Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 9, 2010 at 4:57pm

i'm just going to say right at the outset that if people can't discuss this topic with respect then moderation is inevitable including temporary and/or permanent locking of the thread up to temporary or permanent bans for members who refuse to engage according to the guidelines.
read the guidelines and if you have any other questions then contact me or any of the other moderators.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on September 9, 2010 at 9:55pm

Thank you Nelson. I was probably just overly concerned about the potential of the controversial nature of the topic to cause flame wars. Sorry.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 9, 2010 at 10:23pm

no need for apologies Sky! i was actually thinking along the same lines as you were when you asked people to keep to some guidelines- this topic does seem to turn people into hissing spitting animals for some reason. lol.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on September 9, 2010 at 5:30pm

I don't have a source or evidence...I just think that its 100 percent possible that there was a human profit named Jesus.

Just like Mohammad or Buddha.

we can agree that they were around, we just don't agree that they where right.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 9, 2010 at 5:45pm

as for the topic, try reading this thread first. though the thread topic is the resurrection it quickly gets to a discussion of historicity. also check out the discussion in the comments here. during these discussion i explain a bit how Jesus-historians use their historical-critical methodology and, ultimately, find that Jesus did exist, who he likely was and what he is likely to have said.
also, inevitably during discussions on this topic people bring up the awful Zeitgeist documentary and/or comparisons between Jesus and other "Sun gods" and try to argue to the conclusion that these similarities indicate that Jesus was a whole cloth invention as opposed to that the myths and legends that grew up around an actual man were influenced by the myths of these "Sun gods". before anyone does so they should see this post.

now, almost no serious historians disagree that the man Jesus existed. really the only people who believe that Jesus never existed as a man and are taken seriously to any degree are Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty.
what you do have recently are historians who have criticized the Jesus-historian's methodology. Stanley Porter's Criteria for Authenticity in Historical Jesus Research and Richard Carrier's forthcoming On The Historicity of Jesus Christ are examples of this. on that subject, Neil Godfrey recently talked about how Historical Jesus historians use a methodology that no other historical endeavor uses. if this is the case, then there's the question of whether or not an endeavor based on this methodology can make reliable conclusions.
but, even if it were concluded that the historical Jesus scholar's methodology could not make reliable conclusions it wouldn't necessarily mean that Jesus never existed, it would mean at most that we should be agnostic on his existence while a more reliable methodology is devised and employed (of course this new methodology might conclude that he didn't exist. Carrier's new book is said to include a new methodology and the results of its application with some rumors having the result that Jesus didn't exist.)

still, there is no question that besides all but a bare handful of people, scholars agree that the man Jesus existed (though there are disagreements about just who he was and what he said).
for some reading suggestions from some of these scholars check out my informal bibliography on skepticism of religion under the "Biblical Criticism/Historical Jesus Scholarship/The Resurrection" section.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on March 19, 2011 at 3:26pm

When you refer to the "Zeitgiest documentary" are you talking about The God Who Wasn't There?

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on March 19, 2011 at 4:59pm

No Sky, he's talking about the movie titled Zeitgeist. It's been thoroughly eviscerated as pseudo-intelligent nonsense.

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Permalink Reply by Svendsen on September 9, 2010 at 5:48pm

If he existed the question is;what did the man get ATTENTION for? I think he might have been a politician or
something..what makes alot of sense to me when i think about this is that jesus probably existed and was a great moralist,a public speaker..as a said a politician or something like that..maybe like martin luther king..
the fact that we base 21th century on the time of jesus tells us something in a way that something happen i
think..personally i accept evidence for jesus and evolution equally.people want desperately him to be the son of god..so they can get into this theme park which is absurd of course.but overall i think he actually existed,but in a way that just tells me that he was just a regular guy lol.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Metcalfe on February 28, 2011 at 6:17pm

"personally i accept evidence for jesus and evolution equally"

 

I'm not sure what you mean Svendsen. Evolution is a fact with lots of proof but I have yet to see any credible evidence for the existence of Jesus.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on September 9, 2010 at 7:31pm

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, there were dozens of messiahs at the same time. Haven't you ever seen the Life of Brian? One of the best historical movies ever made!

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Permalink Reply by rationalrevolution on September 9, 2010 at 9:57pm

I've written two books on the subject and I'm absolutely convinced that "Jesus" never existed.

I've got some articles up on my website that go over much of the information:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/gospel_mark.htm

After I finish a few economic articles for my website I'll be writing a new article on the origins of Christianity as well.

Basically, my view is that a Jewish Jesus cult originated with the belief in a heavenly messiah, who would come to destroy the world. This grew out of the more traditional view that the messiah would be a human ruler who would reign over a new era and create a Jewish kingdom, during which time this ruler would bring peace and justice to earth.

But this "Jesus cult" grew from the idea that the material world was unsavable, and that the messiah would be a heavenly messiah who would destroy the world to create a new perfect world. This all comes from a mixing of Platonic philosophy with Judaism, etc.

This cult was basically inconsequential and unimportant. Some guy named Paul came along and he proselytized to non-Jews, which the others in the cult, James, John, and Peter, being the leaders, disagreed with. Still it was small and unimportant.

What happened, however, was that after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE someone who was a follower of the Pauline sect wrote an allegorical fictional story about the destruction of Jerusalem, using the Jesus messiah as the main character. This is the work that we now know as the Gospel of Mark.

We know that the Gospel of Mark is pure fiction because virtually every scene is a literary allusion to the "Old Testament" scripture, specifically the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures. What Christians interpreted as "prophesy fulfillment" was actually literary allusion.

It is only after this story was written than the "religion" became popularized because the story itself was popular, and indeed many people, perhaps most people, believed that this story was a true story. Every single account of the life of Jesus stems from this one original story.

All of the other Gospels, even the non-canonical ones, stem from this one original story. There was no Q, what is called Q was an expanded version of the story, which is what the writers of Matthew and Luke used.

That's just the basics, but the details and all of the supporting research, etc is in the links...

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Permalink Reply by Gaytor on September 10, 2010 at 1:22pm

The Essenes fit your Jewish Jesus Cult ideal. They had given up material possessions, were waiting for the Messiah, thought that the world would end... Are you suggesting that Christianity was born out of the Jewish Essenes? If not them, then who is this cult? You would certainly need to be able to point to a credible source that is historically verifiable. The position that Jesus didn't exist because of records problems can't be corrected with suggesting a unknown, non-historical, group started the Christian tradition. That's like the first cause question... why are we instituting a new source? So whom was this cult?

The Gospel of Q didn't exist, but there was an expanded version of the story. I'm confused. The Gospel of Q is Theoretical so why are you opposed to the Gospel of Q Document while proposing something else that is the same, only longer, when we don't have the original source?

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