Unraveling the Jesus Myth

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Zhavric Absurdist claims default to false. This has been a point which has been long debated and has indirectly resulted in the banning of a long time member. Please just accept it. Invisible Flying Monkeys cannot be proven false. Think they're real? At the time the quran was written, the Jesus myth was already in full swing. It is in no way evidence Jesus existed.

However, if Jesus never existed, then why would he have been made so much different from the more popular religions of the time? Why was he made to show humility and not judgment? The biggest one is why did he die and not only that, but die in the most humiliating, public, painful, innane death known at the time? In legend, he would have done what the Jews of the day wanted and expected. They wanted the fulfillment of the prophecies to include the automatic construction of the kingdom of God on earth. Instead, they had him die by crucifixion and wash their feet (something considered so low a task that only non-Jewish servants were subjected to this)

[Jack]

Why was he made to show humility and not judgment? The biggest one is why did he die and not only that, but die in the most humiliating, public, painful, innane death known at the time?

The only people who could answer that are the ones who wrote the stories. Who knows what was on their minds or what their intentions were? All we can say for sure is that they had some agenda and that their stories became wildly popular. All else in conjecture. In fact, nearly all discussion of the activities of the early church are conjecture. We know what they did, but not why they did it.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Zhavric The gospel Jesus never existed. This is demonstrable by examining the evidene beyond the bible. I. Josephus. Apologists often like to point to Josephus as an "extra-biblical source" for the existence of Jesus. Setting aside the argument of how much of Josephus' testimony was his own and how much was entered in by the church aside, Josephus tells us of more than a half dozen Jews by the name of Jesus whose deeds and actions closely mirror the accounts of the gospel Jesus. Many of them predate the alleged time of the gospel Jesus. This is significant because it sets the stage for "Jesus cults" which existed before 1 ce. Add to this early pagan cults and we have the beginnings for a formula that leads to Christianity. II. Philo of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria was a philosopher who associated with the early Essenes (individuals who would later be thought of as some of the first Christians). Philo was a hellenized Jew who was terribly interested in Jewish and Greek religion. He lived at the same time the gospel Jesus was alive and we know he visited Jerusalim at least once. That this writer would miss an incarnate Jewish godman is inconceivable. It would be like a civil rights movement writer living in Memphis during the 60's yet failing to speak a word about Martin Luther King... neither mentioning him directly ("I saw MLK / Jesus") or indirectly ("People keep talking about MLK / Jesus"). Understand that Jesus showed up in the equivalent of the blogger community of the era. With a written & read religion (Judaism) and Pax Romana ensuring safe travel, there was no conspiracy or campaign of persecution that could have stopped writers from chronicling the godman. Yet history is utterly silent. Where we expect to see volumes we hear crickets. III. The Gospels Most apologists are convinced that the gospels existed as recently as two decades after Jesus' death. There's simply no evidence of this. The apologist claim is based on so-called "internal evidence"... meaning because so-and-so said such and such within the context of a specific date, they're guessing it happened then. Thus, if an apologist were to read, "I'm eager to go to New York and climb to the top of both buildings of the World Trade Center", they'd have no choice but to conclude the statement was written before 9/11... which it wasn't. I wrote it just now, years after the fact. The first gospel to be written was the gospel of Mark. We have no evidence of who actully wrote it or when, but the evidence we do have indicates it was written around 70 ce. Mark hsa nearly no miracles in it and depicts a nearly human Jesus. Mark, like Paul, when read alone is woefully ignorant of Key life events in Jesus alleged life... like the virgin birth. The other gospels were collections of myths borrowed from earlier religions and invented outright by early church fathers. Each new gospel adding slightly to the tale, they don't come into Christian consciousness in any meaningful way until 180 ce where they're mentioned by a third party. We have no copies or originals of gospels from before the second century nor any writings which specifically mention them. IV. The personhood of Jesus In the early second century Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, writes an explanation of Christianity to the Alexandrian church. In his 37 chapter "A plea for the Christians" he makes no mention of Jesus as an actual person. The closest he comes is to imply that Jesus is the son of god, but in this same sentiment he also intertwines Jesus with the logos or word of god. Athenagoras later writes another essay on how a resurrection should be possible, but this makes no mention of Jesus nor of any key life events of Jesus. Reading between the lines, it makes it sound as though he's speaking metaphorically and doing little more than musing. It establishes that the gospels and notions that Jesus was an actual person was NOT in all Christian consciousness in the second century. V. The Disciples and the Sales Pitch At the core of Christian argumentation is a VERY strong appeal to emotion (guilt). We are told of Jesus (a re-telling of Mithras who's more accessable) who's everyhing to everyone: king and pauper, righteous and meek, etc. We are told that he died for our... specifically our sins. We are given a story that's very obviously impossible that demands additional evidence. After all, people don't just come back from the dead nor does water spontaneously become wine, etc. Instead of evidence, we are given the emotionally charged claim of the disciples; those brave martyrs who believed so strongly in the Jesus story that they died for it. This is the REAL argument that apologists use. As human beings, we're naturally inclined to be motivated by guilt. We're SUPPOSED to feel guilty for questioning the bravery of people who sacrificed their lives for what they believed. The problem is the disciples are as fictional as their mythical creator. Nearly all of them are attributed multiple different deaths in multiple places in multiple manners. Peter, for example is beheaded by Nero according to Anicetus, given a 25 year pontificate as bishop of Rome in the Clementines (making it impossible for him to be murdered by Nero) and was crucified upside down by the imaginings of Origen. Bartholemew (Nathaniel) travels to India, Persia, Armenia and somewhere in Africa before being beheaded in Armenia... AND Persia. The list goes on and on. It's an ingeneous argument: Unsupported claims (Jesus) being evidenced by more unsupported claims (the disciples) with a powerful guilt trip and an exaltation of those who believe WITHOUT evidence. It's the perfect way to get people to believe in something they'd normally scoff at. There's other evidence we can get into later, such as the non-existence of Nazareth in the first century, but that's enough for now. -------------------------------------------------- Sources: jesuspuzzle.com Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Bible And Christianity -- The Historical Origins BibleOrigins Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus Christian Origins Blog The Historical Jesus: Table of Contents of on-line class notes   (RL 307) The Mystery of The Testimonium of Josephus Welcome to Enlightenment! Religion–the Tragedy of Mankind - Articles by Kenneth Humphreys Josh McDowell's "Evidence" for Jesus -- Is It Reliable? P.S. You'll find this same post word for word on another forum. Rest assured that if you do find it, it was written by myself under another screen name. If this becomes an issue, PM me.

