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Author Topic:   Please give me so-called "proof" of Jesus or God.
PeriferaliiFocust
Inactive Member


Message 46 of 320 (120165)
06-29-2004 9:55 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by custard
06-29-2004 4:08 PM


Ditto to Custard. There are several facts about his life that most likely happened, if not there is just as much chance of fallacy in any other record. Also i think its only logical that there must have been a strong witness base to justify all the revolutions in civilization following Jesus life. I don't think the Christian church would have evolved if his simple existence was questionable or possibly fictional. It is possible, and highly likely that given the revolutionary moral principles he introduced(often portrayed through parables) that stories of him having miraclous powers would be embellished. For this part of the Jesus story there is no proof either way.
While i am annoyed by ignorant 'christians' i am nearly equally annoyed by people accuse these christians of being so ignorant, use hatred to justify complete disreguard of original christian principles. Don't take crack pots to represent christ, remember 'Christian' actually means to follow christ, or be christ like. If you read the stories (whether completely true or not they are all we have), I don't think you will find anything [significantly] disagreable about his conduct. But then there come his followers, those who worship him for being so incredible as a leader and teacher, and call themselves christian without fully (often even partially) understanding the original principles he taught. Therefore you get a vast majority of people who call themselves christians, but in reality are revereted to heathen mentality.
Consider the systematic oppresion perpetrated by the 'christian' church, with numerous executions upon those who denied christ. If you use your brain you will realize christ would never approve of most of the policys of the christians, even up into modern day, with only few exceptions of people who have figured out how to truly follow christ.
In the case that you take the word Christian to it's literal meaning, there is no reason for you to hate christians. Also you will see many people who are more christ like, therefore more christian, yet do not believe in christ, then those who call themselves christians. Athiests can be christians. Your christianity depends on your lifestyle, not what you call yourself.
All you "christians", maybe you should keep in mind if what you are doing here debating has anything to do with following christian principles.
All you christian-haters, stop accepting idiots as representitives of a way of life they have no actual understanding of.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by custard, posted 06-29-2004 4:08 PM custard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by coffee_addict, posted 06-29-2004 11:11 PM PeriferaliiFocust has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 47 of 320 (120170)
06-29-2004 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by custard
06-29-2004 4:08 PM


custard writes:
Unless Lam wants to be unreasonable, I think he has to agree that a guy called Jesus probably existed and said or did enough things to piss off the Romans (and Jews). What really gets fuzzy, and is truly conjecture is exactly WHAT he said, did, looked like, etc.
This is the lead message for a thread I started about a year ago titled Did Jesus die before he was born?:
One of the characteristics of myth is that details about the past increase rather than decrease with time. The legends of King Arthur, Robin Hood and William Tell are all excellent examples. If you examine contemporary records you find that very little details are provided. After some time passes by, perhaps a few decades or maybe a century, you find that many details have been added, but the tales still aren't very elaborate. But with the passage of more time more and more stories become added until the myth finally becomes rich and complex.
Could the same be true of the story of Jesus? The Romans kept meticulous records, and yet despite all the turmoil caused by Jesus's ministry, despite the sermon on the mount and the sermon and the plain, despite all the miracles, Jesus received not a single contemporaneous mention. He was greater than John the Baptist, yet John the Baptist is mentioned contemporaneously and Jesus isn't.
The letters of Paul seem to know little about Jesus. There is no mention of his being born of a virgin. In fact, in Galatians 4:4 Paul says, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law," and in Romans 1:1-3 he says, "I Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and separated onto the gospel of God...concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." If Paul were aware of a virgin birth he would have mentioned it in these passages.
Paul also seems unaware of almost any of Jesus's famous sayings, nor the three days in the tomb, nor the ascension to heaven, nor the appearances to the apostles and crowds in Jerusalem.
By the time we reach Mark, the earliest Gospel, the outline of the story of Jesus's ministry is now known, but significant events like the sermon on the mount and the sermon on the plain are missing. These are only filled in by the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which also now include the details of his birth and early life.
This increase with time of details about the life of Jesus are consistent with the properties of myth, and it raises an intriguing possibility. Is it possible that Jesus didn't really live in the 1st century AD, thereby explaining the absence of any contemporaneous mention? Might Jesus have actually been the Teacher of Righteousness described in the Dead Sea Scrolls who lived in the 1st or 2nd century BC, or some other pre-Christian saint? In other words, did the real Jesus actually live and die before the Jesus described in the Gospels was ever born?
This would require a reinterpretation of the early history of the Christian church, which would go something like this. The Christian church grew out of a collection of loosely aligned churches of the Jewish Diaspora of the early 1st century AD, perhaps developing out of the Essene movement. In other words, the churches of Corinth and of the Galatians who received letters from Paul existed long before Paul ever began his ministry. These churches were in the habit of receiving missionaries like Paul, each of whom preached their own religious philosophies, and were all roughly but not completely in agreement with one another. One of the disagreements between Paul and Peter is described in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians 2:11-21. And many of Paul's letters are admonitions to these churches to not follow the way of other missionaries, but to instead listen to Paul's message.
Around the time of Paul the missionaries began spreading the word that a highly respected preacher named Jesus of a century or so before had actually been the Messiah, the son of the God, the chosen one who would lead the Jews to freedom and salvation. He had been crucified and suffered for our sins, and now sat at the right hand of God awaiting the time to return. This message was quickly taken up by the churches of the Jewish Diaspora of the 40s and 50s AD, and Paul played a critical role in spreading this message. In fact, it was his particular version of the message that eventually won out. Sometime later, probably late in the 1st century AD or in the first half of the 2nd, these church communities produced the Gospels we know today, providing Jesus with a life and history he never knew, and somehow moving the time forward into the first third of the first century AD, which, coincidentally, corresponds with the beginning of Paul's ministry.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by custard, posted 06-29-2004 4:08 PM custard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by 1.61803, posted 06-29-2004 10:58 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 55 by custard, posted 06-30-2004 3:00 AM Percy has not replied
 Message 58 by Mammuthus, posted 06-30-2004 4:08 AM Percy has not replied

