/lit/ - Literature

How hard is it to believe that a truly great person existed thousands of years ago without ascribing all sorts of supernatural bullshit to it? We believe that Socrates existed based on nothing but second- and third-hand accounts don't we?

>>5846232
>implying Socrates actually existed

saged
reporter
alerted my pastor

>>5846238
SHUT IT DOWN

>>5846232
The difference is that Socrates's ideas stand on their own and are valuable regardless of whether they exist. Christianity is based on the fact that Jesus really existed and was really the son of God.

Wikipedia is shit, when will people start to realise this, that is of far more importance than whether some guy really existed 2000 years ago. They have two articles about essentially the same thing Historicity of Jesus & Christ myth theory just so each group can work on its own fantasies of being encyclopaedists.

There's no answer to the "did he/didn't he" exist. It can't be known for certain and there's still a huge gap between "Jesus definitely existed" and "Jesus was the son of god/miracle worker" which makes the question of if he existed a minor point.

>debate of historicity of dinosaurs
>someone inevitably tries to shut it down by posting wkipedia "There is near unanimity among scholars that dinosaurs existed historically,[6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4]'
>they don't mention that John Dickson is an Anglican paleontologist
>they don't mention that Bart D. Ehrman is a archeologist
>they don't mention that Robert M. Price is a archeologist
>they don't mention that Richard Burridge is a member of England's Dinosaur Museum

>>5846268
Agreed, but it still doesn't change the fact that he is treated as a historical figure on the same grounds that Jesus of Nazareth is, while the historicity of one is often questioned and the other isn't.

I just don't see what difference does it make, really. To me, all figures from the past are characters, imagined or not, they have their ideas and their influence. If Jesus existed in person or it is just an invention, what would that change? Would you say he is less influential for it? If Socrates was inside Plato's head or was a performing Plato's character or if he was actually a man, does that make any difference to his ideas? When I hear of ancient fellas who lived a thousand years old and all, I don't see it with skeptical eyes, if history tells me they lived a thousand years old, that's how much they lived.

Characters, all characters. Marx, Darwin, Homer, Kafka, kings, philosophers, religious, mythological figures, folkloric characters... They are all characters that, having stepped on this earth or not, we are left only with their footprint to tell. Focus on the footprint, not the foot.

>>5846278
Like I said, that's because the historicity of Socrates is largely irrelevant. That said, my Philosophy 101 professor did actually bring up the fact that the evidence for his existence is relatively low and I think it's commonly understood by most people how we know what Socrates allegedly did and said and how tenuous the actual evidence for his existence is.

>>5846285
It's relevant to the study of history. I have a degree in philosophy and in all my undergrad classes the only thing that was questioned about the historicity of Socrates was how much of it was actually him and how much was Plato using him as his mouthpiece. The same is not often said of Jesus of Nazareth.

Religious people are taught to believe that their respective holy book is 100% true and can be used as the be all end all

>>5846232
Second-hand contemporary accounts. Big difference.

Contemporary accounts for Jesus are conspicuously absent. Paul never even claimed to have met him!

You lose literally nothing by believing, I'll never understand why anyone would bother being a skeptic

>>5846389
you also gain literally nothing and pretty much everyone is skeptic about everything all the time in every other aspect of life, why are you not skeptical about religion?

>>5846389
Why is religion the only thing that people decide what to believe based on which is more beneficial rather than which position is correct?

>>5846399
>gain literally nothing
>eternal salvation
>the power of prayer

>>5846406
>the power of prayer

>>5846406
>eternal salvation
that relies not only on god existing (which cannot be proven) but the specific god which you appeal to existing, if it turns out that any other religion is correct, or that a god who is not worshiped by mankind at all, exists then you're basically fucked aren't you. you will have wasted all the time you spent worshiping and be stuck in the same boat as us atheists, based on this i see no point believing in any god because the likelihood that i will suffer an eternity of damnation after i die is pretty much the same as if i were an atheist.
>the power of prayer
what does this even mean?

>>5846414
>that relies not only on god existing (which cannot be proven)
You simply wont believe without it being proven?
>but the specific god which you appeal to existing
The god believed in by Pascal, Aquinas, and Jesus? Gee, those guys were pretty smart.

But you're right, the real Gods are the ones made up by some Terrorist living in some cave somewhere in India

>>5846389
You lose literally nothing by believing in Buddhism. Why don't you?

>>5846281
You're right. But if Jesus didn't exist, it would be a huge argument against Christianity. Because the whole religion is formed upon Jesus actually existing.