I do not believe that this proves that Jesus Christ is a myth or that the Christian view is in part or totally false. These and other sources do establish the ground work for an argument that the Christian Biblical worldview and the life of Jesus Christ cannot be proven or even demonstrated as Historical or Theological fact, as Christians generally presume.

I believe the reality of Jesus Christ is somewhere in between.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: dthmstr254 However, if Jesus never existed, then why would he have been made so much different from the more popular religions of the time? Why was he made to show humility and not judgment? The biggest one is why did he die and not only that, but die in the most humiliating, public, painful, innane death known at the time? In legend, he would have done what the Jews of the day wanted and expected. They wanted the fulfillment of the prophecies to include the automatic construction of the kingdom of God on earth. Instead, they had him die by crucifixion and wash their feet (something considered so low a task that only non-Jewish servants were subjected to this)

These questions 'Why?' do not justify the belief in Jesus Christ in the traditional Christian worldview. In reality Jesus Christ was in some ways different from other popular religious figures, at the time, but not necessarilly so totally different that would justify a Christian claim. In reality or legend he would not have necessarilly would have done what the Jews expected. There were many messianic Judiac figures around the time Jesus lived, that did not succeed as the Jews expected a great military messiah to arise to be King of the Jews and defeat the Romans.

The washing of the feet was not necessarilly reserved as a task for non-Jewish slaves (better word), servants is the more proper word for indentured servant Jews according to Jewish law.

The humiliating death of cruxifiction was standard fare for all who claimed to be the messiah and King of the Jews as inciting rebellion and sedition against Rome including other assorted rebels, and crimials convicted of capital punishment crimes under Roman Law. Nothing new here, tens of thousands died in this manner under Roman Law. If he was convicted under Jewish law he would have more likely been stoned to death. Jews did not practice cruxifiction.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: dthmstr254 However, if Jesus never existed, then why would he have been made so much different from the more popular religions of the time?

By "time" you clearly mean Judea circa 70ce just after the fall of the Jewish temple to the Romans. The Romans were none too pleased with the Jews at that time and (aside from destroying the temple) were doing all sorts of nasty things to them... like taxing them just for being Jewish.

Out of this culture of persecution came a new branch of Judaism falsely alleging the messiah had shown up, predicted all this trouble and bravely endured heinous persecution to offer a way to reconcile man's sin with god... The Jesus myth was engineered to get Jews to adhere to it even in the face of Roman persecution. This last bit is crucial because it explains why Christianity has a thing for guilt.

