composition.

Is that what you meant by "the voice of the writer and the words he used," or is there some other way that you believe that word choice might distinguish an eyewitness from any other kind of narrator?

 

I was going by the experts who believe  that  at least  one of the gospels was written by a person who was present 

You categorise them as "conservatives"  

I think tha t is a prejudicial term, displaying innate bias 

 

I agree there is not enough evidence to be certain, but enough to be uncertain.

In this instance you are with the majority of historical scholars who don't believe there is enough evidence to prove that any of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses  Mind you it can't be disproven either,  and its likely that they  originated as oral stories from people who did witness the events  and filtered the narratives through their own perceptions and (possibly ) magical thinking 

In a sense it doesn't matter if the y were direct witnesses .

If the y were written by people alive at the time, and aware of Christ's ministry and execution, that goes a long way to establishing his historical existence  

As I've pointed out, much of Christ's teachings are identical to teachings of other scholars of the Hillel school  while others are very similar.

  There are  records of the theology /philosophy of the Hillel school of the period  

This source, which is certainly  what you would call conservative, presents the counter argument Ie that the writers WERE eyewitnesses of the events .

https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/the-apostles-wrote-the-gospels-as-eyewitness-accounts/

And i am not so sure that the gospel writers or Paul denied being eyewitnesses The opposite sometimes appears to be the case 

 quote

, the writers themselves state repeatedly that what they are recording, they saw with their eyes, heard with their ears, and they are telling the truth.

Paul: Am I not as free as anyone else? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord with my own eyes? ~1 Corinthians 9:1

Peter: 32 “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this.” ~Acts 2:32 (NLT)

John: “We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands…We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard…” ~1 John 1:1-4

There are 387 uses of the Greek word, ὁράω (“We saw, we have seen,” In the New Testament. Clearly the writers of the New Testament are stating emphatically, they saw Jesus and they are eyewitnesses. This is the evidence that resides in the 24,593 extant manuscripts of the New Testament.

https://robertcliftonrobinson.com/were-the-gospels-written-by-eyewitnesses/

 

 

 

[XenoFish]

The only Jesus that I know that exist is within religious text and the minds of believers. The real question is how functional is the idea of Jesus. Which is honestly up to the believers. 

[eight bits]

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

You categorise them as "conservatives"  

I think tha t is a prejudicial term, displaying innate bias 

In scholarship, conservative is not pejorative. You claimed some scholars hold to a certain view, I agreed that some scholars do, and then presented the chief considerations why other scholars disagree. Of the two alternatives, the "eyewitness evangelist" is the older, so those who favor it are, if words have meaning, conservative.

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

In this instance you are with the majority of historical scholars who don't believe there is enough evidence to prove that any of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses 

Well, it's a little more than absence of evidence. For example, Luke tells us that his work is based on personal research. Presumably he would know. I won't go through the whole line-up again.

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

In a sense it doesn't matter if the y were direct witnesses .

It does if the claim is that there is no direct evidence, which is what the other poster did claim, correctly.

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

As I've pointed out, much of Christ's teachings are identical to teachings of other scholars of the Hillel school  while others are very similar.

That's evidence for the existence of Hillel, which is not our current problem.

I'm not going to waltz through the entire New Testament with cold case Christianity, an apologist website. Just to point out one obvious difficulty:

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

There are 387 uses of the Greek word, ὁράω (“We saw, we have seen,” In the New Testament. Clearly the writers of the New Testament are stating emphatically, they saw Jesus and they are eyewitnesses. This is the evidence that resides in the 24,593 extant manuscripts of the New Testament.

Horao does indeed mean I see. What comes to 387 (or more) uses in the NT spans the many persons, tenses, voices and moods of the verb.

In Greek, to see is like in English and many other languages: the same word also means to understand and to imagine. Here's a typical survey of its uses in the New Testament. The verb's Strong's number is 3708 if you want to go deeper.

https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/horao.html

Edited September 12, 2021 by eight bits

[SHaYap]

2 hours ago, eight bits said:

In scholarship, conservative is not pejorative

I'm no English teacher, but even I know that. Says everything about the load of lies that is being dumped here for the purpose of duplicitous dupes. 

~

[+Sherapy]

19 minutes ago, third_eye said:

I'm no English teacher, but even I know that. Says everything about the load of lies that is being dumped here for the purpose of duplicitous dupes. 

~

Neither is the poster claiming to be. I think all the so called “pejorative’ accusations are a projection of some heavy baggage offering a wonderful opportunity to work thru some resentments that seem to be a trigger. Just my two cents. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Sherapy

[SHaYap]

4 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Neither is the poster claiming to be. I think all the so called “pejorative’ accusations are a projection of some heavy baggage offering a wonderful opportunity to work thru some resentments. Just my two cents. 

Just picked up King Lear again this evening... 

I miss the old school plays by those giants of the stage... 

Quote

• Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.” ...
• “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. ...
• “The prince of darkness is a gentleman!” ...
• “Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” ...
• “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, ...
• “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

~

[+Liquid Gardens]

On 9/11/2021 at 12:05 AM, Mr Walker said:

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 

Is that the consensus of the academic historians that you appeal to for a historical Jesus?  Do you mean 'people alive when Christ lived' or 'people who saw Christ'?  Big difference.  References to followers later is not relevant, that isn't disputed.

On 9/11/2021 at 12:05 AM, Mr Walker said:

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

It depends on what you mean by 'forgery'.  Academic historians do not overall believe I don't think that the gospels were actually written by Mark, Luke, Matthew and John, that's within an acceptable wider definition of 'forgery' to me.

Anyway, did you have any 'direct evidence'?

[+Sherapy]

14 minutes ago, third_eye said:

Just picked up King Lear again this evening... 

I miss the old school plays by those giants of the stage... 

~

Edited September 12, 2021 by Sherapy

[lightly]

On September 9, 2021 at 3:01 PM, Rlyeh said:

As real as the Easter bunny.

What's that supposed to mean?!    Hey, if the Easter bunny isn't real ,where did my sister and me get those baskets of candy and colored eggs from ! ? Hmmmmm?