over 90% of historians (Christians and non-Christians) believe Jesus existed

[Turgonian]

Maybe because back then, no one cared, because Christianity was a comparitively small cult.
What do we have in Acts? Small local churches, small congregations.

Seen as dangerous to the state. For one thing, they refused to worship the emperor. And haven't you heard of the persecutions of Nero?

There are hints in the scriptures that some people were saying "Jesus didn't exist".

Quote.

Your arguement is like this

No one said he didn't exist, so he must have existed.

And if you take the social and cultural context into account, that makes perfect sense.

Even granting someone named Yeshua existed, you can't KNOW that he was the son of God, you can't KNOW that the bible is the TRUE story of his life, that is why it is called FAITH.

You don't know what faith means in context, and I bet you've never scrutinized the arguments that the Bible is indeed the true story of Jesus.

[Zeluvia]

Seen as dangerous to the state. For one thing, they refused to worship the emperor. And haven't you heard of the persecutions of Nero?


Quote.


And if you take the social and cultural context into account, that makes perfect sense.


You don't know what faith means in context, and I bet you've never scrutinized the arguments that the Bible is indeed the true story of Jesus.

Interesting you bring up Nero. He is another person for whom no contempory accounts survive, and the accounts we do have are mostly negative, despite what seems to be a good record of governance in the early years.

Once again, history written long after death, and what survives today is secondary and tertiary accounts based on possible first hand accounts, but possibly with bias. It is a Christian tradition that Nero persecuted Christians, but is it true?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

And yes, I have looked at the arguements for the Bible being the true story of Jesus, and found them lacking.

I would be happy to go over them again with you however.

[Turgonian]

Interesting you bring up Nero. He is another person for whom no contempory accounts survive, and the accounts we do have are mostly negative, despite what seems to be a good record of governance in the early years.

Hardly anyone in ancient history was written about by his contemporaries. And cruelty in emperors does not have to have disastrous effects on the economy or political stability.

Once again, history written long after death, and what survives today is secondary and tertiary accounts based on possible first hand accounts, but possibly with bias. It is a Christian tradition that Nero persecuted Christians, but is it true?

From the Annals (non-Christian):

Tacitus

Yet no human effort, no princely largess nor offerings to the gods could make that infamous rumor disappear that Nero had somehow ordered the fire. Therefore, in order to abolish that rumor, Nero falsely accused and executed with the most exquisite punishments those people called Christians, who were infamous for their abominations.

© source where applicable

[Zeluvia]

Books 61–63 of Dio's Roman History describe the reign of Nero. Only fragments of these books remain and what does remain was abridged and altered by John Xiphilinus, an 11th century monk.

Indeed the truth about this has not come out even yet; for so far as the rest of his subjects were concerned, there was nothing to prevent his continuing to be Emperor for all time, seeing that even now everybody wishes he were still alive. And the great majority do believe that he still is, although in a certain sense he has died not once but often along with those who had been firmly convinced that he was still alive[154]

So, Tactius said Nero blamed the Christians for the fire and had them executed. How many? How long? How prevalent?

[Zeluvia]

A large body of opinion in the early church denied the reality of Christ's physical existence. In his "History of Christianity," Dean Milman writes: "The Gnostic sects denied that Christ was born at all, or that he died," and Mosheim, Germany's great ecclesiastical historian, says: "The Christ of early Christianity was not a human being, but an "appearance," an illusion, a character in miracle, not in reality -- a myth.

http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...ally_live.html

I have another question, do you think that Jesus was literate? Could he read and write? Why don't we have anything HE himself wrote?

[lilpixieofterror]

Okay, why not say Jesus didn't exist right after he supposedly existed.

Get ready for the excuses guys... who needs evidence to back up their theories when we can simply make up things on the spot?

Maybe because back then, no one cared, because Christianity was a comparitively small cult.
What do we have in Acts? Small local churches, small congregations.

1. Why did Paul get letters from the Jewish leaders to arrest Christians? So they cared enoughto arrest them, but they didn't care enough to tell us the fact he didn't exist?

2. We have recored accounts from Romans, Jews, and Christians describing perscuations they went though (even during the 1st century). Are you saying they cared enough to go though all this trouble by didn't care enough to report the fact Jesus didn't even exist?

Sounds like to me your theory is simply thrown together and contradicts the facts we know. On the one hand... they cared enough to hunt down and kill Christians, but on the other they didn't care enough to even report the gross errors you claim Christianity made (IE making up Jesus' existence). You theory fails to explain those facts, so do you have an explanation or do you prefer to just make up things as you go along?

Why even bother? No one could have forseen that those nutcases would end up creating a world ruling religion in 600 years.

Yep... that's why we have recorded killings and tortures of Christians throughout the Roman world for 300 years (recored by the Romans, Jews, and Christians I might add and there is physical evidence to back it up). That's why the Jews wrote all kinds of mean things about Christianity and Jesus. BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T CARE! Why do you believe these downright stupid theories? When are you going to give some real theories by real historians who don't get their info from what ifs and maybes... Shoot, if maybes count for evidence then maybe you are wrong and Jesus did exist and really did rise again. Do you see how silly you are being?

Look at how slowly it developed.

It didn't slowly develop. Clement wrote that Jesus was the Christ the son of the living God in 95 AD. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are dated to about 50 to 70AD 10 to 30 years latter. That is false, plain and simple.

And my point still stands, if anyone said "Jesus didn't exist" and wrote about it, it would have been destroyed by the Church, or not preserved after the Church took power.

