Religion

[domalino]

There's no conclusive historical evidence that he ever existed. The first person to write about him outside of the bible wasn't even born when he supposedly died.

But there is doubt about that.

There is absolutely no conclusive proof Jesus was real. None. If there is, let’s see it. Messages from which god? Horus was 3,000 years BC. Was god testing the water with him and the other dozen with the same story?

Also, no Roman record of him. The Jewish myth was a messiah was coming to kick their arse. According to the deluded, he attracted crowds of thousands, sauntered into Bethlehem on a donkey, the lazy bastard, crowds, palm leaves et al. The Romans where brutal with any potential threat to their Enoure, it’s well documented, but for some reason not a word, no one asked, should we send another Legion just in case? Nothing. It’s all absolute bollocks.

Josephus a Roman wrote nearly a century after and he mentioned Christians, not Christ.

No historical record. A dozen gods with the same story, most predating the tip toeing water acrobat, a bible that states light was switched on the third day. Adam and Eve started humanity through incest, the earth was at the centre of the Universe. The Sun orbited earth. For fuck sake, how can anybody believe anything other than the truth. He was fashioned from other previous gods, who all had to be born of a virgin or they couldn’t be gods.

Don’t get me started on the shit about Moses, Noah and his floating restaurant, that dozy **** who lived in a whale for a week, zombies coming out of graves and cutting about looking for a good coffee, after he snuffed it. A virgin birth. Raising people from the dead. Dying and putting in an appearance so he didn’t miss out on an Easter egg. Floating up to heaven. Satan cutting about and god turning a bling eye. A talking snake, a burning bush, parting seas, god being an enthusiastic genocidal ****, killing babies for being born into the wrong family. And that’s just of the top of my highly intelligent, gloriously fabulously haired head.

It’s a sham.

Yeah sorry guys but this is bollocks. Josephus, Tacitus and Thallus are all very good sources for the existence of Jesus and far from not being born when Jesus died, Thallus’ writings are from 20 years after his death.

These are Roman historians, so “No Roman record of him” is factually wrong.

To quote the wiki (people can go and check the half a dozen sources for this sentence themselves)

“Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.”

It’s not that surprising that this thread which becomes a bit militantly atheist at times would throw up complete denialism of something there’s pretty widespread consensus over, but frankly we have more and better sources for Jesus being a real person than we have for most ancient historical figures of the time.

 

[Magicpole]

Yeah sorry guys but this is bollocks. Josephus, Tacitus and Thallus are all very good sources for the existence of Jesus and far from not being born, Thallus’ writings are from 20 years after his death.


To quote the wiki (people can go and check the half a dozen sources for this sentence)

“Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.”

Wikipedia is written by anyone. That’s as close to a reliable source as my taxi driver regarding the damage immigrants bring. The fact that the son of god turned up and you named three people tells you everything you should need to know.

 

[aguero93:20]

Yeah sorry guys but this is bollocks. Josephus, Tacitus and Thallus are all very good sources for the existence of Jesus and far from not being born, Thallus’ writings are from 20 years after his death.


To quote the wiki (people can go and check the half a dozen sources for this sentence)

“Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.”

Tacitus spoke of him in AD 116 and Josephus wasn't born until 20 years after Jesus died and didn't mention anything about Christians until AD 93. Neither give any indication of a primary source.

Thallus is highly tenous at best, he didn't even write about that era, but rather a couple of centuries beforehand and if I'm not mistaken he wrote mostly about Greece. His sole inclusion in this debate is due to being quoted as referring to a possible solar eclipse around AD 30 or so.

 

[vmsuhail]

There's no conclusive historical evidence that he ever existed. The first person to write about him outside of the bible wasn't even born when he supposedly died.

Would you dismiss Paul's writings if they were not part of the Bible ?

 

[domalino]

Wikipedia is written by anyone. That’s as close to a reliable source as my taxi driver regarding the damage immigrants bring. The fact that the son of god turned up and you named three people tells you everything you should need to know.

Which is why I said you can go and check out the peer reviewed sources and historians for the sentence yourself.

 

[domalino]

Tacitus spoke of him in AD 116 and Josephus wasn't born until 20 years after Jesus died and didn't mention anything about Christians until AD 93. Neither give any indication of a primary source.

Yeah this is completely routine for anything about antiquity.

 

[aguero93:20]

Would you dismiss Paul's writings if they were not part of the Bible ?

Part of the bible or not, I don't accept them as a primary historical source.

 

[vmsuhail]

Part of the bible or not, I don't accept them as a primary historical source.

Is it because of the content or some other reason ?

 

[tonea2003]

Maybe they could also explain why everyone on that list is considered mythical but Jebus was real.

Real as in just another man living at that time
Or the son of god as described in the bible

 

[aguero93:20]

Is it because of the content or some other reason ?

Firstly and most importantly, he wasn't one of the 12 apostles, so he's a secondary source at best.
Secondly, his authorship of the epistles is under question, even Christian scholars by and large don't believe he wrote all of them.
Thirdly and probably least importantly, those writings weren't collated and published (heavily filtered, redacted and edited) until the 5th century AD.

