Was Jesus real?

[Abramelin]

On 9/11/2021 at 3:20 PM, docyabut2 said:

I`m trying to prove Jesus was real

Docy, as the un-believer I am, I can tell you that the most convincing book about Jesus being a real living person was Patrick Tilley's "Mission".

It is a kind of scifi story for those who have reading problems, but in reality it is crammed full with gnostic ideas. And lots of other 'inspirited literature'. (I wrote a long list on a blanc page at the end of the book; all books I possess).

Edited to add:

Reviews on Amazon.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Abramelin

[GlitterRose]

On 9/9/2021 at 10:44 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.

People get hung up on proving this or that to be historically true. It's a holdover of materialism.

Gnosticism isn't really like that.

The important thing isn't whether or not a man named Jesus walked the Earth. 

The important thing is that over time, there have been many people who have come to recognize the light within, and they have shown it to the world. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by GlitterRose

[+Sherapy]

1 hour ago, lightly said:

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?

Mom and Dad 

[lightly]

2 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Mom and Dad 

 Ya right. .       Nice try!   

[Mr Walker]

14 hours ago, eight bits said:

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.

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.

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

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:

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

Nonetheless "conservative has an inherent bias, even in scholarship Once it was a positive bias Ie traditional/non radical/proven.

Today it is a negative  bias ie old fashioned unwilling to accept new ideas  

I would say the older or more traditional, rather than the conservative pov 

And i counter claimed that it is not strictly true.

It comes down to beliefs biases and what one accepts

f the gospels were written by eyewitnesses then there Is   direct evidence

If Paul met relatives of Christ then that is direct evidence 

Some people don't accept any writings from the bible (such as Paul's) as historical evidences, but of course they are, just the same as any writing from people of a period is historical evidence      

and you've made my point for me 

Interpreting words comes down to how  one  believes  the writer intended the words to be used  Ie contextual usage within the intent and framework of a narrative 

Hence, either  usage might have been the intended one 

The more believable scenario is that, true or not, the writers claimed to be eyewitnesses, or to have the story from  eyewitnesses,  to give greater credibility to their accounts 

There is more than "evidence for the existence of  the Hillel's " There are many writings of the Hillel's which are identical to and/or similar to the words of Christ ie at the time of Christ the words used by Christ in his teachings were identical to, and /or similar to the message  taught by a whole school of liberal Jewish teachers 

Ie  What we have recorded as his teachings came from  within the liberal theology of the time, which is well recorded elsewhere. 

 

[Mr Walker]

16 hours ago, XenoFish said:

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. 

Historians would argue that they know  (of) a real historical figure. 

The question of the religion and beliefs which grew up around this man, after his death, is an entirely different one.

Clearly the religion (the concept  of Christ as a redeeming god, who also acted as an example for how we should live) has been, and remains, "highly functional," for a huge proportion of humanity

  Ie it works, and serves the purposes for which it evolved /was constructed.  

[Mr Walker]

11 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

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.

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'?

It wasn't clear but i explained a little I am a contemporary of JFK, for  example. and followed his life and career quite closely for an Australian

No I  didnt ever meet him in person, but i know he was real  and I can comment on his life and times as an observer of it 

 I meant that the men who wrote the gospels were probably alive when Christ was.

They would have known the times ,and his life and work. Even if the y never personally  witnessed it they would have known people who did 

The original post and my comment .

 

@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.

 

I was speaking of the whole post as not being entirely true

I then went on to explain for each of the THREE points, why i dont believe the y are entirely true, or as clear cut as clamed 

eg for the first claim.

  The writers of the gospels almost certainly were contemporaries of Christ  given that  the first ws written around AD 60-70 just as i am a contemporary of JFK and grew up reading and hearing about him . 

Take a novel written under a pseudonym )or even a scientific or historical book  )

They are not forgeries 

To call them forgeries implies that the gospels were written under false pretenses, and  knowingly incorrect or intended to deceive 

That's not true either  The book of Mormon, or the Urantia book,  aren't forgeries, either.  (Whether you accept a word of them as truth or not, is a different matter  )

Is "Troubled Blood" by Robert Galbraith, a forgery ?  

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Mr Walker

[eight bits]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

I would say the older or more traditional, rather than the conservative pov 

Wrtie what you like in your own posts. If some member of this forum is put off by how I described them, then I will happily discuss my choice of words with them. You are not one of the people I described. I will not discuss this matter further with you.

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Some people don't accept any writings from the bible (such as Paul's) as historical evidences, but of course they are, just the same as any writing from people of a period is historical evidence      

I don't doubt that there are such people, but I don't know anybody who rejects that the various documents assembled in the Bible are evidence about the times of their authors. So, for example, Mark is informative about some Christians' views about Jesus around the time the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, and John is informative about how some Christians thought about Jesus around the turn of the Second Century.