No, your point is based upon whatever you want to believe instead of the facts we have to work with. The Talmud and Tacitus did not say very kind things about Jesus at all. Yet, these writings were not burned. You really think that some kind of grand conspiracy is going around where Christians were able to hunt down each and every little document that proves your theory as correct, yet the missed the ones that say such terrible things about Jesus? Why do you believe a theory that rest upon so many assumptions and contradicts all we know about history? Why do you refuse to admit that Jesus existed (despite the fact that real historians do not think these are issues since even atheist ones think Jesus existed)? Are you really that desperate to hold onto your pet theory that you'll make all kinds of absurd theories to avoid admitting it's wrong?

There are hints in the scriptures that some people were saying "Jesus didn't exist".

Verses please.

Your arguement is like this

No one said he didn't exist, so he must have existed.

My arguement is that we can't know that no one said he didn't exist, just like we can't know for a fact that he did exist.

Interesting, on the one hand you are saying history can't be known, but yet you are saying you know for sure. What is it? I can't be sure or I can be? Going to make up your mind? Second, since the accepted historical view is that Jesus existed, the burden or proof falls upon you to prove he didn't. Since you do not have any evidence (just a theory based upon what ifs and maybes) I have no reason to believe you. Your argument is simply you being too lazy to want to do the research for yourself, so you throw together all kinds of downright absurd assumptions that have no bases what-so-ever so that your argument appears to hold water. Unless you have some besides, "the evidence was conveniently destroyed to prove my theory, but I'm right anyway," I will thus conclude that your theory is sunk.

Even granting someone named Yeshua existed, you can't KNOW that he was the son of God, you can't KNOW that the bible is the TRUE story of his life, that is why it is called FAITH.

1. Can you stay on topic? This is about Jesus existence, who cares at this point what he did or who he was? If he didn't exist, do you really think there is a point in going any further.

2. You created the old contradiction of, "You can't know what happened, but let me tell you what happened anyway." I'm sorry, you can't have you're cake and eat it too. Either history can be known and as such we can know if the Bible is a true story of his life or history can't be know and as such your theories have no more evidence then mine or anybody else's.

3. You don't know the biblical definition of faith. It isn't about believing in things that have zero evidence to back it up. It's about trust upon past performance and since the NT shows being 100% accurate on details I can test... it becomes the burden of the person who thinks it's wrong to prove I can't trust it.

Interesting you bring up Nero. He is another person for whom no contempory accounts survive, and the accounts we do have are mostly negative, despite what seems to be a good record of governance in the early years.

Funny, we have statues of his image and no historians I'm aware of say he never existed. Why don't you try this strange thing called 'reading' instead of linking to Wikpedia articles that are often full of factual errors? Can you name a real historians who disagrees with anything we are saying? Tacitus is considered one of the best historians of the ancient world and his accounts are accepted as accurate and he mentions this. Do you just throw this nonsense together or do you really believe it?

Once again, history written long after death, and what survives today is secondary and tertiary accounts based on possible first hand accounts, but possibly with bias. It is a Christian tradition that Nero persecuted Christians, but is it true?

Funny, real historians say you are wrong. Have you tried reading them?

And yes, I have looked at the arguements for the Bible being the true story of Jesus, and found them lacking.

That's because you believe nonsense like 'contemporary sources' are a requirement where real historians with these strange things called degrees don't use that standard. Most of what we know about the ancient world does not have 'contemporary sources' does that mean they never happened?

I would be happy to go over them again with you however.

You have failed so far to understand them or make a dent. You pretty much use 'what ifs and maybes. Ok... if that is how it rolls then you are wrong and Jesus really existed and really rose from the dead. Why? Because I said so!

http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...ally_live.html

I have another question, do you think that Jesus was literate? Could he read and write? Why don't we have anything HE himself wrote?

Just to show how stupid that question is... let me change it around a little... Let's say 2,000 years from now we don't have a single things left of your writing so somebody says:

I have another question, do you think that Zeluvia was literate? Could she read and write? Why don't we have anything SHE himself wrote?

Putting that into ancient context we can ask:

I have another question, do you think that Hannibal was literate? Could he read and write? Why don't we have anything HE himself wrote?

This is a pretty stupid question, got something else?

Crystal

[Sir-Think-A-Lot]

Just to show how stupid that question is... let me change it around a little... Let's say 2,000 years from now we don't have a single things left of your writing so somebody says:

I have another question, do you think that Zeluvia was literate? Could she read and write? Why don't we have anything SHE himself wrote?

Putting that into ancient context we can ask:

I have another question, do you think that Hannibal was literate? Could he read and write? Why don't we have anything HE himself wrote?

I'd like to add that litericy was only about 10% in ancient Palastine. And Jesus came from a poor rural family. So odds are he wasnt literate.

Although it doesnt really matter. As a document written by an indvidual isnt at all necessary to establish their historisicity.

[jimbo]

Crystal,

ZELUVIA: It is not amazing to me that Christianity rose to popularity for its time it had a good message, and it was the next step forward in the "god concept".

Who wouldn't want to escape the misery of the current reality for a pleasant afterlife?

CRYSTAL: "I really do not care if there is an afterlife or not. I care at this point if Jesus existed or was simply made up. "

(CRYSTAL TO ME): Did you understand that? Do I have to repeat myself? This argument has nothing to do with rather or not there is an afterlife.

Zeluvia's point had to do with the attraction that a blissful afterlife would have to ancient people and you seemed to dismiss it by talking about your own personal feelings about an afterlife, which really had nothing to do with her point.

So who really cares?

We all should care if the people who started the Christian religion used the lure of eternal life to gain new followers. Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)? Do you agree that when people are motivated by things like the promise of eternal life, they might let emotions overcome reason? Do you think this is possible?

JIMBO: Do you understand that in respect to what Z said, it does not matter at all whether you want to live forever or not?