 

[domalino]

If people want to decide that 4 independent sources written within 100 years of something happening is not strong evidence then that’s fine, but if you apply that burden of proof to everything then you’re wiping out the majority of recorded history which seems like an odd stance to take and one that very clearly puts you at odds with the majority.

 

[tonea2003]

There is absolutely no conclusive proof Jesus was real. None. If there is, let’s see it. Messages from which god? Horus was 3,000 years BC. Was god testing the water with him and the other dozen with the same story?

Also, no Roman record of him. The Jewish myth was a messiah was coming to kick their arse. According to the deluded, he attracted crowds of thousands, sauntered into Bethlehem on a donkey, the lazy bastard, crowds, palm leaves et al. The Romans where brutal with any potential threat to their Enoure, it’s well documented, but for some reason not a word, no one asked, should we send another Legion just in case? Nothing. It’s all absolute bollocks.

Josephus a Roman wrote nearly a century after and he mentioned Christians, not Christ.

No historical record. A dozen gods with the same story, most predating the tip toeing water acrobat, a bible that states light was switched on the third day. Adam and Eve started humanity through incest, the earth was at the centre of the Universe. The Sun orbited earth. For fuck sake, how can anybody believe anything other than the truth. He was fashioned from other previous gods, who all had to be born of a virgin or they couldn’t be gods.

Don’t get me started on the shit about Moses, Noah and his floating restaurant, that dozy **** who lived in a whale for a week, zombies coming out of graves and cutting about looking for a good coffee, after he snuffed it. A virgin birth. Raising people from the dead. Dying and putting in an appearance so he didn’t miss out on an Easter egg. Floating up to heaven. Satan cutting about and god turning a bling eye. A talking snake, a burning bush, parting seas, god being an enthusiastic genocidal ****, killing babies for being born into the wrong family. And that’s just of the top of my highly intelligent, gloriously fabulously haired head.

It’s a sham.

Had this argument before and got shouted down because Bart ehrman says so
But apart from Josephus which is scant at best
There is absolutely no corroboration to the anonymous written decades after gospels
Anywhere that Jesus was an actual real person let alone be a deity

 

[tonea2003]

If people want to decide that 4 independent sources written within 100 years of something happening is not strong evidence then that’s fine, but if you apply that burden of proof to everything then you’re wiping out the majority of recorded history which seems like an odd stance to take and one that very clearly puts you at odds with the majority.

Mate they are not independent
Luke and Matthew are almost certainly copied from mark as is john
Not sure which one without a bit of research but one corrects marks mistakes to make look better

 

[domalino]

Mate they are not independent
Luke and Matthew are almost certainly copied from mark as is john
Not sure which one without a bit of research but one corrects marks mistakes to make look better

I’m not talking about the gospel, which would be pretty obvious if you’d read literally any of the preceding comments in this thread.

 

[tonea2003]

I’m not talking about the gospel, which would be pretty obvious if you’d read literally any of the preceding comments in this thread.

Apologies I dip in and out of this thread periodically so forgive me for thinking 4 independent sources are the 4 gospels
What did you mean then?

 

[domalino]

Apologies I dip in and out of this thread periodically so forgive me for thinking 4 independent sources are the 4 gospels
What did you mean then?

Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, Suetonius.

The 4 of them together amount to more historical evidence than we have more most things going on in antiquity.

Add that to all the Christian writings and it becomes very hard for anyone to convincingly dispute the existence of a historical person without raising the bar of evidence so high that you wipe out thousands of years worth of history for which we only have a couple of surviving sources which is why this really isn’t a controversial topic.

 

[vmsuhail]

Firstly and most importantly, he wasn't one of the 12 apostles, so he's a secondary source at best.
Secondly, his authorship of the epistles is under question, even Christian scholars by and large don't believe he wrote all of them.
Thirdly and probably least importantly, those writings weren't collated and published (heavily filtered, redacted and edited) until the 5th century AD.

He doesn't have to be a disciple to take his works as proof of the existence of Christ. He was a contemporary, with a distinct ideology that has played a role in shaping Christianity as we see today.
Some of the epistles are doubted, but majority are still attributed to him.
Of course, we are not going to find the original writing for most historical works. The earliest manuscripts of Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" are from 11th century. So why should this work get any more credibility than Paul's epistles ?

 

[Magicpole]

Mate they are not independent
Luke and Matthew are almost certainly copied from mark as is john
Not sure which one without a bit of research but one corrects marks mistakes to make look better

And don’t forget those names where attributed to anonymous authors. All contradicted each other. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a good sign.

 

[tonea2003]

And don’t forget those names where attributed to anonymous authors. All contradicted each other. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a good sign.

Each version of Jesus are totally different as well

 

[aguero93:20]

He doesn't have to be a disciple to take his works as proof of the existence of Christ. He was a contemporary, with a distinct ideology that has played a role in shaping Christianity as we see today.

According to Paul himself in the New Testament he never met the man.