Why was he made to show humility and not judgment?

All part of the marketing, my friend.

There was already Mithrasism which existed simultanously to Christianity, had many aspects of Christianity, but was unnaccesable to the masses. Mithras was a god of Emperor's & nobles... not peasants and nobodies. Jesus was sold as the god for everyone: meek & strong. Fully human & of the line of David, but also fully god. He was like the Wal-mart of spirituality; the mom & pop store that turned into the mega-corporation.

The biggest one is why did he die and not only that, but die in the most humiliating, public, painful, innane death known at the time?

1) He didn't die. Asking "Why did Jesus die...?" is a little like asking "Why did Superman decide to save Metropolis from...?"

2) He needed to die in a humiliating way because it makes people like you feel guilty. Guilt is the most powerful motivating human emotion because it can be incorporated with love or hate. There needed to a a death near the end of our fairy tale to get the "He DIED for you" effect that is the hallmark of Christian marketing.

In legend, he would have done what the Jews of the day wanted and expected.

Not at all. If the goal was to start a religion to "re-judify" Judea, he'd have done exactly what the gospels have written down; the easily repeatable spiritually bankrupt pageantry of fairy tale guilt. As soon as one generation starts teaching it to their children it becomes a religion. Just look at Mormonism.

They wanted the fulfillment of the prophecies to include the automatic construction of the kingdom of God on earth.

Yes, the Jewish prophecies were very handy to have around in 70 ce when the first gospel was written. It's easy to have an incarnate god "fulfill" prophecies when you have ancient history close at hand and you're inventing 'modern' history.

Instead, they had him die by crucifixion and wash their feet (something considered so low a task that only non-Jewish servants were subjected to this)

Christians seem ill-eqipped to deal with discussions of Jesus' non-existence. To them, Jesus either existed as he did in the gospel or in some completely unsatisfactory hypothetical. It's just silly. They can tear into other religions like Scientology with the keen skeptical eye of an atheist... but that same eye turns milky when pointed towards their own claims.

Are you honestly able to address the idea of your religion being deliberately created for personal gain of a minority of individuals? So far, the answer has been a resounding no.

[pikaso]