CRYSTAL: Do you understand that Christians in that era were being tortured and killed?

Some were. Do you understand that if a person thinks he/she will go to a pleasant afterlife immediately after death, that person might not worry as much about being tortured and killed?

Christianity offers an afterlife, ok so do other religions at that time and they are not being tortured and killed. So why would I want to be a Christian when I can go to some other religion that not only promises and afterlife, but I don't have to be tortured and killed in all kinds of terrible ways?

I think you are overdramatizing the extent of the persecution of Christians. Regardless, Christianity is one of many religious that thrive on persecution. It is the part of the teaching of the religion that Christ's followers will suffer for believing in him.

Also, in an honor/shame society... why would I want to worship a man who died a shameful death if it wasn't true or had facts behind it? It seems to me you again don't know what you are talking about and would rather believe silly theories that fall apart when the facts are presented, then sound theories.

Jesus was redeemed after death. He rose from the dead, scarfed down some fish, shot up into the sky like a rocket and joined his pop in heaven. He supposedly suffered and died for the good of humanity. He was a hero, a rock star. Who wouldn't worship such a superhero, especially if it was taught that you would get a wonderful afterlife for doing so? This sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

JIMBO: Because most people can't figure out that this life is all we get, they are prey to religious charlatans who sell eternal life.

CRYSTAL: That's nice, and what does this have to do with rather or not Jesus existed? Why do you keep throwing these red herrings and strawman around Dimbo? Do you have any answers or do you prefer to believe whatever you are told without question? It seems you're wrong again... keep trying.

It's a con game, Crystal. You will never see, touch, smell, taste or talk to a god, because such things do not exist. You will spend your life arguing about this stuff and ranting about it, but you will never be able to actually demonstrate that any part of your religion is true for the simple fact that it is not true. 2000 years of Christianity back me up on this.

Cheers,

Jimbo

[lilpixieofterror]

Zeluvia's point had to do with the attraction that a blissful afterlife would have to ancient people and you seemed to dismiss it by talking about your own personal feelings about an afterlife, which really had nothing to do with her point.

And again... you miss the point. Let me repeat myself since you can't read:

OTHER RELIGIONS HAD AN AFTERLIFE AND WERE NOT BEING TOCTURED AND KILLED. SO WHY BE A CHRISTIAN AND SUFFER A HORRIBLE DEATH, WHEN I CAN BE ANOTHER RELIGION AND NOT SUFFER A HORRIBLE DEATH.

Is reading a skill you lack? Do you need me to use words that are 5 letters long so you can understand I said the first time:

"I really do not care if there is an afterlife or not. I care at this point if Jesus existed or was simply made up."

When you wanted to go further I said:

"Do you understand that Christians in that era were being tortured and killed? Christianity offers an afterlife, ok so do other religions at that time and they are not being tortured and killed. So why would I want to be a Christian when I can go to some other religion that not only promises and afterlife, but I don't have to be tortured and killed in all kinds of terrible ways?"

I have made my answer in bold text so you can find it this time! Do you have a problem that makes it impossible for you to pay attention?

We all should care if the people who started the Christian religion used the lure of eternal life to gain new followers.

And again:

Why would I want to be Christian and take the risk of being tortured and killed when i can be another religion that not only promises me an after life, but I don't have to be tortured and killed for it. Will you answer my question this time or will you avoid it like the plague? Stop using strawman Dimbo, I have already answered you and you have provided no answers (just as I thought).

Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)?

Answer my question... Why take the risk of being tortured and killed when I can choose another religion that offers me a pleasant, happy afterlife without the risk.

Do you agree that when people are motivated by things like the promise of eternal life, they might let emotions overcome reason? Do you think that is possible?

Do you avoid answering questions that prove your argument as being false? Do you throw up strawman like this because you don't like the answer to my question? Can you read and pay attention?

Some were. Do you understand that if you think you will go to a pleasant afterlife immediately after death, you might not worry as much about being tortured and killed?

And thus he avoids the question. Let's try this again:

One religion offers me eternal life, but I take the risk of being killed.

Another religion offers me eternal life and there is no risk of being killed.

If eternal life is my only desire of a religion, what one would I choose? It seems to me you are overdramatixing the extent of importance of your question. Do you care to try this again?

I think you are overdramatizing the extent of the persecution of Christians and the number of Christian martyrs.

Funny... even non-Christians talk about Christians being put to death. Let's assume that you are right and it wasn't as big as we think. Would you take the risk of being killed if your only reason for being a Christian was an afterlife? Other religions in that era and today have an afterlife and you didn't have the risk of dying for it. So why choose Christianity when I can choose another belief?

Let's take it another step further... let's assume that the only Christians killed would be those described in the NT and the rest of the killings never happened. Did other beliefs offer an afterlife? Yes. Do some of them let me do things on earth that Christianity says is sinful? Yes. So why should I be a Christian when I can be another religion that will allow me to do things I want to do in this life and allow me to have an afterlife?

I don't think this argument is nearly as valid as you want to think. Christianity has an afterlife, ok so do other religions and beliefs and they don't have as strict as a moral code. Do you want to try this again and actual answer my questions?

Regardless, Christianity is one of many religious that thrive on persecution. It is the part of the teaching of the religion that Christ's followers will suffer for believing in him.

Persecution tends to make you think strongly about your beliefs. Would you die for something you thought was a lie or wasn't true? If Christianity was not based upon facts, do you think it would of lasted? Religions in that era were born and died in a few years, what made Christianity so unique? Why did it survive and others failed?

