Did Jesus Exist?

Everybody forgets events of that magnitude. Or rather - the recollection of the events changes over time.It's a well-understood psychological phenomenon. Proven fact. In fact, the more significant an event, the less likely you are to accurately remember the details. "Hundreds", eh? Boy, there's nothing you won't make up to buoy your position, is there?

If he had preached, that is. And once again we get back to the fact that there's no actual evidence for any of these thousands; you're simply talking about the thousands of people that he would have been preaching to, if the Bible was true - and you assume it is, so you conclude thousands. And then you use that to support the Bible.It's the perfectly circular reasoning of the believer. discuss the reasoning not the people. - The QueenThis message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 01-08-2006 12:26 AM

Yeah. But see, you don't have any of that. You just have the Bible, which is both the beginning and end of your argument: "I assume the Bible, so such and such is true, which proves the Bible."Absolutely circular. Circular reasoning is sort of like trying to build a house using its own roof as a foundation. Only M.C. Escher could ever make that work.

Well, I certainly don't trust your word on the subject. What are the reports, and what do they report? Or if you've already provided this information, where did you do so?

If the Bible were really the only written text we had from that time period, this view would have merit.But it's not, of course. Not by a long shot. We've got piles and piles of records from that area, and the abject failure of Jesus to appear in any of them does contradict your one single source. It is evidence that Jesus Christ was not a historical person, at least not in the sense of being the Christ. Not when they're simply plagarizing each other. For instance, if a journalist at the New York Times fabricates a story, it doesn't matter if Reuters and the AP pick up the story and duplicate it on their newswires; the stories don't corraborate each other because they're just duplicates of one single story.So too with the Bible. The Bible authors weren't working in a vacumn; they had access to each other's work, and copied from it. A later book of the Bible doesn't support an earlier one if the only source for the information in the later book was the earlier one.It's a basic and fundamental point, Faith. You don't corraborate a falsehood by simply repeating it. But there is evidence outside the Bible; stacks and stacks of contemporary or near-contemporary documents that don't provide any independant mention of Jesus Christ. That's the contradictory evidence that leads us to reject the Bible as an untrustworthy source.

No more so than Romeo and Juliet tells you it's set in Verona, Italy. The books of the Bible you refer to are not written as historical accounts, but as ecclesiastical fiction set in real-world locations.I've read the Bible, Faith. Did you forget? The only people who see it as indiciative of some kind of historical factual record and not what it is - letters from theologians to their churches, homilies and the like - are people with a prior committment to believe in the historicity of the Bible no matter what.

Sure I can. What else would the evidence look like if Jesus was made-up by the people who wrote the Bible?Wouldn't it look exactly like what we have - that is, no mention of Jesus in any relevant contemporary record except the Bible, and then, later, a tradition of denying the existence of Jesus Christ? Recognize, no. But to not even mention? Not even to say "hey, that Jesus dude, what an asshole?" C'mon, Faith. What else would the evidence look like if Jesus was made up, except the way it looks right now? We have exactly the situation we would have if the Bible writers largely invented the person of Jesus Christ. So explain to me why it's wrong to reach that conclusion? There's not an "abundance." There's just a collection of letters between believers, written by people decades after the events, by people who weren't even there.Why would you expect me to take that seriously?

The Silmarillion is written as history. The Iliad is written as history. The way it is written is evidence of nothing except the creativity of the authors.

The position that Jesus did not exist is a very traditional view. There's centuries of scholarship on the subject - by persons who were largely persecuted by the Christian majority for doing so.Isn't that evidence to you? That people would suffer so much to try to prove their position that there was no Jesus? You did offer the exact same situation as proof of your side, not 20 posts ago.