Quote by: Zhavric The gospel Jesus never existed. This is demonstrable by examining the evidene beyond the bible. I. Josephus. Apologists often like to point to Josephus as an "extra-biblical source" for the existence of Jesus. Setting aside the argument of how much of Josephus' testimony was his own and how much was entered in by the church aside, Josephus tells us of more than a half dozen Jews by the name of Jesus whose deeds and actions closely mirror the accounts of the gospel Jesus. Many of them predate the alleged time of the gospel Jesus. This is significant because it sets the stage for "Jesus cults" which existed before 1 ce. Add to this early pagan cults and we have the beginnings for a formula that leads to Christianity. II. Philo of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria was a philosopher who associated with the early Essenes (individuals who would later be thought of as some of the first Christians). Philo was a hellenized Jew who was terribly interested in Jewish and Greek religion. He lived at the same time the gospel Jesus was alive and we know he visited Jerusalim at least once. That this writer would miss an incarnate Jewish godman is inconceivable. It would be like a civil rights movement writer living in Memphis during the 60's yet failing to speak a word about Martin Luther King... neither mentioning him directly ("I saw MLK / Jesus") or indirectly ("People keep talking about MLK / Jesus"). Understand that Jesus showed up in the equivalent of the blogger community of the era. With a written & read religion (Judaism) and Pax Romana ensuring safe travel, there was no conspiracy or campaign of persecution that could have stopped writers from chronicling the godman. Yet history is utterly silent. Where we expect to see volumes we hear crickets. III. The Gospels Most apologists are convinced that the gospels existed as recently as two decades after Jesus' death. There's simply no evidence of this. The apologist claim is based on so-called "internal evidence"... meaning because so-and-so said such and such within the context of a specific date, they're guessing it happened then. Thus, if an apologist were to read, "I'm eager to go to New York and climb to the top of both buildings of the World Trade Center", they'd have no choice but to conclude the statement was written before 9/11... which it wasn't. I wrote it just now, years after the fact. The first gospel to be written was the gospel of Mark. We have no evidence of who actully wrote it or when, but the evidence we do have indicates it was written around 70 ce. Mark hsa nearly no miracles in it and depicts a nearly human Jesus. Mark, like Paul, when read alone is woefully ignorant of Key life events in Jesus alleged life... like the virgin birth. The other gospels were collections of myths borrowed from earlier religions and invented outright by early church fathers. Each new gospel adding slightly to the tale, they don't come into Christian consciousness in any meaningful way until 180 ce where they're mentioned by a third party. We have no copies or originals of gospels from before the second century nor any writings which specifically mention them. IV. The personhood of Jesus In the early second century Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, writes an explanation of Christianity to the Alexandrian church. In his 37 chapter "A plea for the Christians" he makes no mention of Jesus as an actual person. The closest he comes is to imply that Jesus is the son of god, but in this same sentiment he also intertwines Jesus with the logos or word of god. Athenagoras later writes another essay on how a resurrection should be possible, but this makes no mention of Jesus nor of any key life events of Jesus. Reading between the lines, it makes it sound as though he's speaking metaphorically and doing little more than musing. It establishes that the gospels and notions that Jesus was an actual person was NOT in all Christian consciousness in the second century. V. The Disciples and the Sales Pitch At the core of Christian argumentation is a VERY strong appeal to emotion (guilt). We are told of Jesus (a re-telling of Mithras who's more accessable) who's everyhing to everyone: king and pauper, righteous and meek, etc. We are told that he died for our... specifically our sins. We are given a story that's very obviously impossible that demands additional evidence. After all, people don't just come back from the dead nor does water spontaneously become wine, etc. Instead of evidence, we are given the emotionally charged claim of the disciples; those brave martyrs who believed so strongly in the Jesus story that they died for it. This is the REAL argument that apologists use. As human beings, we're naturally inclined to be motivated by guilt. We're SUPPOSED to feel guilty for questioning the bravery of people who sacrificed their lives for what they believed. The problem is the disciples are as fictional as their mythical creator. Nearly all of them are attributed multiple different deaths in multiple places in multiple manners. Peter, for example is beheaded by Nero according to Anicetus, given a 25 year pontificate as bishop of Rome in the Clementines (making it impossible for him to be murdered by Nero) and was crucified upside down by the imaginings of Origen. Bartholemew (Nathaniel) travels to India, Persia, Armenia and somewhere in Africa before being beheaded in Armenia... AND Persia. The list goes on and on. It's an ingeneous argument: Unsupported claims (Jesus) being evidenced by more unsupported claims (the disciples) with a powerful guilt trip and an exaltation of those who believe WITHOUT evidence. It's the perfect way to get people to believe in something they'd normally scoff at. There's other evidence we can get into later, such as the non-existence of Nazareth in the first century, but that's enough for now. -------------------------------------------------- Sources: jesuspuzzle.com Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Bible And Christianity -- The Historical Origins BibleOrigins Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus Christian Origins Blog The Historical Jesus: Table of Contents of on-line class notes   (RL 307) The Mystery of The Testimonium of Josephus Welcome to Enlightenment! Religion–the Tragedy of Mankind - Articles by Kenneth Humphreys Josh McDowell's "Evidence" for Jesus -- Is It Reliable? P.S. You'll find this same post word for word on another forum. Rest assured that if you do find it, it was written by myself under another screen name. If this becomes an issue, PM me.

If Jesus did'nt exist,then why sweat it so much? You can thank the faracies
for making sure that Jesus would live forever.For someone that never existed
he sure does bring peace and tranquillity to those that know him. Lets not at
all forget that the man said....they are not who they claim to be! Who do you
think he was talking about? Whats so bad about millions upon millions of people that like Jesus?What do you care? Forgetaboutit about will ya!

[iclaudius]

Quote by: pikaso If Jesus did'nt exist,then why sweat it so much? You can thank the faracies for making sure that Jesus would live forever.For someone that never existed he sure does bring peace and tranquillity to those that know him. Lets not at all forget that the man said....they are not who they claim to be! Who do you think he was talking about? Whats so bad about millions upon millions of people that like Jesus?What do you care? Forgetaboutit about will ya!

Whether or not his life brings happiness to people is irrelevent; do people not also kill in his name? The goodness of such a being is not defined by how people react to it, but by the essence of the object itself. That he satisfies your need for moral grounding is inconsequential, and you would do well to remember the black marks in the pages of history for which the Christian name holds some responsibility.