Jesus was redeemed after death. He rose from the dead, scarfed down some fish, shot up into the sky like a rocket and joined his pop in heaven. He supposedly suffered and died for the good of humanity. He was a hero, a rockstar. Why wouldn't worship such a superhero, especially if you thought you would get a wonderful afterlife for doing so? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Sorry Jimbo, you are looking at this from a 21st century mind set. What do you think the ancients would of thought? Here is what JPH says (I'm sure you have no answer for it, but that's ok, we both know you don't care):

As Martin Hengel has amply shown us in his monograph, Crucifixion, the shame of the cross was the result of a fundamental norm of the Greco-Roman Empire. Hengel observes that "crucifixion was an utterly offensive affair, 'obscene' in the original sense of the word." (22) As Malina and Rohrbaugh note in their Social-Science Commentary on John [263-4], crucifixion was a "status degradation ritual" designed to humiliate in every way, including the symbolic pinioning of hands and legs signigfying a loss of power, and loss of ability to control the body in various ways, including befouling one's self with excrement. The process was so offensive that the Gospels turn out to be our most detailed description of a crucifixion from ancient times - the pagan authors were too revolted by the subject to give equally comprehensive descriptions - in spite of the fact that thousands of crucifixions were done at a time on some occasions. "(T)he cultured literary world wanted to have nothing to do with [crucifixion], and as a rule kept silent about it." (38) It was recognized as early as Paul (1 Cor. 1:18; see also Heb. 12:2) that preaching a savior who underwent this disgraceful treatment was folly. This was so for Jews (Gal. 3;13; cf. Deut. 21:23) as well as Gentiles.

Source.

Now, why don't you stop looking at the Bible from a 21st century mind set and put yourself in the shoes of a 1st century man. The cross was a shameful way to die and the Jews and Romans spread the roomers that Jesus' disciples stole his body. Nothing you said was accurate in that era. It something you made up because you do not want to do the proper research, but prefer strawman to real arguments. Try this again... you have lost this point too...

It's a con game, Crystal. You will never see, touch, smell, taste or talk to a god, because such things do not exist.

Talk about begging the question! Now that your entire argument above has been ripped apart. Do you care to try again? So far I see a bigot who is too deep in his fundy atheism that he throws together a bunch of nonsense and tacks on this rant so that somebody might believe him. You have lost again... but keep trying... you might make a valid point someday...

It is nothing but words. Nothing but words in a book and religious folks like yourself arguing and asserting and raving about ancient stories that some relatively ignorant, supersitious people dreamed up.

The old, 'ancient people were stupid'. Tell me, how much have you read about the ancients? Have you ever read any of Plato's works? Yep... just as I thought... you don't know what you are talking about as such you open your mouth and let stupidity flow out of it. I'm sorry all you have is some free thinker garbage, I'm sure you might read a book written by an expert someday, right?

Think about it. It is make believe.

I have thought about it and you're an idiot who uncritically accepts whatever he wants to hear. Do you want to pay attention this time or are you just go off on another rant that proves you deserve being called dimbo?

Crystal

[Zeluvia]

I'd like to add that litericy was only about 10% in ancient Palastine. And Jesus came from a poor rural family. So odds are he wasnt literate.

Although it doesnt really matter. As a document written by an indvidual isnt at all necessary to establish their historisicity.

No, but you would think that Jesus as the perfect son of God would be able to read and write, and he did teach, and there is a tradition he was of the line of priests. His familiarity with the law as represented in the bible indicates he might have had first hand knowledge, ie reading.
And while literacy rates in the general population was 10%, wasn't it higher amongst men, and Jewish people, and skilled tradesmen? I know women for the most part were not taught to read and write, nor were slaves.

You would also think if his message was so important, and he knew he would be dying, he would have dictated to a scribe or written something down himself. But, hey, I guess it was done that way so 2000 years later, it would be a real test of faith. I asked this question mostly because of the stoning women thread, where a verse that seems to prohibit stoning is under question as a later revision.
Things would be much simpler if he had written something himself, no?

Anyway, I quoted a source saying that early gnostic Christianity denied that Christ had been a real person. Actually it was a summary of two sources, from of course an infidel site, which makes the discussion moot, because I found sources that say Jesus did not exist in the first century.

I am not speaking to Crystal, at all, ever....discussing things with her is pointless, because she never gets the point, and skews off on emotional tangents that make following discussions a real headache, then gets rude and in your face when she gets frustrated, cause no one is getting her point since she usually missed their point : )

[jimbo]

Crystal,

Do you know who the Branch Davidians are?

Jimbo

[lilpixieofterror]

Do you know who the Branch Davidians are?

Can you tell me what they have to do with the discussion at hand?

Edited to add: How many members did they have? Did they ever go above 1,000 active members? There's several cults very simular, but they never have a very large following and often times they falter and die. Christianity is way different.... it gained members very quickly and has lasted various attempts to wipe it out. Do you like comparing apples to oranges Jimbo?

[VenomX]

Crystal already took care of a lot of these, but I wanted to add my two cents.

There is no conspiracy, but it is a fact that documents deemed heretical were ordered burned by the church.

Well, of course. They're heretical. Why would they not be destroyed?

But why, once the church gained all of this alleged power, did they leave many of the most scathing secular references untouched?

The question really isn't weather documents were destroyed, the question is the existence of documents that make a case that Jesus wasn't real, which not even the secular references do. The secular references establish His historicity and confirm the gospel accounts of His life.

It is not amazing to me that Christianity rose to popularity for its time it had a good message, and it was the next step forward in the "god concept".

You are a sinner. You can't get to God on your own. You need Christ. You must be dependent upon Him for everything. There is nothing that you can do yourself. Salvation is not yours to gain, but God's to give. You can't do it yourself. Stop trying.