1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 48 of 320 (120178)
06-29-2004 10:58 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Percy
06-29-2004 10:20 PM


As always Percy I learn something from your post. The Jesus seminar was a bitter pill for me to swallow but I recommend anyone who wants to know about the historocity of the man named Jesus should be more than willing to hear another point of view. If he was in fact a historical myth his message and what he represented are enduring.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 06-29-2004 10:20 PM Percy has not replied

coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 49 of 320 (120183)
06-29-2004 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by PeriferaliiFocust
06-29-2004 9:55 PM


PeriferaliiFocust writes:
I don't think the Christian church would have evolved if his simple existence was questionable or possibly fictional.
So, are you saying that Zeus, Apollo, and every other olympian god existed? The greeks did hold onto their religious beliefs about the olympian gods for a very long time you know.

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by PeriferaliiFocust, posted 06-29-2004 9:55 PM PeriferaliiFocust has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-29-2004 11:35 PM coffee_addict has not replied
 Message 56 by custard, posted 06-30-2004 3:02 AM coffee_addict has not replied

Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 50 of 320 (120189)
06-29-2004 11:35 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by coffee_addict
06-29-2004 11:11 PM


Those Greek myths may not have been entirely unfounded...
Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days -- and also afterward -- when the angels went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
Numbers 13:32 "...All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
edited to add: ... sorry this is off-topic
This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-29-2004 10:36 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by coffee_addict, posted 06-29-2004 11:11 PM coffee_addict has not replied

Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 51 of 320 (120223)
06-30-2004 1:11 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by coffee_addict
06-28-2004 11:29 PM


Re: There isn't any proof Jesus ever existed
You do not consider the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled even slightly significant?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by coffee_addict, posted 06-28-2004 11:29 PM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by coffee_addict, posted 06-30-2004 2:06 AM Hangdawg13 has replied
 Message 57 by PaulK, posted 06-30-2004 3:17 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied
 Message 238 by ramoss, posted 08-19-2004 12:28 PM Hangdawg13 has not replied

coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 52 of 320 (120243)
06-30-2004 2:06 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Hangdawg13
06-30-2004 1:11 AM


Re: There isn't any proof Jesus ever existed
Hangdawg13 writes:
You do not consider the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled even slightly significant?
Saids who? Oh yeah, the same book that is in question.

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-30-2004 1:11 AM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-30-2004 2:16 AM coffee_addict has replied

Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 53 of 320 (120247)
06-30-2004 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by coffee_addict
06-30-2004 2:06 AM


Re: There isn't any proof Jesus ever existed
Well, when several authors describe an event hundreds of years before it happens, that tells us something.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by coffee_addict, posted 06-30-2004 2:06 AM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
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coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 54 of 320 (120252)
06-30-2004 2:27 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Hangdawg13
06-30-2004 2:16 AM


Re: There isn't any proof Jesus ever existed
Hangdawg13 writes:
Well, when several authors describe an event hundreds of years before it happens, that tells us something.
Have you ever been to a magic show before? Magicians can pretty much repeat any supposed miracle performed by Jesus.
Have you ever considered that, if there really was a figure named Jesus, he could have tried to perform those miracles that were written in the OT?
Thus, we come to the question. Did Jesus (if he existed) perform the miracles because they were written or were the miracles written because Jesus was going to perform them?