Furthermore, people for whom Jesus has been a bedrock concept probably would have found other things to believe in during their lives had he never been imagined. His historicity is a valid and intriguing question, and while I don't necessarily agree that Zhavric has definitively proven that Jesus is a myth, that doesn't necessarily mean I believe. If you are uncomfortable with people challenging your core beliefs, perhaps it is best that you stay home.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: shunyadragon I do not believe that this proves that Jesus Christ is a myth or that the Christian view is in part or totally false. These and other sources do establish the ground work for an argument that the Christian Biblical worldview and the life of Jesus Christ cannot be proven or even demonstrated as Historical or Theological fact, as Christians generally presume. I believe the reality of Jesus Christ is somewhere in between.

I find replies like this particularly problematic. You acknowledge the sources & arguments I gave debunk the Christian myth, but have offered no counter-argument. Why is the reality of Jesus Christ somewhere in between? What is your reasoning behind this? I've offered the many Jesuses Josephus informs us of as an explanation. Is that what you meant?

What I'm hoping you didn't mean is some strange compromise between myth and reality which becomes it's own myth. It's not, is it?

Consider the claim, "The Wright Brothers used a Boeing 747 as a model for their first powered glider." Imagine a reasoned argument countering this claim by citing specific facts which make it nigh impossible for a 747 to exist in 1903 (or before). What we do not do is create a story in which the Wright Brothers see a different, yet equally impossible flying machine from 20th century.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's an argument I hear from Christians and (more often) agnostics.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: pikaso If Jesus did'nt exist,then why sweat it so much?

Because Jesus is the central claim of an institution with an agenda that includes indoctrinating youngsters, establishing a theocracy in America, re-writing history, discriminating against non-Christians (especially gays), and establishing its' own repugnant morality. Christianity (and religion in general) teaches us to be "okay" with not knowing things and to wallow in ignorance.

It is a 1900 year old scam that we, in an age of reason and mass communication, have a chance of combating.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Zhavric By "time" you clearly mean Judea circa 70ce just after the fall of the Jewish temple to the Romans. The Romans were none too pleased with the Jews at that time and (aside from destroying the temple) were doing all sorts of nasty things to them... like taxing them just for being Jewish. Out of this culture of persecution came a new branch of Judaism falsely alleging the messiah had shown up, predicted all this trouble and bravely endured heinous persecution to offer a way to reconcile man's sin with god... The Jesus myth was engineered to get Jews to adhere to it even in the face of Roman persecution. This last bit is crucial because it explains why Christianity has a thing for guilt.

Correction, we have copies of the epistles from prior to 70 AD and the destruction of the temple. The differences that I will show here are not found in any religion of the time or before. For one, it was not popular with the Jews to be Christians. Christians got most of their pre-Nero persecution from people like Saul, who, as Jews, hunted and killed Christians. Christians didn't have a "thing for guilt." That was the law. The Pharisees were the ones with a thing for guilt. However, a lie would not turn so many people to Christ when they were accused by that lie of killing the Messiah. You forgot that it wasn't the Romans portrayed as the accusers, it was the Jews using their political push to make Pilate crucify Christ to save his seat as governor. So why would the Jews go after that? Why didn't the Pharisees say that it never happened when it was making them lose members of the synagogue?

All part of the marketing, my friend.

There was already Mithrasism which existed simultanously to Christianity, had many aspects of Christianity, but was unnaccesable to the masses. Mithras was a god of Emperor's & nobles... not peasants and nobodies. Jesus was sold as the god for everyone: meek & strong. Fully human & of the line of David, but also fully god. He was like the Wal-mart of spirituality; the mom & pop store that turned into the mega-corporation.

Actually, there is something here that you missed. Every other religion required us to sacrifice to God or their gods for salvation. Christianity is the only one in which God came and sacrificed Himself for us.

1) He didn't die. Asking "Why did Jesus die...?" is a little like asking "Why did Superman decide to save Metropolis from...?" 2) He needed to die in a humiliating way because it makes people like you feel guilty. Guilt is the most powerful motivating human emotion because it can be incorporated with love or hate. There needed to a a death near the end of our fairy tale to get the "He DIED for you" effect that is the hallmark of Christian marketing.

1.) PROVE IT! we have more evidence of his existence than his nonexistence.

2.) No, I have not guilt for it. I have praise, wonder, amazement, but guilt is for my own sins. Secondly, what you are doing here is bringing the culture of today and transposing it onto the past. That is a logical fallacy in and of itself, without the fact that none of what you perceive the "Hallmark of Christian Marketing" to be. The actual hallmark is a relationship. It is the fact that God wants a relationship with you. Yes, He died, but more than that, He lives and HE wants you to know Him like a son knows his father. Wait, father isn't the right word, because the translation of the word "abba" is more than just that. He wants to be in the same position as a son and his daddy.