Nothing I do? Really? That kinda hurts my pride a little bit. I feel convicted. I feel guilty. I'm sorry, what was the good message again? I missed that part.

Who wouldn't want to escape the misery of the current reality for a pleasant afterlife?

Oh, that's right. I have to be content in my miserable here and now, and wait for the afterlife. I'm still waiting for this really good message, it must be in her someplace. I can't be a lousy sinner with no hope of redeeming myself who needs Christ to do it for me, and I sure can't believe that I have to stick this lousy life out while waiting for an afterlife. Where's the good message???

Oh, wait... the message isn't what's at issue. It's weather or not Jesus is a historical figure. So maybe now we'll attack the issue at hand:

Also, you can't discount the Conversion of Constantine....that was a big help to the Church gaining both acceptance and power, the power that ultimately corrupted the message.

Maybe not. I'm with everyone else who's commented... the sharp rise in numbers were "cultural Christians" without an understanding of true discipleship. This actually wasn't the best thing that happened to Christianity.

But it still doesn't prove the existance or the divinity or the resurrection of Christ. The word is PROVE !!

Gospels: four eyewitness accounts detailing the existence, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus.
Secular references: confirm the gospel outlines.
Paul's Letters: confirm the gospel accounts and remind people of the creeds and beliefs of the early church.

Well, maybe none of the proves the case in your mind, but I'd say that, for a guy who doesn't exist, Jesus sure has a lot of contemporary literature written about Him! He was either a real person, or the most famous fictional character in all of history!

And I think you are wrong about it never rising if information that debunked it existed...Popularity doesn't prove truth, but we have all been down that road before. The fact we are just now finding gospels we only knew existed from lists of heretical documents shows that destruction rather than preservation was the order of the day for doctrines and possible challenges to the accepted version of the faith.
While some were deliberately destroyed, all it really takes to deprive the future is unwillingness to preserve. That is where the Bible and the Koran and some of the mid eastern and eastern texts share similarities, there was a will to preserve them. This doesn't mean truth or fact either.


Even now, in the 20th century, we argue over facts....

But why, I ask, would people die for belief in fairy tale? Regardless of how popular the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears may be, no one is going to die a martyr's death to prove the story.

Okay, why not say Jesus didn't exist right after he supposedly existed.

Maybe because back then, no one cared, because Christianity was a comparitively small cult.
What do we have in Acts? Small local churches, small congregations.

They cared enough to burn Christians. They cared enough to write horrible things about Christ in an attempt to sway people away from Him. They never tried to deny His miracles, His resurrection, or His historicity. They denied that He was the messiah, and they concocted stories to explain His miracles and resurrection.

That surely sounds like a sect that no one cared about. If they didn't care about the sect, then why write about it at all?

No one could have forseen that those nutcases would end up creating a world ruling religion in 600 years.

Good excuse.

Look at how slowly it developed. And my point still stands, if anyone said "Jesus didn't exist" and wrote about it, it would have been destroyed by the Church, or not preserved after the Church took power.

Slowly? Within 40 years is slow to you? That's barely a blink of an eye, and nowhere near enough time for a legend to develop surrounding it, since eyewitness to the events were still alive and could be consulted to debunk the stories. But no one came forward then, why?

We're still on the church conspiracy. Why are there no secular references to it, quotations made from it, no rumors about it? (It = The Hypothetical Document that Proves Jesus Doesn't Exist, or HDPJDE, from this point forward) Even heretical documents weren't complete surprises, we knew the names of most of the Gnostic Gospels and had some idea of their contents prior to discovering them. What about your HDPJDE? Where are the references to it outside of the actual document itself?

There are hints in the scriptures that some people were saying "Jesus didn't exist".

Where are these? I must have completely missed them.

My arguement is that we can't know that no one said he didn't exist, just like we can't know for a fact that he did exist.

Even granting someone named Yeshua existed, you can't KNOW that he was the son of God, you can't KNOW that the bible is the TRUE story of his life, that is why it is called FAITH.

Faith isn't blind faith, though, I suggest you read the article on faith from JPH that people linked you to. Faith is merited trust, and it's based on evidence. I think that Crystal and the other Christians here have made a compelling apologetic for just that.

Interesting you bring up Nero. He is another person for whom no contempory accounts survive, and the accounts we do have are mostly negative, despite what seems to be a good record of governance in the early years.

Denying the existence of Nero? Really? Maybe there is no first century. Maybe the whole lot of everyone from that era just doesn't exist. It's all an illusion. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! There is no first century!!!

Once again, history written long after death, and what survives today is secondary and tertiary accounts based on possible first hand accounts, but possibly with bias. It is a Christian tradition that Nero persecuted Christians, but is it true?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

You're quoting Wikipedia!!! I'm sorry, I shouldn't make fun of you, because you'll just go find the post I made elsewhere admonishing Crystal, MM, and JPH for doing that far too often and put it back in my face. But, I'm sorry, Wikipedia is useful only for a place to start researching a topic, not as a valid source. Anyone can add anything they want.

And yes, I have looked at the arguements for the Bible being the true story of Jesus, and found them lacking.

I would be happy to go over them again with you however.

I'd be interested in that discussion.

No, but you would think that Jesus as the perfect son of God would be able to read and write, and he did teach, and there is a tradition he was of the line of priests. His familiarity with the law as represented in the bible indicates he might have had first hand knowledge, ie reading.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Jesus had intimate familiarity with the Law for reasons other than literacy. The first you will accept, the second you will discard. The first is that Jewish households commonly memorized Scripture, since it is commanded in Deuteronomy that they should wear the word of God on their heads on their wrists at all times. This was probably figurative, but many took this very literally.

