Did Jesus Exist?

Faith,You asked: I did answer "Paul" to your question, though Paul did not remain in obscurity. Nor do I believe that Paul deliberately made up his religion. I do believe he had a vision and that his accounts show his religious deference to God as he experienced and understood him. I don't understand how your first question referenced Paul's character or implied for that reason he should be worshipped.I've not accussed Paul of lying. I don't recall Doherty doing so. He claimed that Paul was speaking honestly about his experiences and understanding of the mystical eternal Christ.lfen

yes. whether or not jesus was real, it was certainly an effective tool at the time. early manuscripts -- maybe. remember that the council of nicea basically established canon by popularity vote. the ones that were being used in the most churches, with the least opposition, in effect, won. that means many multiple copies of documents existed, not just one or two.i think the single best explanation for the lack of manuscripts from shortly after the lifetime of jesus is the apocalypse. when he said "i'll be right back" they thought he meant within their lifetimes.

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אָרַח

You are mistaken.The problem with that one is that it appears to be a total insertion into antiquieties. It is out of context from the rest of antiquties 18 (it is antiquites 18, not 20).. and it appear "just to be good to be true". It was first quoted by Bishop Euribus in the 4th century. There are no known references to it earlier. Some appolgists say that it was modified to be as Christian as it is. HOwever, since even the most conservative appologist will admit it is at least modified, I think it is up to them to show evidence it was there previosu to the 4th century.One point against it being genuine is the fact that Christian historian Orgien quoted from antiquies 18 rather heavily when discussing John the Baptist and his importance to Christainity. He did not mention the passage about Jesus at all.

its questionable whether josephus wrote all of that, I don't see an orthodox jew remotely calling jesus the messiah, it looks more like it was added - like many historians most likely recording about christians, not jesus people do look at josephus as significent, but not to provide evidence of jesus as a real person, but of jewish history
Buz - its really sad to see someone take pot shots at evos when its purely off topic and uneccisary

it's not so much THAT he calls jesus the messiah, but WHY. as far as i know, being raised from dead is not a jewish requirement for being the messiah. that's largely a christian phenominon.

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אָרַח

All of the above. The point in the end, if anybody is paying attention, is that Jesus has a humble human heritage, that includes even women in the line, and is also above all genealogies, having no human father. One line, Joseph's, Jesus' legal lineage, goes back to David through Jeconiah, who was specifically cursed with the loss of any claim to the throne of David (Jeremiah 22:30), verifying the virgin birth and Joseph's not being his human father; and Luke's is always identified as Mary's lineage by people who ought to know better than you, Jesus' actual lineage since He had no human father. All this demonstrates Jesus' divinity to anyone who has an ear to hear. Yet both go back to David, and Mary and Joseph paid taxes as members of the House of David, and this establish Jesus' heritage as the Son of David. Yes it is. Who denies it? It is a measure of the desperation of the Sanhedrin to do away with this troublemaker, that they were willing to violate their own laws to get the job done, at a time and in a way they thought least likely to lead to a popular uprising. Only to someone who has a vested interest in disbelieving them. And you are whom to say so? Against 2000 years of eminent Christians who say otherwise?This message has been edited by Faith, 01-07-2006 09:55 PM

Thanks AdminNWR.... I didn't realize that.Ok, I should have said present extra-biblical evidence. I appreciate the clarification.

If it was about control, likely he, being a former polytheist would have simply add Christianity to the other gods in order to appeas/control the followers of those gods. Weak argument, imo. Constantine knew that thousands were willing to die and suffer the persecution for the Christ they believed in ever since the onset of Christianity. Faith makes a good point in this regard.
1. The desciples and followers of Jesus would not suffer horrendous persecution and die for a mythical god or one of the many gods.
2. That sooo many were willing to pay the ultimate price to follow one god was likely one reason for the conversion of Constantine. Well then, how come there were so many other gods worshipped freely, but the followers Jesus being exclusively the persecuted? You missed my point which was that the burnings could well be a factor in the scarcity of early Christianity script.

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

This is nonsense MiniD. You have been told by AdminNWR that the Bible IS evidence on this thread, and I'd just point out that anybody who bypasses the 2000 year history of Christian commentary in favor of recent "scholarship" does NOT have a genuine interest in whether Jesus existed or not. All this modern scholarship does is REIMAGINE, REINTERPRET, REINVENT the story from the SAME DOCUMENTS Christians take as authoritative, with the purpose of discrediting them. They have no more authority for their arrogance than their own wild imaginations, as against the work of centuries of great thinkers. If you can't see that this is nothing but mental shenanigans based on no more objective evidence than your opponents have, you are missing the whole point.{edited to clarify I hope}This message has been edited by Faith, 01-07-2006 10:06 PM

For Paul to be the inventor of Jesus Christ would make him a liar, as he is preaching a flesh and blood God/Man who actually lived and died for the sins of his followers. I'm referencing your answer to the question of who would have been able to invent the character of Jesus Christ. Whoever was capable of that would have deserved the worship that is given to his/their supposed invention, since that person would have to be equal to his invention in character. The whole thing is impossible however as Jesus was God and Jesus died for us and Paul wasn't and didn't. Paul was not talking about a mystical being, but a genuine living man who was also God. How dare anybody reinterpret Paul - or any of the Bible writers. How dare anybody claim to know more than an author knows about his own subject, ESPECIALLY at such a remove of centuries, and with no contemporary critics to support it, and against THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of people who have studied all this and believed it over the last two millenia??? Just blandly arrogantly contradicting the writings and their followers with their own inferior imaginations. How CAN you all take this revisionist crap seriously?????This message has been edited by Faith, 01-07-2006 10:19 PM

My own view is that an extraordinary man who corresponds to Jesus lived during this period. What happens in such cases is that legends get built up about him. We've seen this with a lot of historical figures (to take a trivial example, Davy Crockett). During this time, to proclaim someone a god was not unusual. It happened with kings regularly. It is unusual for a person of the lower class to be proclaimed a god, however. But obviously, Jesus was special.However, he was not famous except in his own area--at first. Thus the lack of news items.

Faith,Does this statement mean you accept that there is very little objective evidence and that the Christian religion is based on subjective evaluations of the teachings of Paul and other early Christians?lfen

NO, it is based on the OBJECTIVE evidence of the Biblical REPORTS, the multiple WITNESSES to the facts of the life of Jesus, and the spread of his influence, TAKEN AS HONEST GENUINE TRUE REPORTS. All the revisionists are doing is taking those SAME reports and calling them false based on their own hatred of these truths, and reimagining them to suit their own biases. They have the SAME objective evidence we have, and a lot less intelligence to apply to it.

What is your evidence that the New Testament is legend and not simple factual reporting? It's been taken as simple factual reporting for the last 2000 years and there is nothing in the text itself to justify your view of it.

You're the one mistaken here, Ramoss. There were two references to Jesus by Josephus. 20:200 is the second one which historians do not contest.

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.