Did Jesus really exist?

by slimboyfat 97 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Phizzy

  Oh boy, has this subject been done to death, and yet, it has a fascination. It brings out of the woodwork the believers and their "proofs".

  When you actually examine the said proofs, they all fall by the wayside so very quickly that it is laughable. The ancent attestations to "Jesus" all fall on the basis that we cannot know whether these ancient witnesses wrote what we think they wrote, no autograph copies of their writings exist.

  What is suspicious in the extreme is what Simon points out above, because Josephus writings contained no reference that could be linked to the Jesus of the Gospels, believers had to fake an entry.

  As to that spectacular archeological find, a box with some very common names on, it is about as convincing as a "Roman" coin bearing the date 2BC.
• 

  rawe

  Hi Slimboyfat,

  I am not schooled well enough in the arguments to comment too much one way or the other. However, for the moment, I believe a literal person named Jesus likely existed and was the inspiration for Christianity later filled out and defined by Paul. I think many of the stories about him in the NT go beyond the literally true for religious/prophetic reasons (such as his birth in Bethlehem, move to Egypt, etc).

  To me a story of an inspiring rabbi who talked about the Kingdom of God, but then got himself killed by the Romans, is more economical than early Christian using pure invention to create his character. In the modern world we also generally see people follow real-person living Christ-like characters, such as Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Vernon Howell (David Koresh) and Sun Myung Moon. If we had more examples of Paul-like leaders creating mythical Christ-like characters to follow, I would tilt my views in that direction.

  Cheers,

  -Randy
• 

  adamah

  If we had more examples of Paul-like leaders creating mythical Christ-like characters to follow, I would tilt my views in that direction.

  Lawyers who license the likenesses of famous deceased celebrities (eg Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Michael Jackson, etc) know that the death of the icon practically ensures that the value of the license can only INCREASE, at that point. Why? Unlike when the celebrity is alive, they can not get caught up in scandals, or make foolish statements that harm their image, engage etc, that would only give their publicists headaches when alive. Also, people tend to forget the bad and hold to the good as the nostalgia factor kicks in.

  Point being, its easier to manage the PR and image of a created icon of a dead individual than the real individual upon which the image is based. Paul knew that, and got in on the "ground floor" to co-opt this burgeoning Jesus cult, marketing and exporting the idea to a group who bought it (Gentiles and Hellenized Jews, unlike the original target audience, Jews living in Palestine).

  I think many of the stories about him in the NT go beyond the literally true for religious/prophetic reasons (such as his birth in Bethlehem, move to Egypt, etc).

  Yeah, as pointed out earlier, the authors of the Gospels stretched credibility a bit too much when they had Jesus actually saying stuff like 'I am doing this to fulfill a certain OT prophecy'. A bit too much self-awareness on display there, when anyone can FORCE a prophecy to be fulfilled by writing that it happened; they didn't need to have Jesus POINT IT OUT, too.

  Adam
• 

  Simon

  We can see today how religions like JWs and Mormonism, Scientologists etc... take hold. Fact about founders quickly give way to fantasy and myths and the believers then repeat it ad-naseum. Even within a lifetime or two the facts are hard to make out and, more importantly, it's next to impossible to shake the faithful from the belief in their invented facts.

  Now, do it 2,000 years ago without the careful record keeping, in a war-zone, and add 2,000 years of story telling and wars based on the beliefs and a whole lot of power, money and influence riding on keeping the myths running.

  It's all lies but lies that a large group want to keep being told.

  The best evidence that there was no Jesus is the distinct lack of any credible evidence that there was the Jesus as described and believed today and also the weakness of the evidence that the claims rely so heavily on. Oh, and the counter evidence that 'he' wasn't the source of the beliefs that the whole thing relies on anyway just screams SCAM.

  Just because it's the biggest scam the world has ever seen doesn't stop it from being a scam. Yes, billions of people can be wrong. This is easily proved: either Christians or Muslims or Chinese must be wrong. The simplest answer is that they are all wrong.
• 

  glenster

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLeXpSCLrD8
  http://books.google.com/books/about/How_On_Earth_Did_Jesus_Become_A_God.html?id=Xi5xIxgnNgcC
• 

  MadGiant

  First, I would like to apologize in advance for any misspellings and errors. English is my second language. - The very core of Christianity is the belief that a virgin woman gave birth to a half-blooded demigod who then wandered around the Middle East preaching a message of divine salvation and performing miracles. He healed the sick, raised the dead, walked on water, turned water into wine, and took the sins of the entire world unto himself as a form of ritual blood sacrifice to appease the perfect justice of him/his father-God. Then, three days after being crucified, he rose from the dead. All evidence we have for any of the spiritual events described within the Bible is the Bible itself. Literally, the pure, unfettered say-so of human authors; oral traditions that were scribbled down centuries ago by members of highly superstitious, illiterate cultures, teeming with rampant frauds and religious cults; copies of copies that were selectively edited and compiled by a series of politically-motivated committee decisions and then translated through multiple languages. That been said, after Jesus is crucified, the Book of Matthew describes a series of very extraordinary events, including massive earthquakes followed by a darkness covering the land. You would think that if something like this really happened, then maybe a few local historians might have recorded it or that maybe the local astronomers would have noticed the sun blotting out three entire hours. But strangely enough, no such records exist (For the benefit of those using Flavius Josephus,Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata they offer no proof for a super jesus). Even more extravagant is how Matthew also describes dead people rising from their graves and roaming the streets. Surely, it’s reasonable to expect at least a few locals to mention a sudden zombie apocalypse somewhere in their memoirs, isn’t it? Yet not even the other three gospels are kind enough to corroborate any of this stuff, and these are supposed to be independent narratives of the exact same events. Jesus is a myth, the bible is crap!!! Take care, Ismael
• 

  Comatose

  Nice thoughts Ismael. I agree.

  My take after reading lots of books recently, like Erhman and Aslan, is that a man like him started the myth. I think it was Glenster who likened it to Mohamed. Good analogy. Probably existed, wasn't miraculous. But, I'm not sure on this. It's just how I lean.
• 

  Phizzy

  What if the Roman Emperor Constantine had chosen another religion to unite his empire ?

  Would we even be debating about "Jesus" now ? chances are we may never have heard of him, just as most JW's have not heard of the possible contenders in 325 A.D.

  Apollonius of Trypho perhaps, or Mithras, he was popular with the Roman soldiers, and hence the cult of Mithras was already widespread in the Empire.
• 

  MadGiant

  “My take after reading lots of books recently, like Erhman and Aslan, is that a man like him started the myth. I think it was Glenster who likened it to Mohamed. Good analogy. Probably existed, wasn't miraculous. But, I'm not sure on this. It's just how I lean.” - Comatose

  Jefferson wrote a letter to his nephew on August 10, 1787, trying to get Peter to think.

  “Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureâ”

  Again, this is 1787; 226 years later and some people are trying to figure out if this guy was real.

  Take care,

  Ismael
• 

  glenster

  I didn't compare Jesus to Muhammad, who was a politicized leader of belief.
  Some of the popular portrayal of Jesus, which seems to have arisen early on, is
  a matter of faith. I'm concerned to denounce what goes over the line into harm
  by believers and non-believers.
  http://glenster1.webs.com/basics.htm

  I did make this comparison--use Edit > Find > Some things about Islam
  http://glenster1.webs.com/basicspage4.htm