Before you go assault me with other weird things that Deuteronomy says (and it does have plenty of weirdness to go around), I'm talking about Deuteronomy as it relates to a first century Jewish carpenter, not to you or I.

Jesus was familiar with the Law because He memorized large portions of it as a child, which was the custom of the day.

The second reason being that, as the preexistent Son of Man, with God from the beginning (Jn 1:1-3,14), He was present at the writing of the Law when God inspired the Old Testament writers. This would give Jesus a very unique insight as to how the Law would actually work.

You would also think if his message was so important, and he knew he would be dying, he would have dictated to a scribe or written something down himself. But, hey, I guess it was done that way so 2000 years later, it would be a real test of faith. I asked this question mostly because of the stoning women thread, where a verse that seems to prohibit stoning is under question as a later revision.
Things would be much simpler if he had written something himself, no?

The point is that He did teach it, and it was written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude, and Peter.

Anyway, I quoted a source saying that early gnostic Christianity denied that Christ had been a real person. Actually it was a summary of two sources, from of course an infidel site, which makes the discussion moot, because I found sources that say Jesus did not exist in the first century.

No one existed in the first century, because there is no first century! All of it is a ruse!

I am not speaking to Crystal, at all, ever....discussing things with her is pointless, because she never gets the point, and skews off on emotional tangents that make following discussions a real headache, then gets rude and in your face when she gets frustrated, cause no one is getting her point since she usually missed their point : )

Crystal actually argues the points very well, I think. I don't think you get the points that she brings up. As to her skewing off the subject, are there not two instances in this thread alone where you and Jimbo skew off topic and she actually brings it back on topic?

She gets rude because she makes a valid argument and a solid apologetic, and you throw strawmen at her, and miss her point. In other words, you're not talking to her because she's right too often for your taste, and you don't want to believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

That would put some responsibility on you to follow Him, and obey His commandments. And let's face it, that's just a drag.

This might be the loooooooongest post... EVER!!!

[jimbo]

Crystal,

The Branch Davidian cult was made up of people who believed that a guy named David Koresh was a prophet of God. Federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas around 1993 because of concerns about child abuse and the possession of illegal weapons, as I recall. Four agents and six Branch Davidians died. This began a 51-day seige of compound which ended when government agents pumped tear gas into the main building and it caught fire. There are conflicting accounts of whether the fire was caused by the raid or whether it was deliberately set by the cult members. 76 cult members died in the fire.

Why would these people be willing to die for the falsehood that David Koresh was a prophet of God?

Throughout history people have suffered and died for believing in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and all sorts of other isms that are total nonsense. All this proves is that people can be convinced of anything and will suffer and die for mistaken beliefs.

Furthermore, as Richard Carrier explains:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ersecuted.html

"...the logic of the Christian situation (as with all other comparable movements in history) is impeccable: if sinners go to hell or oblivion, and the faithful go to eternal heavenly bliss, then nothing else matters, for everything else is temporary and insignificant compared to the eternal future. The faithful will even inherit the earth itself, gaining all the power and plenty they always longed for, while watching their oppressors and exploiters suffer utter downfall and defeat. In other words, 'everyone gets what they deserve.' Anyone convinced of this will suffer anything. Period. They will endure any death, any torture, any discomfort, any indignity. And all the while they will smile inside, knowing their abusers will 'get it' in the end, while they themselves will get twice the reward for having carried such a burden, remaining strong in the face of every effort of those evil powers to knock them down. In human history there has never been so powerful a motivator as this..."

OTHER RELIGIONS HAD AN AFTERLIFE AND WERE NOT BEING TOCTURED AND KILLED. SO WHY BE A CHRISTIAN AND SUFFER A HORRIBLE DEATH, WHEN I CAN BE ANOTHER RELIGION AND NOT SUFFER A HORRIBLE DEATH.

See above.

True believers in any religion will cling to their beliefs in the face of terrible trauma, pain, misfortune and death. We see this all the time, all over the world, all throughout history.

I have made my answer in bold text so you can find it this time! Do you have a problem that makes it impossible for you to pay attention?

No. Do you have a problem understanding that Zeluvia's point had to do with the attraction that a blissful afterlife would have to ancient people? Do you have a problem understanding that I believed that you dismissed this by talking about your own personal feelings about an afterlife, which really had nothing to do with her point?

JIMBO: Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)?

CRYSTAL: Answer my question... Why take the risk of being tortured and killed when I can choose another religion that offers me a pleasant, happy afterlife without the risk.

If a religion offers you eternal life, ultimate power over time and space, and the eternal punishment of your enemies, any temporary suffering here on earth would seem like a reasonable tradeoff for believing in it.

Now, answer my question: Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)?

One religion offers me eternal life, but I take the risk of being killed.

Another religion offers me eternal life and there is no risk of being killed.

If eternal life is my only desire of a religion, what one would I choose? It seems to me you are overdramatixing the extent of importance of your question. Do you care to try this again?

I never said that eternal life was the ONLY factor motivating belief. However, in your imaginary fantasyworld where the threat of torture and death is the ONLY thing that differentiates religions, people would most likely avoid the religion that offered torture and death and go with the one without torture and death. Since real life is a little more complicated, with a multitude of other factors playing a part in motivating belief, your question is pointless.

Now, answer my question: Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)?

IMBO: I think you are overdramatizing the extent of the persecution of Christians and the number of Christian martyrs.

CRYSTAL: Funny... even non-Christians talk about Christians being put to death.

I never said that Christians were not killed. It is the extent of the persecution and suffering that Christians endured that I think is overplayed by Christians. It is well known that Christian martyr stories have been embellished by Church leaders because they make great propaganda.