>>5846447
I am buddhist, and christian

>>5846433
>You simply wont believe without it being proven?
if i told you i saw a three headed goose made of chrome steel flying around, singing the ode to joy and shitting rainbow flavored donuts, you would probably ask for some evidence of this claim before you believed me, similarly i want evidence of god before i believe in it.
>The god believed in by Pascal, Aquinas, and Jesus? Gee, those guys were pretty smart.
there are literally bazillions of smart people who believed in all other kinds of gods, you know the system of numerals that we currently use was invented by Muslims right? and western philosophy was invented by a bunch of dude who believed in Zeus? just because smart people agree with you does not make you right

> But you're right, the real Gods are the ones made up by some Terrorist living in some cave somewhere in India
this may be the stupidest statement i have ever read. firstly there aren't very many Indian terrorists, most of them are Pakistani. secondly, and contrary to what fox news tells you, not all terrorists live in caves. thirdly, none of these terrorists were or are the prophets or thinkers who invented the eastern religions like Islam or Hinduism. In fact the prophet Mohammed managed to build one of histories greatest empires before he died. By comparison what was Jesus? a piss poor carpenter from the Levant who rode a donkey and washed people's feet. By your standards Christians are idiots.

>>5846389
>lose literally nothing
Intellectual honesty.

>>5846306
*Dips Zamora*

>>5846306
> Religious people are taught to believe that their respective holy book is 100% true and can be used as the be all end all

no they aren't you retard.

>>5846510
of course they do
do you follow a religion?
which bits of your holy book are false?

>>5846389
8/10

>>5846232
>implying Socrates wasn't just a "wise man" archetype used by Plato

>>5846268
>The difference is that Socrates's ideas stand on their own and are valuable regardless of whether they exist
That doesn't mean he exists though. You aren't debating whether or not Jesus had good ideas, but whether or not he existed.

>>5846384
>Second-hand contemporary accounts. Big difference.
Not really. There are contemporary accounts of bigfoot and the loch ness monster, after all. Doesn't make them any more credible than a report on them written 100 years in the future.

This reminds me of allthose "did Homer write Homer, did Shakespeare write Shakespeare" threads.

There were probably lots of guys named jesus, one of them probably said some stuff that probably got edited and embellished. And I bet if the roman records were available a bunch of them got crucified too, and some of them hung out with guys named Matt, John, Pete and Andy.

whether the guys writing about it a hundred years later were actually writing about the same guy, who they remembered accurately is about as important as whether Plato was taking shorthand when Socrates was around or whether Shakespear's reall name was Jimson Weed Codgargler.

Somebody wrote the plays, somebody told the stories, somebody drank the hemlock, and that's really all we need to know. Its not like their copyrights are in question.

>>5846273
9/11 keks not bad

>>5846567
>That doesn't mean he exists though.
I never said it did.
>You aren't debating whether or not Jesus had good ideas, but whether or not he existed.
I never mentioned good/bad ideas. I'm just saying Socrates's ideas stand on their own and don't require Socrates to exist to work/be true. Christianity relies on Jesus being true for much of it to be true/workable. Socrates's ideas are not accepted because Socrates said so or because God said so.

>>5846527
Christianity.
None, but we, unlike certain morons know the difference between alegory and historical accounts.

>>5846573
>Christianity relies on Jesus being true for much of it to be true/workable
Not entirely, most of Jesus' teachings were just about being a cool guy and helping people out. There are even gospels out there that don't refer to him as a divine being.

You can follow christian values without the existence of Jesus. It's the old testament that's the real problem in that regard, though that just reads like a novel. Hell, the Jacob begat Isaac shit reads a lot like Homer's catalogue of ships.

>>5846580
But many of Jesus's teachings only make sense if he's the son of God and the apocalypse is coming soon (leave your family, have no thought for the morrow, etc.). These are stupid, but they make sense if you believe God said so and it's all going to end soon anyway.

>>5846573
The Jesus of Christianity is a god-figure, not a historical person. The guy they're talking about speaks english and appears on grilled cheese sandwiches. he has as much to do with the historical guy as Saint Nicholas does with Santa Claus. This says nothing about whether Christianity is true.They don't even all agree on the guy's characteristics, so no true historical Jesus would satisfy them all anyway.

>>5846587
If you're referring to revelations then most people agree that's just fucking nuts.

Otherwise, I don't know what you're on about.

>>5846580
>There are even gospels out there that don't refer to him as a divine being.

You mean the ones that aren't canon?

>>5846607
"canon" is flexible. They all used to be canon, and they all may be canon again.

So I guess we're all just gonna ignore the Muslim historian who spent the majority of his life researching, understanding, and verifying the historicity of a man from Nazareth, called the Messiah, and executed by Rome for sedition?

Are we also ignoring Tacitus' reference to his execution?

>>5846617
They were never canon, they were around.

>>5846465
I f you told me this goose existed in the first century and left no more trace than some second and third hand oral and written reports, I doubt I'd even bother forming an opinion.