Not at all. If the goal was to start a religion to "re-judify" Judea, he'd have done exactly what the gospels have written down; the easily repeatable spiritually bankrupt pageantry of fairy tale guilt. As soon as one generation starts teaching it to their children it becomes a religion. Just look at Mormonism.

1.) Nope, again, if you read what it says, "rejudifying" Judea would, in the mindset of those days (NOT TODAY), be to rid the Holy Land of the Romans and restore it to what it used to be. If you would care to research what the Jews were and still are looking for in a Messiah, it would be a conqueror. It would be the person who rebuilds the Temple, rids the land of the oppressors, and restored Israel to her rightful place. This was not a process of rejudification, it was a process of bringing salvation to Israel and the world.

Yes, the Jewish prophecies were very handy to have around in 70 ce when the first gospel was written. It's easy to have an incarnate god "fulfill" prophecies when you have ancient history close at hand and you're inventing 'modern' history.

Again, explain why copies of the epistles predated the temple's destruction and why they were nothing like what the rabbis of the time said they were.

Christians seem ill-eqipped to deal with discussions of Jesus' non-existence. To them, Jesus either existed as he did in the gospel or in some completely unsatisfactory hypothetical. It's just silly. They can tear into other religions like Scientology with the keen skeptical eye of an atheist... but that same eye turns milky when pointed towards their own claims. Are you honestly able to address the idea of your religion being deliberately created for personal gain of a minority of individuals? So far, the answer has been a resounding no.

The truth is, if he never existed, nobody would have thought of him. The disciples were not learned scribes or lawyers. Most of them wrote through secretaries, and only one of them had any background in writing and research. Also, tell me what gain it had for the disciples. none of them died a natural death, all of them were tortured unmercifully for what they believed. If I were to explain the gruesome things that were done to them for their beliefs, any psychologist would tell you that their brain would have told the truth to protect the body from further damage. This does not fit in to the theory that Christianity was for the benefit of themselves. I ain't in need of a vision exam. My eyes are perfectly clear on this and the massive amounts of evidence stack for me while you seem to be unable to see past the bridge of your nose because you DON'T WANT to think you are wrong. If I am wrong, it matters to me, but I follow the evidence, not some extreme minority group whose ideas didn't come around until after 1000 AD. If you are true, why were there no arguments from the Jews that Jesus never existed. Why do the Jews still not argue that? I have debated with many Jews, and always the argument is that the disciples stole the body and staged the whole thing. The fact is that nothing that is true is newer than what it discusses, and nothing newer than what it discusses is true. Your argument has little to no evidence that can solely support your stance, so I will continue to stand on that until such evidence is found. However, everything you say is merely your interpretation of a SEGMENT of the evidence, and it discludes the whole of the evidence. The truth includes all of the evidence, not just some.

[Zhavric]

1) We have no copies of the gospels dating earlier than the second century. Not a single one. Many of the epistles are believed to have been written by authors other than Paul. Furthermore, apologist reasoning on the subject is notoriously circular. The epistles date the apostles & Paul and Paul & the apostles date the epistles.

2) Claiming it doesn't cut it. You're going to have to provide evidence we have copies of the epistles dating from before 70 ce. You claimed this a second time in your post and it really is nonsensical.

Provide evidence in your next contribution to this thread or I will conclude you are unable or unwilling to do so. I will not entertain three pages of evasion from you as you argue assumptions as though they're proven.

You mentioned the persecuation of early Christians. This concept is highly exagerated. Though some Christians were persecuted, it certainly wasn't to the extent most apologists allege.

Christianity has no part in Tacitus's history of the Caesars. Except for one questionable reference in the Annals he records nothing of a cult marginal even in his own day.

Sometime before 117 AD, the Roman historian apparently wrote:

"Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race."

(Book 15, chapter 44):
Yet Cassius Dio gives a more convincing report of the same "expulsion":

"As for the Jews, who had again increased so greatly that by reason of their multitude it would have been hard without raising a tumult to bar them from the city, he did not drive them out, but ordered them, while continuing their traditional mode of life, not to hold meetings." – Roman History, 60.6.

As we have seen, the term 'Christian' was not in use during the reign of Nero and there would not have been 'a great crowd' unless we are speaking of Jews, not Christians. 'Jewish/Christians' – being perceived by Roman authorities (and the populace at large) simply as Jews meant that early Christ-followers also got caught up in general attacks upon the Jews.