Let's assume that you are right and it wasn't as big as we think. Would you take the risk of being killed if your only reason for being a Christian was an afterlife? Other religions in that era and today have an afterlife and you didn't have the risk of dying for it. So why choose Christianity when I can choose another belief?

If MY only reason for accepting a religion was because of eternal life, I personally would not risk torture and death for it, but of course this is far too simplistic of a way to decribe how and why people chose one religion over another at that time. It is a silly question.

Let's take it another step further... let's assume that the only Christians killed would be those described in the NT and the rest of the killings never happened. Did other beliefs offer an afterlife? Yes. Do some of them let me do things on earth that Christianity says is sinful? Yes. So why should I be a Christian when I can be another religion that will allow me to do things I want to do in this life and allow me to have an afterlife?

See Carrier's comments above. You are being far too simplistic.

I don't think this argument is nearly as valid as you want to think. Christianity has an afterlife, ok so do other religions and beliefs and they don't have as strict as a moral code. Do you want to try this again and actual answer my questions?

I have answered your questions. Do you want to answer mine, finally? Do you agree that the promise of a pleasant, happy afterlife would appeal to people then (and now)?

Cheers,

Jimbo

[Zeluvia]

Crystal already took care of a lot of these, but I wanted to add my two cents.

Well, you might want to reiterate those points.

Well, of course. They're heretical. Why would they not be destroyed?

The original issue was the existance of texts from early Christian history denying the existance of Jesus. Thank you for agreeing with me that such documents if they existed, would have been destroyed, which is why we don't have any now.

But why, once the church gained all of this alleged power, did they leave many of the most scathing secular references untouched?

Which ones, and what years?

The question really isn't weather documents were destroyed, the question is the existence of documents that make a case that Jesus wasn't real, which not even the secular references do. The secular references establish His historicity and confirm the gospel accounts of His life.

I thought we just determined that secular arguements that Jesus didn't exist would be deemed heretical and destroyed? If you have new secular references to the existance of Jesus please link them. The passage in Josephus is questionable.

You are a sinner. You can't get to God on your own. You need Christ. You must be dependent upon Him for everything. There is nothing that you can do yourself. Salvation is not yours to gain, but God's to give. You can't do it yourself. Stop trying.

Nothing I do? Really? That kinda hurts my pride a little bit. I feel convicted. I feel guilty. I'm sorry, what was the good message again? I missed that part.

Maybe you should read Acts a few more times. The message was eternal life in the kingdom of God.

Oh, that's right. I have to be content in my miserable here and now, and wait for the afterlife. I'm still waiting for this really good message, it must be in her someplace. I can't be a lousy sinner with no hope of redeeming myself who needs Christ to do it for me, and I sure can't believe that I have to stick this lousy life out while waiting for an afterlife. Where's the good message???

Have you no faith? Anyway this ENTIRE side discussion was about how appealing the message was. One of the original arguements was that Christianity would not have spread if Jesus had not been a REAL person. My arguement is that the message of Heaven was appealing, and the religion itself was a step forward in concept, one god, compassion, from many of the current religions. It was also inclusive, Paul reached out to all, slaves, womens, Gentiles, Jews, it was a universal evangelism.

Oh, wait... the message isn't what's at issue. It's weather or not Jesus is a historical figure. So maybe now we'll attack the issue at hand:

Good we agree. Christianity didn't spread because Jesus was real live person, it spread because the message and the philosophy were attractive to people. People in Rome had no way to know if Jesus was Real or not.

Maybe not. I'm with everyone else who's commented... the sharp rise in numbers were "cultural Christians" without an understanding of true discipleship. This actually wasn't the best thing that happened to Christianity.

There were mulitple Christian "ideas" apparently, if you look at the number of books that were listed as heretical, and some of the documents we have recovered recently. We also have no way of knowing how many were converting. We can only guess.

Gospels: four eyewitness accounts detailing the existence, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus.

Only Mark seems to have the possiblity of being an eyewitness, Matthew and Luke are based on Mark, and John was the latest and could not be considered an eyewitness.

Secular references: confirm the gospel outlines.

Really? A first century town called Nazareth? The differences in the birth Narrative of Matthew and Luke? Herod and Pilate existed, and so did Jerusalem. Other than that, I am not sure how much you consider "outline".

Paul's Letters: confirm the gospel accounts and remind people of the creeds and beliefs of the early church.

Paul does not quote Jesus. He says nothing about virgin birth. He himself only met Jesus in revelation, not in person. Jesus didn't talk about making a church. Paul did. Paul is not "reminding" he is creating based on his revelation. Paul and James and Peter did not agree on all issues of the early church either, and James and Peter WERE eyewitnesses.

Well, maybe none of the proves the case in your mind, but I'd say that, for a guy who doesn't exist, Jesus sure has a lot of contemporary literature written about Him! He was either a real person, or the most famous fictional character in all of history!

I will grant you he is pretty famous for being fictional. But then, most of us know who Zeus was, who Santa Claus is, and who the Easter Bunny is. You could add Merlin. King Arthur.
Write and sing about someone and their legend survives. It doesn't mean they were real.

But why, I ask, would people die for belief in fairy tale? Regardless of how popular the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears may be, no one is going to die a martyr's death to prove the story.

I ask myself that about suicide bombers.
I don't know.

They cared enough to burn Christians. They cared enough to write horrible things about Christ in an attempt to sway people away from Him. They never tried to deny His miracles, His resurrection, or His historicity. They denied that He was the messiah, and they concocted stories to explain His miracles and resurrection.

I know that supposedly Nero blamed Rome burning on Christians, to get the onus off himself. Clearly the population of Rome at that time accepted the sacrafice of a minority.
But this was a culture that believed in miracles. It believed that gods caused earthquakes.
To deny his miracles would be to threaten the miracle thinking of all the gods.