>>5846628
Sure they were canon. Some of them still are, in some religions. You have to realize that to the guys who propagated them they pretty much had to be canon. They wouldn't have been considered for inclusion in the new testament if somebody didn't consider them canon, and lets face it, at that point, it was anybody's choice. For all we, or they, knew, the ones that got left out were the most accurate. "canon" doesn't mean, and isn't intended to mean "best".

>>5846273
lol

but seriously though, religious studies is the real study of religion, theology is not.

>>5846306
>implying religious people actually read the bible.

>>5846630
Jesus left a lot of trace, the largest religion in the world.
And oral most of the gospels were written soon after his death and they are authentic of the period. There is more evidence for Jesus than there is for Cesar.

>>5846569
There were actually several Yeshua Bar Yosef's in Hebrew lore many years before the most recent. All tried to promote the "Judaism FOR GENTILES" thing, and the previous two failed.

And even after Jesus died, many people claimed to be the Messiah (Simon Bar Kohba, for example), and many others declared themselves to be the son of Yahweh. All got wrekt by Rome, but that's not the point.

>>5846662
But this is all well known. There are still people who claim to be the Messiah.

>>5846655
Caesar left a dynasty, and a lot of written records, some of which he wrote himself. Shakespeare is considered the finest author in the goddamn English language, and we STILL dispute his existence. There were contemporary accounts of him, bills in his name, actual signatures, etc. we know where he's buried. And the question of whether the "historical" Shakespeare was actually the "real" playwright and actor, people argue about.

I'm waiting for his existence to be verified by a mathematician, an astrophysicist, and an electrical engineer.

They definitely won't be Christians, as their fields of study imply.

Jesus having long hair and a beard is actually a catholic fabrication. Jesus had short hair and no beard.

>>5846685
You do know that that isn't their job, right?
How can someone who deals in numbers verify if someone eists?
Also I don't think there is less Christians in that field compared to other fields, it's just that there aren't that many Christians in the west in terms of %

I don't understand. Jesus, as a historical figure, clearly existed.

But just because he existed does not mean he performed miracles. That is faulty logic.

>>5846707
Yeah, we know.
Miracles are on faith, him as a historical person on evidence.

i think you are ascribing to believers of a historical jesus what you should be ascribing to believers of wikipedia

>You're an expert in your field, so I can't listen to you when you talk about it
-OP

>>5846268
/thread

>>5846227
Jesus is more than an historical being. He is an undeniable ultra-historical and spiritual process. The existence of an omnipotent being is a self-justifying fact. i.e. God is beyond logic, truth, and reality. Yet he is logical, true and real. If God did not exist, being all powerful, he would be able to create Himself. If you think about it, it becomes impossible to even imagine a possible universe where there is no God.

Christ is a dialectical necessity, the Christ-process is inherent in the concept of God. God doesn't need Christ to become God, but rather Christ is an inseparable component of the definition of God. Christ is more real than any other historical figures, for he was not only a man, but a process inherent in Man. He was not only an historical fact, but a force synonymous with History. Those who, knowing this, deny God and Christ are either fools, or in denial due to their overwhelming sinful compulsions.

>>5846227
>Implying that people who are theologians are incapable of being sources for historical theology

Would you also be surprised if I told you that Mohammad's biggest historical researchers are in fact TERRORISTS?

>>5846227
Using the records of Rome Tertullian (a Roman lawyer who became a Christian) discovered that a strange heresy appeared among the Jews some time after Christ would have been executed (30-33 AD). And some people from that sect later requested to be recognized as a new religion.

He thinks this religion was Christianity. Either way the difference between the Judaism and Christianity didn't really become concrete until the Bible was made. But after Claudius' reign there was a growth of 'Jews'.

>>5847246
tips fedora

>>5847276

No, but I was surprised that when Muslims invaded Jerusalem, they never mentioned anyone named Muhammed and that he doesn't appear on Arabian coins until 60 years after his supposed death

>>5847321
His post was in favor of Christianity, you meme using retard

>>5847375
Fedoras have reached the tipping point. They now mean "hail classy religious gentleman, well met."

>>5847375
Yes, that was the joke.

Good fucking lord you're autistic.

>>5847321
You weren't able to disprove what I'd said, so you resort to name-calling. typical atheist.

besides, weren't you guys the original fedoras?
I am engaged, a second year theology student, a christian and an aspiring minister. so I dont really fit the stereotype. meanwhile, most atheists i've met are bitter, lonely, rather self-centered people (there are a few exceptions, of course, but overall, charitable and sociable people are drawn to the Church). I have even met quite a few non-believers who match the fedora'ed strawman to a T.

>>5846306
If you don't have anything original to add, please don't bother posting in the future.

>>5846227
Jesus is the most famous person in the world, and the bible is the best selling book of all time.