The on-topic problems, however, are that the Gospel authors are not writing about their own times and even when Paul is accepted as a contemporary of Jesus, he writes little or nothing that survives about Jesus's natural life or career.

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

The more believable scenario is that, true or not, the writers claimed to be eyewitnesses, or to have the story from  eyewitnesses,  to give greater credibility to their accounts 

Neither Paul, nor Mark, nor Matthew claimed to be eyewitnesses. Luke and John claimed to have gotten their information by research. Among them, only John claims to have gotten some of his information from an eyewitness, and both of thoise episodes occur after Jesus's natural life and career have ended (the stabbing of Jesus's corpse, and a post-resurrection appearance).

As to the rest of the NT, 1 and 2 Peter claim to be by the disciple-apostle Simon Peter, which is generally thought to be false. The letters give little or no information about Jesus beyond references to gospel stories.

Finally, as mentioned in the previous post, the historicity of Hillel isn't our current problem. Many of the teachings attributed to Jesus are derivative - which neither strongly supports nor refutes Jesus's historicity. Good teachers borrow, great teachers steal?

Edited September 13, 2021 by eight bits

[Piney]

13 hours ago, GlitterRose said:

People get hung up on proving this or that to be historically true. It's a holdover of materialism.

Gnosticism isn't really like that.

The important thing isn't whether or not a man named Jesus walked the Earth. 

The important thing is that over time, there have been many people who have come to recognize the light within, and they have shown it to the world. 

Wow! 

Have you been reading Quaker writings? 

[SHaYap]

Set the record straight... 

Quote

That is, let us see the implications of the semantics of the text as it is written. So, let us now accept that the first sentence of Genesis says b'reshit bara elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz, and that it means what can be translated into English as In a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

https://cs.uwaterloo.ca › FTP_SITE

UNDERSTANDING THE BEGINNING OF GENESIS: - ...

~

In "A" beginning... "A" beginning... 

Send in the English language teacher ...

~

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

8 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

They would have known the times ,and his life and work. Even if the y never personally  witnessed it they would have known people who did 

Evidence please.  You are a contemporary of Britney Spears, even with present-day mass communication I doubt you know enough about her to write more than a paragraph of accurate information without looking things up.  Using your quirky standard of evidence and 'knowledge', you don't even 'know' she exists since you've never personally been in her presence.  Even your JFK analogy fails, you never 'personally witnessed' him and I doubt you 'know' people who did.  This 'contemporaries would have known people who witnessed him' is an especially illogical assumption for Jesus, who didn't merit enough attention while he was alive to be more noted.

No one has any idea if any of the biblical authors knew anyone who was a witness to a historical Jesus.  "Not entirely true" means you found something that is false, and things are not shown to be false by pure, and IMO pretty dumb, speculation.

[+Nuclear Wessel]

21 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Using your quirky standard of evidence and 'knowledge', you don't even 'know' she exists since you've never personally been in her presence. 

He's probably going to break his back trying to shift the goalposts.

[+Sherapy]

54 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Evidence please.  You are a contemporary of Britney Spears, even with present-day mass communication I doubt you know enough about her to write more than a paragraph of accurate information without looking things up.  Using your quirky standard of evidence and 'knowledge', you don't even 'know' she exists since you've never personally been in her presence.  Even your JFK analogy fails, you never 'personally witnessed' him and I doubt you 'know' people who did.  This 'contemporaries would have known people who witnessed him' is an especially illogical assumption for Jesus, who didn't merit enough attention while he was alive to be more noted.

No one has any idea if any of the biblical authors knew anyone who was a witness to a historical Jesus.  "Not entirely true" means you found something that is false, and things are not shown to be false by pure, and IMO pretty dumb, speculation.

Indeed, asking for a primary source citation is appropriate and  for real-time guidance just about any post by 8bits will show how to frame a quality counter. 
 

@Mr Walker https://library.uncw.edu/guides/finding_primary_sources

[+Sherapy]

47 minutes ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

He's probably going to break his back trying to shift the goalposts.

Common for one with a Google cut and paste approach. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Sherapy

[SHaYap]

More like slash and mucilage...

~

[Phantom309]

On 9/11/2021 at 9:20 AM, docyabut2 said:

I`m trying to prove Jesus was real

Here you go Ms. Docy, a very helpful and informative short video, she touches on whether Jesus was real or not and a number of other bible related topics:

 

[docyabut2]

On 9/11/2021 at 8:29 AM, docyabut2 said:

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.  