That surely sounds like a sect that no one cared about. If they didn't care about the sect, then why write about it at all?

What other sects did they write about and the writings were lost? We are back to the preservation issue. Look at the Gnostics. Apparently a popular sect within Christianity, if you look at the efforts to get rid of it, and yet in modern times we have to find their writings in pots in caves.



Good excuse.

Slowly? Within 40 years is slow to you? That's barely a blink of an eye, and nowhere near enough time for a legend to develop surrounding it, since eyewitness to the events were still alive and could be consulted to debunk the stories. But no one came forward then, why?

Did the eyewitness read the story? I thought Sir had established that there was only 10% literacy rate. The eyewitnesses would have read Aramaic, the gospels were written in Greek.

We're still on the church conspiracy. Why are there no secular references to it, quotations made from it, no rumors about it? (It = The Hypothetical Document that Proves Jesus Doesn't Exist, or HDPJDE, from this point forward) Even heretical documents weren't complete surprises, we knew the names of most of the Gnostic Gospels and had some idea of their contents prior to discovering them. What about your HDPJDE? Where are the references to it outside of the actual document itself?

I have no document that proves he didn't exist, I never said I did.
Nor do you have a document that proves he existed. The claim was made that part of the evidence of his existance was a lack of people saying he didn't exist in the 1st century. I took the position that even people of the 1st and 2cd century wrote anything down about Jesus not existing, it would not have survived to the current day, either because it would have been considered heretical and destroyed, or because no effort would be taken to preserve it.
In other words, I am calling the lack of evidence of people saying he DIDNT exist is not evidence of his existance.

Where are these? I must have completely missed them.

A large body of opinion in the early church denied the reality of Christ's physical existence. In his "History of Christianity," Dean Milman writes: "The Gnostic sects denied that Christ was born at all, or that he died," and Mosheim, Germany's great ecclesiastical historian, says: "The Christ of early Christianity was not a human being, but an "appearance," an illusion, a character in miracle, not in reality -- a myth.

Source:
http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...ally_live.html

I myself am not familiar with the two works cited, I familiar with some of work done on early Christian sects, and the early Gnostics.

Faith isn't blind faith, though, I suggest you read the article on faith from JPH that people linked you to. Faith is merited trust, and it's based on evidence. I think that Crystal and the other Christians here have made a compelling apologetic for just that.

Yes I like JP Holdings definition. Faith is trust based on past performance.
How he mentally fits a god that hasn't done anything on earth in 2000 years or fufilled his promis e to "come quickly" is beyong my understanding.

Denying the existence of Nero? Really? Maybe there is no first century. Maybe the whole lot of everyone from that era just doesn't exist. It's all an illusion. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! There is no first century!!!

I am not denying the existance of Nero. But almost everything we have about Nero is second hand, not eyewitness, and negative. The point was that accuracy about Nero and his reign can not be 100%. Nothing in the past can be, it is all filtered through human biases as it is passed down to the present.

You're quoting Wikipedia!!! I'm sorry, I shouldn't make fun of you, because you'll just go find the post I made elsewhere admonishing Crystal, MM, and JPH for doing that far too often and put it back in my face. But, I'm sorry, Wikipedia is useful only for a place to start researching a topic, not as a valid source. Anyone can add anything they want.

It does have a good list of Nero's historians, however, and bibliography of other books to look up.
And I am aware that Wiki is a place to start. The point however was the quality and quantity of writings we have about Nero, and their bias.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Jesus had intimate familiarity with the Law for reasons other than literacy. The first you will accept, the second you will discard. The first is that Jewish households commonly memorized Scripture, since it is commanded in Deuteronomy that they should wear the word of God on their heads on their wrists at all times. This was probably figurative, but many took this very literally.

Before you go assault me with other weird things that Deuteronomy says (and it does have plenty of weirdness to go around), I'm talking about Deuteronomy as it relates to a first century Jewish carpenter, not to you or I.
Jesus was familiar with the Law because He memorized large portions of it as a child, which was the custom of the day.

The second reason being that, as the preexistent Son of Man, with God from the beginning (Jn 1:1-3,14), He was present at the writing of the Law when God inspired the Old Testament writers. This would give Jesus a very unique insight as to how the Law would actually work.

The point is that He did teach it, and it was written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude, and Peter.

This is interesting, especially as it relates in my mind to the thread on stoning. One of the things I like about the biblical character of Jesus is his compassion. He is willing to bend the law for the sake of humanity, and compassion. Meanwhile, back in the stoning thread, people are discussing alternative interpretations of that verse, and the possiblity it is not an authentic teaching of Jesus. This is where Jesus and God IMO if they exist, are cupable by omission and refusal to clarify in all the suffering and deaths of anyone who ever died over the interpretation of the supposed "word of god".

No one existed in the first century, because there is no first century! All of it is a ruse!

When I close my eyes, the world ceases to exist....

Crystal actually argues the points very well, I think. I don't think you get the points that she brings up. As to her skewing off the subject, are there not two instances in this thread alone where you and Jimbo skew off topic and she actually brings it back on topic?

Unknown, and can not answer that

She gets rude because she makes a valid argument and a solid apologetic, and you throw strawmen at her, and miss her point. In other words, you're not talking to her because she's right too often for your taste, and you don't want to believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

Sorry, not the case.

That would put some responsibility on you to follow Him, and obey His commandments. And let's face it, that's just a drag.

His primary commandment was to love thy neighbor as thyself. To me that means acceptance, tolerance, politeness, and compassion.
I try to do that anyway.

This might be the loooooooongest post... EVER!!!

and the longest response = p