They're not secrets.

>>5847427
Can you tell me what the gospel is?

>>5846281
>its all relative maaaan
pls leave /lit/, thou pesudo

>>5846707
That is correct.

However, if Jesus had performed no miracles, it would be a little surprising to find eyewitness testimonies of Him performing witnesses in the bible. And more than surprising; unsettling.

And if Jesus did not have the power to lay down His life, and to pick it back up again, there would literally be no hope for redemption.

>>5846268
Correct.

Now compare the payoffs between believing in Socrates, and believing in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

>>5846281
>To me, all figures from the past are characters
So you don't believe in people? Are all the figures in the present characters, too? What separates a person from a character?

>>5846621
This, Tacitus is the best bet. OP's post is a bit dumb in that regard. I'm not sure if Josephus also mentions him.

>>5847480
That's true: nobody collects tithes for Socrates or condemn's you to hell for not accepting him.

>>5847494
Nah, Josephus does mention other characters from the bible but his mention of Jesus was a third century insertion. it doesn't appear in the oldest versions.

What I'm curious about is whether theres any record of Jesus returning to earth during the lifetime of some of his apostles. Inb4 Book of Mormon.

>>5846268
> Implying Jesus didn't have multiple personalities and roles in Bible
> Implying that his role as Logos isn't meaningful in defining Western Cultural Ideal
> Implying that his role as a direct descendant of Abraham isn't important in understanding the Jewish-Christian conflict
> Implying that his role as a teacher isn't valuable due to his approach being usually considered ideal when it comes to pedagology
> Implying that his role as a revolutionary is not important regardless of his divinity or not
> Implying that his role as a healer is not meaningful without his divine connection

>>5847495
Nor are there tens of thousands of existing manuscripts talking about Socrates. I think there's maybe 6.

Because, of course, Socrates is not God.

>>5846448
> But if Jesus didn't exist
But thats not the opposite! The two extremes here are solid proof his existence or ambiguity.

>>5847503
Josephus' Antiquities (early 2nd century A.D.) refers to Jesus in two separate passages. The common translation of the first passage, Book 18, Ch. 3, part 3, is disputed and is most likely from an altered source. F. F. Bruce has provided a more likely translation:

Now there arose at this time a source of further trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed surprising works, a teacher of men who gladly welcome strange things. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied by the chief men around us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble, and the tribe of Christians, which has taken this name from him is not extinct even today.

The translations of this passage are discussed in Josephus: Testimonium Flavianum from Jesus.com.au.

The second passage is from Book 20, Ch. 9, part 1:

...so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned...

(Note: The Antiquities can be found at several different sites, including the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Perseus Digital Library and Crosswalk.com)

>>5847514
Quite the opposite. The bible states that many will claim Jesus returned and is up in the mountains, or out in the desert, or over here, or over there. These are all antichrists.

When Jesus comes back, it will be after the sun and moon have gone dark, and His glorious appearance will be as lightning seen from the east to the west.

I'll be riding behind Him, hopefully somewhere near center front.

>>5847530
>Now there arose at this time a source of further trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed surprising works, a teacher of men who gladly welcome strange things. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied by the chief men around us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble, and the tribe of Christians, which has taken this name from him is not extinct even today.

this is the inserted one.

the second one refers to another guy named Jesus, who was executed and had a brother named James, who is also refereed to in acts I think. seminary was a while ago.

>>5847540
James is the younger brother of Jesus, who wrote James.

I hate to say this, but please check everything your seminary tells you with the bible, as a good Berean would.

>>5847536
I get that. i meant he certainly said he would return within the lifetime of at least some of his apostles. Is there any record that he did so?

>>5846607
No, I mean Gospel of Matthew and Luke paint a rather mundane image of him as a thinker/teacher/healer rather than as an overtly divine/abstract character like in John.

>>5847467
The Gospel is the good news. Namely, How Christ lived a life of perfect righteousness and offered himself in sacrifice as atonement for our sins. He did what we couldn't possibly do for ourselves. The good news that God is perfectly loving and just, having sacrificed his only son for us. It tells us how Faith, and faith alone, is the path to Salvation. Only by placing our completetrust in the Lord, can we partake in the fruits of his sacrifice. The Gospel is not only a historical document of the Christ, but an undeniable metaphysical, moral and spiritual truth.
SEE
>>5847246

>>5847550
Ah, I can speak to that.

When Jesus said that, it became known that He was talking about John the Beloved. Peter, in fact, got jealous and asked Jesus why John got picked for this honor. Jesus rebuked Peter, and said it was none of his business.

So the rumor started that John would never die. (Ironically, when Rome did try to kill John by boiling him in oil, they couldn't kill him. So they exiled him to the Island of Patmos.)