Ancient rock carvings including a cross and menorah found in a cave | ArchaeoFeed

[Mr Walker]

On 9/13/2021 at 10:10 PM, Liquid Gardens said:

Evidence please.  You are a contemporary of Britney Spears, even with present-day mass communication I doubt you know enough about her to write more than a paragraph of accurate information without looking things up.  Using your quirky standard of evidence and 'knowledge', you don't even 'know' she exists since you've never personally been in her presence.  Even your JFK analogy fails, you never 'personally witnessed' him and I doubt you 'know' people who did.  This 'contemporaries would have known people who witnessed him' is an especially illogical assumption for Jesus, who didn't merit enough attention while he was alive to be more noted.

No one has any idea if any of the biblical authors knew anyone who was a witness to a historical Jesus.  "Not entirely true" means you found something that is false, and things are not shown to be false by pure, and IMO pretty dumb, speculation.

Thats not the question.

I can "verify" that she exists and a few facts about her life That 's the basis for the historicity of  Christs existence 

Id agree that we only "know"  half a dozen things (at most)  about Christ's life   And yep, using my definition, I  cant know  that either existed ,but i can can argue strongly   that they did,  using   evidences and justified true belief  

There are many billions of people on this earth that i cant know for sure really exist and probably only   about 20000 or so that t i can verify from  personal contact    but  there are evidences for the other's existence , lie the car I drive and the clothes I wear 

As to your last point The gospels were generally written down  (and certainly composed orally) in a short  life span after  Christs death That means the authors were almost certainly l alive and contemporary with christ   either about his own age or a bit younger 

and it was a smaller world 

churches and temples grew up almost immediately after his death and within 20 years there were many of them spread out across the middle east 

quote

Within 10 years of the death of Jesus, apostles had attracted enthusiasts for "the Way" from Jerusalem to Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Cyprus, Crete, Alexandria and Rome.[163][92][158][164] Over 40 churches were established by 100,[158][164] most in Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia, and some in Greece in the Roman era and Roman Italy.[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_1st_century

Christ was quite a well known and controversial figure in the first century AD in his local area  (so were other liberal rabbis )  Given that the writers claimed either personal knowledge or research, then the y would have spoken with those who were eyewitnesses 

It is illogical to assume they did not    and assumes the religion was a constructed fake right from  the start.

Ps since the advent  of radio and television, a human being can "personally witness "many things around the world 

I am happy to accept the accuracy and reliability of  sound and vision recordings of JFK and others as  being real/genuine  even if i don't accept some commentary on them as being so accurate 

 Ie a camera or microphone will record exactly  what I would see if I was standing where the recording device was,  and may be more neutral and accurate than a personal impression

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Mr Walker

[eight bits]

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

churches and temples grew up almost immediately after his death and within 20 years there were many of them spread out across the middle east 

"Churches" are a later development in Christianity. What evidence there is for very early practices points to meeting in already existing Jewish synagogues and in private homes, and where the weather was suitable, some may have also met outdoors (as pagans sometimes did, too).

It would be odd for a cult that seriously believed that their world was about to end, within their own lifetimes at the latest, to invest in buildings dedicated to their meetings. Also, compared with other cults, there wasn't much need in the early years to store dedicated material culture (statues and other art work, scriptural libraries, sacred vessels, costumes, ...). That Christianity was an inexpensive religion to practice no doubt helped its spread.

There is no reason to think that these far-flung assemblies all believed the same things about Jesus. Even within one assembly, Corinth, Paul writes about factions (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). There is no reason based on the letters that the most faithful follower of Paul would need to believe that Jesus was a real man who actually lived. Maybe some understood Paul's Christ Jesus that way and others did not. So far as we can tell, that difference of opinion would not prevent the group from worshipping together.

What mattered was that Jesus was coming, soon. Whether that would be his first or second visit earthside, Paul doesn't say. Actually, Paul never says that Jesus will be on earth even then. According to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Jesus appears in the air, and the faithful fly up to meet him - he doesn't land to meet them.

Quote

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.

If there were any earlier visit, then why couldn't it have been similar? Believing so would not place the believer in opposition to anything we read in Paul.

[Grim Reaper 6]

47 minutes ago, eight bits said:

"Churches" are a later development in Christianity. What evidence there is for very early practices points to meeting in already existing Jewish synagogues and in private homes, and where the weather was suitable, some may have also met outdoors (as pagans sometimes did, too).

It would be odd for a cult that seriously believed that their world was about to end, within their own lifetimes at the latest, to invest in buildings dedicated to their meetings. Also, compared with other cults, there wasn't much need in the early years to store dedicated material culture (statues and other art work, scriptural libraries, sacred vessels, costumes, ...). That Christianity was an inexpensive religion to practice no doubt helped its spread.