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-30-2004 2:16 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied

custard
Inactive Member


Message 55 of 320 (120258)
06-30-2004 3:00 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Percy
06-29-2004 10:20 PM


percy writes:
The Romans kept meticulous records, and yet despite all the turmoil caused by Jesus's ministry, despite the sermon on the mount and the sermon and the plain, despite all the miracles, Jesus received not a single contemporaneous mention.
You kind of make it sound like we have warehouses of old Roman records that don't have any reference to Jesus. Yes the Romans kept good records, so did the Greeks, but only a fraction survived.
This argument seems similar to the Creo argument "but if there were all these transitional animals, why aren't there any fossils?"
I think before we can seriously challenge the idea that Jesus didn't exist, or is a fabricated conglomerate of other people, we would have to show that writers such as Josephus and Talmudic scribes had nothing to base their writings on but legend or gossip.
Isn't it generally agreed that Josephus and later writers were probably working from other written documents from the period?
I think you make a good argument for the legendary aspects of Christ. It really isn't that much different, in my opinion, from Arthurian legend - which is also based on one individual about whom not much was written.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 06-29-2004 10:20 PM Percy has not replied

Replies to this message:
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custard
Inactive Member


Message 56 of 320 (120260)
06-30-2004 3:02 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by coffee_addict
06-29-2004 11:11 PM


So, are you saying that Zeus, Apollo, and every other olympian god existed? The greeks did hold onto their religious beliefs about the olympian gods for a very long time you know.
Duh! Didn't you see that Star Trek episode Who Mourns for Adonais?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by coffee_addict, posted 06-29-2004 11:11 PM coffee_addict has not replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 57 of 320 (120264)
06-30-2004 3:17 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Hangdawg13
06-30-2004 1:11 AM


Re: There isn't any proof Jesus ever existed
Well there was a thread challenging Almeyda on the issue of prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. When it came to producing a significant prophecy which it could be shown that Jesus had fulfilled he offered....nothing. Not one. So, it seems that the answer is no - there isn't anything of significance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-30-2004 1:11 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied

Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 58 of 320 (120281)
06-30-2004 4:08 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Percy
06-29-2004 10:20 PM


Bingo Percy,
This is exactly the kind of scenario and information I was getting at. It is not a bash at christianity...I was interested in the possibility of a composite figure drawn together and made larger than life long after the supposed time he lived. This would fit as you say with many historical figures as well as other mythologies.
But I think it also indicates that a strict literalist interpretation of the bible or any religious text will lead one into a rather inescapable set of logical problems with little evidence to support one scenario over another...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 06-29-2004 10:20 PM Percy has not replied

custard
Inactive Member


Message 59 of 320 (120282)
06-30-2004 4:31 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by PeriferaliiFocust
06-29-2004 9:23 PM


It can at least be said he was a revolutionary and genius leader.
But I think that's one of the points of this thread, and Percy illustrates this in his post: how do we know this is the least that can be said? What do we really know about Jesus the historical figure outside of the bible?
Interestingly, I just finished reading two documents criticizing the Josephus reference to Jesus; it accused it of being a forgery.
Since I think this pertains to the 'give me so-called proof of Jesus' question, would anyone help me verify or invalidate the non-christian sources we have for the existence of Jesus.
To date I know of only the following:
1- Flavius Josephus (died 97AD) who wrote
quote:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive, accordingly, he was perhaps the messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
2- Tacitus (115AD)
quote:
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberious at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome...
3- Tetullian (200 AD)
quote:
Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favor of Christ. The senate, because it had not given the approval itself, rejected his proposal. Caesar held to his opinion, threatening wrath against all accusers of the Christians.
4- Talmud-Sanhedrin43
quote:
On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.
That's all I can find. Anyone have any specific commentary or criticism for any of these sources or what they wrote?
PS - regarding contemporary reports of John the B - anyone able to point me in the right direction?
This message has been edited by custard, 06-30-2004 03:34 AM

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by Dr Jack, posted 06-30-2004 7:10 AM custard has replied
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almeyda
Inactive Member


Message 60 of 320 (120291)
06-30-2004 6:53 AM


Many of the eye-witnesses were still alive when the manuscripts containining such claims were circulating. If those letters and manuscripts had been false, the eye-witnesses would have denounced them as frauds. But the scriptures were widely accepted as historical and fact. There still exists more than 24,000 of these ancient manuscript copies, in spite of centuries of efforts to eradicate the christian scriptures. Compare this to the number of surviving manuscripts of some of the great works of secular history, such as The Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar. Only 10 copies remain of his work, yet its historicity is never questioned. Or Plato, yet the New Testament has thousands of manuscript copies yet there seems to be a problem there. The historical accounts in the post above me provide sufficient evidence even with ignoring the New Testament. People though dont want Jesus to exist, just like they dont want the Bible to be the word of God. False prophets, messiahs were always killed, or called frauds. The ressurection itself would have been debunked in ancient times if there was a reference to Christs body being found rotten in a tomb. All the other founders of religions have had there bodies in tombs. Jesus was accepted as the messiah for the things he did. Some people try to base the fraud on the eye-witnesses not being trustworthy. If people want to question that we can see the standard legal witness test used throughout law courts in the world. These men hated lying, they lived by the idea that Jesus was the way and the truth.
The Encyclopedia Britanica (15 edition,1974), concerning the testimony of the many independent secular accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, records:
"These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds by several authors at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries"
To deny the historicity of Christ is to deny the existence of Aristole, Cicero, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad or Napoleon Bonaparte because they are all are part of history. Yet Jesus has made the biggest impact on our world then all of these.

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by crashfrog, posted 06-30-2004 6:57 AM almeyda has replied
 Message 241 by ramoss, posted 08-19-2004 12:41 PM almeyda has not replied

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