That's not what Jesus said, though. He said some, and in this case some means one, of His disciples would not die until he saw Jesus come in His glory.

That happened to John, on Patmos, in 95 AD, when he was whisked to our future by the Spirit of God, and saw the things he wrote in the Revelation.

So John was taken into our future, saw the Second Coming with his own eyes, and was returned to his time and place to write about it.

That is what Jesus meant by that statement.

>>5847495
> nobody collects tithes for Socrates
Nobody collects tithes for Christ either.
> condemn's you to hell for not accepting him.
Plato does! Most philosophers do if you denounce his method! I do!

>>5847554
> It tells us how Faith, and faith alone, is the path to Salvation.
Luther pls eat less faeces

>>5847552
Matthew wrote his gospel to the Jews, in Hebrew, apparently really bad Hebrew, to emphasize Jesus as the King of the Jews.

Luke wrote his gospel in Greek, to the Greeks, emphasizing Jesus as the Son of Man.

John wrote his gospel to the world, declaring that Jesus is God, and emphasizing His divinity as the Son of God.

Mark wrote Peter's gospel, emphasizing Jesus as the Suffering Servant, to the Romans.

Four gospels, in harmony, giving four facets of Jesus to four different audiences with four different emphases.

>>5847546
Well, we sort of had to read and reread the bible and every single relevant document several times. This James is not James, the brother of Jesus. but James the Bishop of Jerusalem.

>>5847578
John is certainly not in harmony with any of the synoptics.

>>5847554
I'm sorry, but this is demonstrably wrong. I would encourage you to focus on what the gospel is, and learn to present it to the lost.

Learn the difference between atonement and propitiation.

Learn what the sacrifice did, once and for all.

Learn what to tell people to do to enter into the New Covenant.

Learn that the gospel fixes what Adam broke.

The best source I can point you to is Living God Ministries.

Your understanding of these things must be better in order for you to do what you stated you want to do.

>>5847585
that is, he had a brother named Joshua, nut it's not the Son of Mary. James the bishop was stoned to death, the brother of Jesus was defenestrated.

>>5846273
This, Dinosaurs are a fucking paleontologist conspiracy. I dare any single one of you to post evidence for dinosaurs existing that does not rely on paleontology or archeology, fields which are EXPLICITLY biased in favor of their own belief systems. The fact that people who study dinosaurs agree that they exist means nothing except a conspiracy.

>>5847585
Jesus' brother James was the Bishop at Jerusalem; one of the "pillars of christianity" that Paul lamented about, and who taught him nothing.

Peter, James, and John were teaching the "gospel" in the Temple of Jerusalem, with no problem from the Jews.

There's a reason for that.

>>5847592
John's a bit much to reconcile, as he did not intend, and did not, write in any sort of chronological order. So while Luke might say A then B then C, John would say that C and A happened.

The gospels harmonize flawlessly when you don't make assumptions like "John wrote chronologically".

>they don't mention that Robert M. Price is a theologian
He's also an atheist. I'd say he's fairly unbiased in this debate. Do your homework, OP.

>>5847598
James, iirc, was cut in half. That's neither here nor there. The fact is, Josephus did more than make a passing mention of this poor travelling rabbi.

>>5847599
Marco Polo saw one that was terrorizing a Chinese village. I myself am hard pressed to tell the difference between a Komodo dragon, a 25' crocodile, and a dinosaur.

But to revere paleontologists flies in the face of their results. They categorized a juvenile T-Rex as a completely different dinosaur. Among other silly things.

>>5847612
No, he didn't. And there was no reason that he should. I'm not even sure why so many people think its important that he, or somebody did. If Josephus had written "Had breakfast with a guy who knew that guy Jesus that the Romans executed for sedition. This guy thought he was the messiah but there's a lot of that going around. We had fresh tangerines" What exactly would it prove? There are very few people who would deny that there was a guy named Jesus, that people in the first century claimed he was the messiah, or that the Romans executed somebody by that name.

>>5846273
but that was based on empirical evidence.

>>5847647
Then how did those few people find this thread?

And why did the Jews and Romans, both hostile to Christians, both killing Christians, have to account for Him nonetheless?

I posted the Josephus quote above; you can dig into it to your heart's content. I prefer Tacitus, myself:

Tacitus (c. A.D. 55 - c. A.D. 117)

Annals, book XV:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

>>5846227
>Bart Ehrman
>secular agnostic
>currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a leading scholar in his field, having written and edited over 25 books, including three college textbooks
>became an agnostic after struggling with the philosophical problems of evil and suffering.
Yeah, sounds like a real theologian and hardcore Christian.