There is no reason to think that these far-flung assemblies all believed the same things about Jesus. Even within one assembly, Corinth, Paul writes about factions (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). There is no reason based on the letters that the most faithful follower of Paul would need to believe that Jesus was a real man who actually lived. Maybe some understood Paul's Christ Jesus that way and others did not. So far as we can tell, that difference of opinion would not prevent the group from worshipping together.

What mattered was that Jesus was coming, soon. Whether that would be his first or second visit earthside, Paul doesn't say. Actually, Paul never says that Jesus will be on earth even then. According to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Jesus appears in the air, and the faithful fly up to meet him - he doesn't land to meet them.

If there were any earlier visit, then why couldn't it have been similar? Believing so would not place the believer in opposition to anything we read in Paul.

Well my friend one thing is absolutely certain, during the time frame in question there were many men named Jesus in the general area this discussion is based upon. In fact since fishing was a common profession their were most likely a number of these Jesus's that were in fact fisherman. So to the opening question in this thread, was Jesus real, the answer would have to be yes. But, was the biblical Jesus real, I suppose the only way to find out if the basis for Christianity is real is to die. 

JIMO

[SHaYap]

No need to die, just use the internet as it was intended for ... 

Quote

https://www.irreligiosophy.com › ...

71: More New Testament Plagiarism | Irreligiosophy

 

14 Jul 2010 — [irrelig]We've caught those wily NT rascals at it again — this time plagiarizing not from pagan ...

 

 

 

 

 

https://teamfoursixteen.wordpress.com › ...

Part 1: Is the Bible a result of plagiarism? - TEAM FOUR SIXTEEN

 

23 Feb 2019 — If you are often online, you may have seen or heard plagiarism accusations leveled against the Bible ...

 

 

 

 

 

https://danielmiessler.com › blog › t...

The Bible is Fiction: A Collection Of Evidence - Daniel Miessler

 

17 Dec 2019 — The Bible is a collection of old stories and myths that came before it, and this is easy to see by ...

 

https://christiantoday.com › article

Bible commentaries pulped after New Testament scholar admits plagiarism

 

17 Aug 2016 — Several New Testament commentaries have been pulped after allegations of plagiarism were made.

 

https://www.peterbe.com › plog › th...

The Jesus story - A serious case of plagiarism - Peterbe.com

 

3 Jan 2009 — Many stories in the Holy Bible is copied. Also written about events after they happened hundreds of ...

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.nairaland.com › proof-...

Proof Of Plagiarism In The Christian New Testament From The Jewish ...

 

28 Jul 2018 — Evidence of Plagiarism Within the Old Testament Itself!: compare 2KINGS 19 and ISAIAH 37. Here is 2Kings 19:.

~

’ay·yek·kāh...indeed

~

[Abramelin]

On 9/13/2021 at 10:48 AM, third_eye said:

Set the record straight... 

~

In "A" beginning... "A" beginning... 

Send in the English language teacher ...

~

 

https://mechanical-translation.org/m/index.html

 

[SHaYap]

24 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

https://mechanical-translation.org/m/index.html

 

" In the summit Elohiym shaped the skies and the land, "

Before skies and land, what summit is this? 

~

[quiXilver]

Holy Believers Batman!

These believers got more spin than my laundry machine.

Hold on a sec... I'mma go get my grungy bedding, it's wash time.

[eight bits]

7 hours ago, third_eye said:

plagiarism

Actually, it's less obscure than all that. Matthew and Luke contain big chunks of Mark verbatim or in "close paraphrase" (change a word or two here or there and maybe the professor won't notice).  Beyond that, Matthew and Luke share many sayings of Jesus (in Greek) verbatim, so either Luke copied from Matthew or they both copied from "Q," a Greek language source which, if it ever existed, has gone missing.

Of course, it's not called plagiarism ... it's um, paying tribute to an earlier author. Yes, that's the ticket, payimg tribute.

The main channel for many of the major plot points is the Jewish scriptures (not yet assembled into a canon at that point). The Jewish scriptures draw on neighboring cultures and the cultures that conquered Israelite and Jewish territory. That might account for some of the family resemblances of gopel stories to Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian and Greek models.

Apart from Jewish material, or indirect influence from other cultures via Jewish scripture, we had a thread not too long about Dennis MacDonald's debate with Richard Carrier. MacDonald's thing is that Homer appears to have been a direct influence on the gospels. My personal jaw dropper is John, whose opening miracle (the magical winemaking at Cana) re-enacts an annual rite of Dionysus-Bacchus. Jesus does in that story just what a priest of Dionysus would do in the pagan ritual.

There's no way the original audience would miss that. What is it doing there?

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by eight bits