‘Their effects to dissemble their Jewish origins were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets.’

– Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall)

One consequence of the fire which destroyed much of Rome in 64 AD was a capitation tax levied on the Jews and it was the Jews – throughout the empire – who were required to pay for the city’s rebuilding – a factor which helped to radicalise many Jews in the late 60s AD.

Not for the first time would Christian scribes expropriated the real suffering of a whole people to create an heroic 'origins' fable...

No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus – not in fact, until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Sulpicius's contemporaries credited him with a skill in the 'antique' hand. He put it to good use and fantasy was his forte: his Life of St. Martin is replete with numerous 'miracles', including raising of the dead and personal appearances by Jesus and Satan.

Source.

Christians didn't have a "thing for guilt."

Way to quote mine! I'm really impressed that you took that as out-of-context as you did. Guilt is an integral part of Christian dogma. You're supposed to feel guilty about ignoring what happened to Jesus... the problem being that nothing actually happened.

The rest of your questions about the Pharisees and the Romans are nonsensical... it's the equivalent of asking "Well, if there's no Superman then who saved Lois Lane and the EARTH all those times?"

This next statement is just silly.

Every other religion required us to sacrifice to God or their gods for salvation. Christianity is the only one in which God came and sacrificed Himself for us.

Of course; that's the point. The Christian god was everything to everyone and, much like wal-mart, wants all of your (in this case spiritual) business. You're ignoring the very obvious problems in the argument in favor of restating the propaganda. Christianity was contrived to get people to follow it even if they were being persecuted. The guilt over an incarnate godman was used as the glue to hold this flimsy set of claims together.

The problem is that it's not true.

Next you took a trip to a place called "fallacy land" where you shifted the burden of proof (a fallacy).

PROVE IT! we have more evidence of his existence than his nonexistence.

Let's take a moment and review all the evidence we have of Jesus' existence:


















And there you have it. The comprehensive list of non-biased supportable eyewitness accounts, physical evidence, and rock-solid evidence. Sarcasm aside, what we have is a long tradition of people assuming Jesus existed.

Professional historians are not necessarily engaged by any particular interest in the issue of Jesus – and are all too aware of its controversial nature. A scholar who announces that he thinks there was no historical Jesus is likely to face scorn, even ridicule, and will gain little for his candour.

Thus most scholars, raised and educated in a Christian culture are content either to assume Jesus lived (and defer to the opinions of biblical specialists who are often men of faith) or, given the paucity of evidence for a great many historical personages, preface their uncertainty with a "probably". It is much safer for them to aver the "probability of a man behind the legend" even while arguing that layers of encrusted myth obscure knowing anything about him.

This "safe" and gutless option maintains simultaneously the "obscurity" of a carpenter in an ancient provincial backwater ("absence of evidence is not evidence of absence") and an academic detachment from "faith issues" which raised that supposed obscure guru to an iconic status.

More information can be found here.

Continued...

[Zhavric]

...Continued from above:

You continued on by providing evidence of my claims for me. You have "guilt for your own sins" (whatever that's supposed to mean...). That's the point. Christian dogma has conditioned you to feel guilty about certain things and to believe only Jesus (the product they're selling to you) can dispell that guilt.

By the by, if you took leave of your sense, spit on a cross and flushed pages of a bible down a toilet how would you feel afterwards? Guilty? Interesting...

You got a bit preahy after that and spent a few sentences restating Christian dogma which has no place in this debate (nor does a Swedish rock band...and Dungen is far cooler than Abba). Yes, Superman wants us to be good people and wants to avert natural disasters for us; he's still only a work of fiction.

1.) Nope, again, if you read what it says, "rejudifying" Judea would, in the mindset of those days (NOT TODAY), be to rid the Holy Land of the Romans and restore it to what it used to be. If you would care to research what the Jews were and still are looking for in a Messiah, it would be a conqueror. It would be the person who rebuilds the Temple, rids the land of the oppressors, and restored Israel to her rightful place. This was not a process of rejudification, it was a process of bringing salvation to Israel and the world.

1) If you're going to number things, don't bother unless you have at least two numbers.

2) The irony of this paragraph is as astounding as it is wrong. That you would state incorrect dogmatic claims about history and accuse me of doing the same is just silly. Of course the Jews were looking for a Messiah, but that's not all that was going on. As we learned earlier in this post, the Romans were taxing Jews just for being Jewish. The Romans, normally very tolerant of other cultures and religions didn't like the Jews because the Jews were rebellious. So, the Romans took steps to screw over the Jews.