>Robert M. Price
>"A former apologist turned atheist"

>Michael Grant
>A classicist who's translation of Tacitus remains an authoritative standard

>Robin Lane Fox
>Classicist and ancient historian, "Lane Fox is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and Reader in Ancient History, University of Oxford. Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College from 1977 to 2012, he serves as Garden Master and as Extraordinary Lecturer in Ancient History for both New and Exeter Colleges. He has also taught Greek and Latin literature and early Islamic history."

>Maurice Casey
>"He entered Durham University having intended to become an Anglican Minister, but changed his views in 1962 while completing his undergraduate degree in theology. Casey stated that he had not held any religious beliefs since."

>John Dominic Crossan
>Resigned from priesthood and asserts that miracles are a myth or parable

Yeah, all those damn religious people pointing out Jesus existed. And they're all actual historians and classicists to boot, they're not even theologians. I picked out all of those names from the same wikipedia article you quoted too.

>>5847667
Do you see from these examples why cautionary tales of seminaries and what they teach there must be taken seriously?

>>5846450
>>5846450
>I am buddhist, and christian

You're going to burn in hell heretic.

>>5847660
I don't dispute that Christianity existed, and that first-century Romans were aware of it, and the legends associated with it. It's Josephus's quotes I take issue with.

>>5847610
>Educates himself in theology when he's an atheist

Why do people willingly waste money like that? It's almost as ridiculous as being a pacifist cop.

>>5847713
Do you have any reason for your taking issue with him? Anything that completely changes the histories he wrote?

>>5847722
Other than the conflation of the "James the brother of Jesus" quote with the Messiah, and the insertion of the whole "wonder-worker" thing, I find Josephus almost embarrassingly candid and specific.

>>5846227
>"near unanimity"
>decide to go to google scholar
>"historical Jesus"
>over 1 million results discussing what the historical Jesus may have been like and what we can know about him
yeah i'm sure he never existed

>>5847731
google "i am a millionaire"
29 million results

>>5847736
nice analogy retard

>>5847729
A candid and specific historian.

That's the problem?

what is god without faith?
what is faith without god?

>>5847736
>scholars and historians assert that historical Jesus existed and write papers about what we can know about him
>other scholars assert that the majority of scholars and historians assert that a historical Jesus existed
>list of over a million academic papers written by scholars and historians discussing this figure
you got me with that stellar analogy though, guess all those historians and scholars are wrong.

>>5847729
Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" [12] and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation.[13][33][1][2][16] Moreover, in comparison with Hegesippus' account of James' death, most scholars consider Josephus' to be the more historically reliable.

Even wiki disagrees with your assessment.

>>5847769
>what is god without faith?
God.

>what is faith without god?
The ability to believe things you have not seen. Except, of course, you would not exist to ask this question, were there no God.

you are a retard op. Josephus was a Judeo-Roman scholar writing at the same time of Jesus and who mentioned him numerous times

>>5847778
nah. Nobody believes the "Christ" thing in Josephus.

>>5847805
Except for rational people, sure. Josephus is not saying Jesus is the Christ; he is saying people were calling Jesus the Christ.

Big difference, especially to Josephus.

>>5847809
He's not even saying that. To be fair, i wouldn't be surprised if Josephus knew all about the whole Christianity thing, I'd be surprised if he didn't actually, he just didn't consider it relevant to what he was recording, and it really wasn't. I think it's surprising that he even mentions James, the bishop of Jerusalem.

The problem is you have idiots like the self-published Richard Carrier who have an axe to grind and for whom it isn't enough to say as most scholars do that the story was simply mythologised. They have to assert it was invented from whole cloth. They then have the gall to turn around and accuse people like Ehrmann of having an agenda. Although I'd be curious to know what sort of agenda "a person existed around whom a cult was established but he obviously never performed the miracles attributed to him by said cult" is meant to promote.

>>5846270
>whether or not a website is credible is more important than whether an entire religion with over a billion followers is right or wrong.

>>5847822
So in your world, you can take what fairly contemporaneous historians write, and make their words meaningless, to suit your tastes.

That somehow Rome was not aware of christianity.

>>5847824
As long as it is Against Jesus, it serves the purposes of satan. All of satan's children do his work, mostly by lying, stealing, and killing.

>>5847842
I didn't say that. I'm sure Nero was quite aware of it, and the Flavians too. You have to realize though that it was just one of several Jewish cults at the time, some with messiahs, some awaiting messiahs, etc. Their differences were only important to themselves, and I doubt either the Romans or the Jewish scholars paid that much attention. As you can get from the Pauline epistles, there were a lot of different brands of Christianity at the time as well.

captcha: iesuaduvi neater

>>5846232
he's mentioned by Tacitus, not just the gospels

>>5847877
So if the Romans knew about it, i.e. Tacitus, above, the Roman historian, Josephus, knew about it.

You realize I point them out as hostile witnesses, yes? And they still do not dispute that Jesus lived?

>>5847891
He's mentioned by lots of people who lived later than the first century. hell, the middle ages wouldn't shut up about him. Contemporary references would be nice.

>captcha: iesuaduvi neater


Haha! 4chan miracle!

>>5847896
The dispute was never that some guy named Jesus lived, or even that he was executed. It's did he do and say what the second century scholars say he did and said.

>>5847908
That's not even close to being the question.

That you do not think the New Testament was written by eyewitnesses of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is already begging the question.

>>5847916
Nobody thinks that. Barring some hillbilly cultists.

>>5847919
The people who know that the Word of God was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God are called christians, and they are going to heaven.

Then there's your group.

>>5846433

Don't you mean the God believed in by Avicenna, ibn Hazm, and Al-Ghazali? Gee, those guys were pretty smart.

But you're right, the real Gods are the ones made up by some troop-haters in some suburb somewhere in Kansas.

>>5847900
Josephus

>>5847478
See this argument always gets me. How do you know these people were eyewitnesses to these events?

>>5847942
If you would read their gospels for yourself, you would know the answer to that question.

>>5847948
So one of them was a Baptist, big deal. They had little long term relationships with Jesus.

They could very easily have collaborated to form a new religion based on Jesus' aphoristic philosophy...

>>5847930
Nope.

If you do not have the Son, you do not have the Father.

>>5847977
No clue what you're on about; John the Baptist did not leave any writings behind.

Matthew was Levi, the disciple of Jesus.
John is John the Beloved, the disciple of Jesus.
Mark is John Mark, Peter's son.
Luke is Paul's doctor, who took all of the accounts and set them forth in good order.
Saul of Tarsis met the risen Jesus on the Road to Damascus, and spent many years with Jesus teaching the New Covenant.

All of these men were inspired by God, Who speaks the Truth, and Who caused all things to come into remembrance.

>>5847990
>Tarsis

Well you certainly seem like a credible scholar. :)

>>5847997
Some spell it Tarsus. I do not. Some spell it Tarshish. I do not.

Nor am I a "scholar".

>>5847929
It's the people who think the bible is the word of god that worry me, not the truly inspired.

>>5847978

What do you mean?

>>5847934
Josephus was in no sense a contemporary of Jesus. Any more than I'm a contemporary of Hitler

>>5847990
Bullshit. None of these people identified themselves as authors of the gospels, and their names weren't attached to them until long after the authors were dead.

>>5846227
Bart D Ehrman is an atheist and renowned scholar, you sound butt blasted.

>>5846621
That book is a load of shit, not even christian. Its on the same level as Guns germs and steel. The author cherrypicks verses from the bible that support his argument and then turns around and says the bible is fiction. Then he fills in the gaps with speculation. The truth is there is not enough information at all to completely confirm/deny the historical existence of Jesus.
thats just it.

>>5848023
The Bible is the word of God, but not in a Muslim sense where God said every word to the writers.

>>5848075
I don't buy it. The book was interpolated by idiots. God is smart.

>>5848023
Those are the truly inspired.

>>5848088
It is a blilliant book any way you look at it.

>>5848027
Jesus is the physical manifestation of God in the flesh, for the purposes of redeeming mankind.

Jesus is the Creator of the universe.

If you, or anyone, thinks that Jesus is just a man, and not God, you do not have the Son.

And as Jesus said, if you do not have the Son, you do not have YHWH. Of course, He was telling this to Jews who thought they already had YHWH, but did not.

It applies equally to all people. If you do not have Jesus as your God, you do not have God at all.

>>5848110
I do love the prose of the KJV, but no it's a lot of mishmash. God is not mocked, and this book mocks him relentlessly.

>>5848054
That is certainly your opinion, and you are entitled to your own opinion.

Just not to your own facts.

The historian Papias mentions that the gospel of Matthew was originally in Aramaic or Hebrew and attributes the gospel to Matthew the apostle.

"Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 180) continued Papias's views about Matthew and Mark and added his belief that Luke, the follower of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by that apostle, and that John, the Beloved Disciple, published his Gospel while residing in Asia. By the time of Irenaeus, Acts was also linked with Luke, the companion of Paul."

>>5848116
Nowhere in the bible is God mocked.

>>5848116
How does it mock him?

>>5848135
it presents him as a buffoon, a a whining jealous angry being seeking praise. No perfect being needs anything, especially not praise or worship.

>>5846227
Damn, OP you figured us out. It's a conspiracy of high-level academics at major universities around the world in favor of the existence, but not supernatural nature, of Jesus. We are a group of atheists with a very specific goal: to fool internet neets into believing that a human being named Jesus did in fact once exist.

You should write a letter to the deans of Oxford and Harvard, let them know that you know better than them.