Do you honesty expect all Jews to keep claiming to be Jews if doing so meant a loss of 25% of their income? The religion was being threatened so by "re-judify" I mean Christianity started as a means to convince people to stay 'Jewish' even in the face of persecution.

3) You do realize that your claim as a Christian is the gospel Jesus was the Jewish messiah, but wasn't a conqueror, right?

The truth is, if [Jesus] never existed, nobody would have thought of him.

Well, we know this is nonsense. Plenty of things never existed which we think of quite a bit. Mormonism & Scientology come to mind as do many urban legends (many of which have no factual basis or a radically different beginning).

The disciples were not learned scribes or lawyers.

Correct. The disciples weren't anything. They never existed either. They are as contrived as their mythical creator. You have zero evidence for their existence. The gospels claim (without evidence of course) the deaths of only two of the disciples. The rest have deaths and travels invented by later writers clearly evidencing the early church's willingness to invent history. Peter, for example is allegedly beheaded by Nero, Bishop of Rome and crucified upside down. There's not a shred of support for the existence of Peter or for any of these alleged deaths.

No, I'm afraid this is just more 'Superman' reasoning. "If Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane didn't report on Superman, how would we know about him?"

If you are true, why were there no arguments from the Jews that Jesus never existed[?]

This statement clearly shows how incapable you are of addressing my question: "Are you honestly able to address the idea of your religion being deliberately created...?" You don't seem to be able to encompass the whole of the hypothetical. Whether deliberate or through indoctrination, it's still just sad. Since Jesus wasn't real and was invented decades after the fact, there were no arguments from Jews or anyone stating he's not real. Why would you expect otherwise?

What we do see is exactly what we'd expect to see from a history devoid of Jesus. Philo of Alexandria (who you've not even addressed) is an excellent of example of someone who would have written about Jesus had he existed.

Just more 'Superman' logic.

I've given multiple source, references, links and examples. You've done none of these things yet have at every turn slung accusations that my argument "lacks evidence". I will entertain no more of these absurd accusations. Provide evidence of your claims in the next post or concede the debate.

[pikaso]

The scam if any is to belive that everyone in the land of Israel was jewish, as
Jesus was not. Hijacking the word Judean to jew in the 1800's is just like
saying that Christians are all Catholics and that the term Judeo Cristian really
exist? Real Catholics have nothing in common with Jews except for liberal
Christians.The only thing Real Catholics have in common with todays Jews
is that we have the same common enemy that fought the Kazar's.

[Mattie]

I would like to point out some things that are not exatly 'facts'. but That I think need to be taken into concideration. If someone could answer the question that I have, I would greatly appreciate it.
1. Why is there so much descussion about christianity? we don't argue this much about Buddahism, or Islam. Why so much debating about Christianity?

And one more thing, you can't 'prove' with sight that the wind exists, but you see what comes of it. Look around, people are chaging all over teh world as a result of Jesus Christ.

[kaine]

Quote by: Mattie I would like to point out some things that are not exatly 'facts'. but That I think need to be taken into concideration. If someone could answer the question that I have, I would greatly appreciate it. 1. Why is there so much descussion about christianity? we don't argue this much about Buddahism, or Islam. Why so much debating about Christianity?

Most of the people in this forum are Westerners (Europeans included). I'm sorry, I seem to have missed the point of your rhetorical question.

And one more thing, you can't 'prove' with sight that the wind exists, but you see what comes of it. Look around, people are chaging all over teh world as a result of Jesus Christ.

Ok you are delving into spirituality, a subject not touched often in logical debates. I'll give it a whirl, though.

Personally, mind you, I am strongly atheist and even more strongly spiritual. I believe in the four layers of humanity: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, in order of least enlightened to most.
The teachings of Jesus are without a doubt in my mind one of the most, if not the most enlightened words spoken about our spirituality over the span of humanity's short time on Earth; more specifically they are the best way to live our lives with each other and become, you know, in a constant state of bliss no matter who or what we face, including death (i can hear all the theists gasping right now ).
In short, I agree with Christians when they say that the teachings of Jesus will lead you to happiness.

For example, Jesus (or the fabrication of a man named Jesus..) said:
"Love others as you love yourself." This is pure intrapersonal brilliance. Talk about being self-aware... wow. But is his words so mind-boggling that it must be divine? I don't think so. That is, to my knowledge, what the majority (what was it, 7 to 6?) of the men at the Counc