>>5847942
>>5847948
>If you would read their gospels for yourself
That is actually an incredibly good answer. There is some difficult to refute evidence in the gospels themselves for a historical Jesus. It's only clear if you've got some background information on the Hebrew/Jewish culture going on at the time. One minor niggle is, how the hell did a group of Christians hundreds of years (this is the usual allegation) after "Christ" manage to get the right dates for the Passover and other Jewish holidays that occurred when forging these documents?

The major problem though is a medical one. First, ancient Jews were strictly forbidden from dissecting any human body. They were barely even allowed to touch a human corpse unless it was to bury it or other similar situations. So, we know these guys have no possible knowledge of internal anatomy, much less the specific processes that occur shortly after death. With that knowledge, we should look at the crucifixion scene carefully. Yeshua/Jesus is crucified, of course, and then dies. What happens much later? He's stabbed by a soldier (in the bible, named Longinus), and what comes out of his wound? Is it blood and guts? No, blood and water pours out of his wound.

Now, normally and intuitively one might just ascribe this to myth or lying or etc., but we know now that shortly after death your body ceases to metabolize water into blood. The crucifixion has pertinent and medically sound details, written in age where nobody had yet observed or would have been able to forge these details. The ancient Jews and Christians weren't even capable of lying about this, but there it is.

Also interesting,the account of Yeshua/Jesus before his death depicts him as "sweating blood", and some thousand years later, it's discovered that this is in fact an actual medical condition, called hematidrosis. It's even recorded in other ancient accounts (one regarding a Roman soldier who would sweat blood before every battle). When a person with hematidrosis becomes very stressed (like before marching into battle, or the night before you know will be tortured to death), they begin to sweat blood. We know that at the time of the earliest biblical documents we have, it would have been impossible for the writers to even have the knowledge to forge this medical information, and it aligns clearly with our current medical and anatomical knowledge.

The simplest explanation here isn't "well obviously ancient jews were time-travelers who jumped to the 20th century, read several medical encyclopaedias, then traveled back in time and shoved in some medical details nobody would be able to confirm for centuries", but "a bunch of guys observed another man with a rare medical condition sweating blood in a high-stress environment, and then after his death his body ceased to metabolize water, which was also observed and written down."

sorry for the tl;dr, but it's just some interesting points and food for thought.

>>5846579
Protestantism is founded on the rejection of the papacy and interpreting scripture in a stricter sense as the sole earthly authority of God. Some Protestants and Non-Denominationals take a literal interpretation of the bible, hence creationism.
do you follow a religion?
which bits of your holy book are false?
Christianity.
None, but we, unlike certain morons know the difference between alegory and historical accounts.
>muh sky wizards better than yours
Criticizing other people's religion while being religious is fucking stupid. Neither has more proof than the other that they are correct. Being one religion instead of another doesn't make you smarter than people of that religion.

Jesus was most likely a real person at least historically. The whole area of Judea was filled with "prophets and messiahs" so it makes sense at least one of them caught on and caused at least some of a fuss. His divinity is obviously embellished, but there is enough philosophy behind Christianity for it to have been a legitimate social/philosophical uprising considering they advocated collective ownership and lived as a commune, as well as associating with outcasts like prostitutes and lepers. When doubting the historical Jesus, what do you purpose as to the reality behind the "myth"? I vaguely remember one theory of the Roman's creating a messiah to make the region docile or something to that effect , but I'd be interest to know more

>>5849385
Well, you have to remember that "sweating blood" was a really common phrase for being under stress. Goes all the way back to the greeks, and any Sadducee would know it, and as far as anatomy, especially involving death and torture/execution, any early christian would be very familiar with it, as well as any kosher butcher (nobody was forbidden animal anatomy, which has a lot in common with human) but that doesn't really matter for the "water and blood" thing, since your "shortly after death" thing would be a day or so, and there would have to be water there in the first place. ("metabolize water into blood?" have YOU been forbidden all knowledge of human physiology too? Water would be absorbed by the colon.) Yeah if the ancient jews had had time travel and came into the present they must have gotten trolled thoroughly by the first guy they asked, which I guess is possible. I understand when they opened the ark of the covenant they found that Moses had painstakingly chiseled a hyperlink to a 4chan thread about the ten commandments, so maybe that's possible.

>>5849385
>Now, normally and intuitively one might just ascribe this to myth or lying or etc., but we know now that shortly after death your body ceases to metabolize water into blood. The crucifixion has pertinent and medically sound details, written in age where nobody had yet observed or would have been able to forge these details. The ancient Jews and Christians weren't even capable of lying about this, but there it is.

What the fuck. This in no way leads to any evidence of a historical jesus. People were crucified or stabbed after jesus. People also have oral traditions to pass on. This is just observing anyone with this condition die and then telling others about it, and this condition shows outside the body not within.

>sweating blood

Same deal