Historical Jesus

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IanS said:
We assume there were countless street preachers in first century Judea. But afaik we don't actually have any data for that
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We do have information on the (other) Jewish "false messiahs" which is indicative.
 
Jerrymander said:
The texts ARE evidence.
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Sigh. No, actually they're not.

Jerrymander said:
Just became you're inherently hostile to anything religious doesn't make them any different than other ancient texts (including those with supernatural elements).
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Projection.
Replace "religious" with "non-religious" and see.

Jerrymander said:
NT scholars do not simply take these texts at face value. They try to determine their origin and if it makes sense that there was a historical figure behind it all.
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They do a piss-poor job of it.

Jerrymander said:
Paul did not consider what he was writing sacred scripture, he was simply writing to people in various communities.
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So his claims can be safely ignored. Good that you accept this.

Jerrymander said:
You parallel the fundies in many ways.
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More projection.

Jerrymander said:
For the them, the texts are irreverent and truth by default. For you that are automatically lies and fables. For reasonable scholars, they are ancient texts.
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:rolleyes:

Jerrymander said:
And on the subject to hostility, you should talk to your friend dejudge.
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Again, :rolleyes:
 
Darat said:
I'm sorry you think that but I'm not. I again don't know what you are arguing about/for by making your post?
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You keep claiming that they we only have evidence in the Bible of a supernatural Jesus, I pointed to mundane things that could be evidence of a historical Jesus.
 
Jerrymander said:
You keep claiming that they we only have evidence in the Bible of a supernatural Jesus, I pointed to mundane things that could be evidence of a historical Jesus.
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Yes they could be. Which ones do think are evidence of a real Jesus? And note I say evidence. So that would be actual events, occasions and so on that are verifiable outside the evidence the Christians use to claim their mythical Jesus exists.
 
Darat said:
Yes they could be. Which ones do think are evidence of a real Jesus? And note I say evidence. So that would be actual events, occasions and so on that are verifiable outside the evidence the Christians use to claim their mythical Jesus exists.
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The same evidence that pointed to by mainstream scholars. You should read up on how ancient history works and not just New Atheist polemics.
 
Delvo said:
Matt Dillahunty (an atheist and magician) has done magic tricks for theists, then been told he had supernatural powers, then shown them exactly how the tricks really worked, then been told "that's not what you did the first time; the first time you used real magic".

Unfortunately, the instant somebody said that about him, he poofed out of existence, because a person about whom supernatural claims have been sincerely made can not exist.
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I expect most atheists here will know who Matt Dillahunty is. Certainly, if like me, they have watched him on "The Atheist Experience" for that last 14 years or more, then they will know him very well. And they will know that he performs magic tricks at dinner parties etc., and that it's something he was interested in since childhood. Though I don't know if he would call himself a "magician" as if in any professional or full-time sense of that term ... I get the impression it's more of a hobby for him and just something he enjoys.

However, his audience (you said they were theists?) would have to be extremely dumb to keep insisting that he had performed some actual "magic", i.e. a supernatural act, after he had just showed them how it was all just a trick.

But as far as Matt "poofing out of existence" - if you mean to claim that we should not doubt Matt's existence merely because some theists continued to believe that a miracle had happened even though Matt had just explained that it was just a trick, then we have to ask if there is any other evidence of Matt existing apart from a load of theists claiming that they had a holy book which proclaimed him a worker of constant miracles? ... so, what's the answer - is there any other evidence of Matt as a real person?

OK, so the answer is there is a mountain of undeniable evidence to actually prove Matt exists. But for Jesus? ... ahh, nothing at all .... so the analogy is a 100% failure.
 
Jerrymander said:
The Jesus of the Bible didn't just do supernatural things, he did mundane things or had mundane things done to him as well. He taught parables, he made speeches, he was baptized, he argued with religious leaders and was crucified.
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What a ridiculous argument!!!

The Devil did mundane things in the Bible--the Devil conversed with Jesus and was with him in Jerusalem at the Jewish Temple. See Matthew 4

The angel Gabriel did mundane things in the Bible -the angel Gabriel talked to Mary in the city of Galilee. See Luke 1

Even the Holy Ghost did mundane things in the Bible --the Holy Ghost impregnated a Virgin called Mary. See Matthew 1 and Luke 1.

Jerrymander said:
Take the supernatural stuff out of Mark and you still have a story.
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You forgot to tell us what kind of story you will have.

You will have fabricated a mundane fiction story from your imagination.

You have to make up your own story in order to argue your Jesus existed.

What name have you given the father of Jesus of Nazareth in your mundane story [the Gospel according to Jerrymander] ?
 
Darat said:
Look how quickly Scientology arose - there was no real Zenu.
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Scientology is a new religious movement and would not exist but for the existence of a "real" person at its core, namely L Ron Hubbard. Just as the Jesus story was a new religion which, I suggest, probably had a "real" person at its core as well.
 
Jerrymander said:
The texts ARE evidence.
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Well if by "the texts" you mean the gospels and Paul letters, they are indeed evidence. But in fact they are evidence very clearly showing that the Jesus stories were religious invention!

Afaik it's only 100 to 200 years (that's a short time in religious issues) that biblical scholars have slowly come to two crucial realisations - (1) the gospels were not written by any of the named disciple authors; they were anonymously written ... (2) the writing shows that none of those gospel writers had ever met any such as person as Jesus. In addition bible scholars have also of course realised that the miracle stories, which make up almost the entire content of the gospels, cannot be true. And similarly on Paul's letters the same generations of biblical scholars have slowly come to the realisation that Paul had clearly never met Jesus except in religious visions.


OK, the point is - those slow realisations and their acceptance by biblical scholars, theologians, and some church leaders, show that the evidence from those gospels and letters is actually evidence of creating a fictional Jesus from their religious beliefs/imagination.

So just to summarise & emphasise that -

(1) the gospels show clear evidence of copying Jesus stories from what had been written centuries before in the OT. That is very clear evidence against a HJ, because it shows the shows the source of their gospel stories and it shows the stories were being created from ancient religious myth. That is actually gospel evidence against a HJ.

(2) the gospels contain claims of Jesus miracles on virtual every page. That is clear evidence that the stories were invented myth. People did not realise that in biblical times. And bible scholars and church leaders did not know it until perhaps 100 - 200 years ago. But now everyone does know that such stories must be mythical. So that is again very clear evidence of created messiah myths in the gospels.

(3) for most of the past 2000 years almost everyone had thought that the gospels were written by actual eye-witness disciples of Jesus. But now all bible scholars have realised that closer examination of the words in those gospels, shows that they were not written by any actual disciples or any eye-witnesses. That again is very clear evidence of the authors trying to deceive readers with false stories about a Jesus who none of them had ever known. That again is direct evidence in the gospels against a HJ.


(4) the same is true for Paul's letters. They were once regarded as the strongest and most direct evidence of Jesus, because they were saiid to be the earliest writing (pre-dating the gospels), and unlike the gospels the letters are said to be written by the author himself. But again a more careful reading showed that Paul was describing a Jesus that he had only known in religious visions. And where he mentions more than 500 other people who had witnessed Jesus, but again if you look more carefully he only ever says that all of those others had also only "met" Jesus in religious visions. So that is also clearly evidence against a HJ ... because it is clear evidence that Paul was describing his religious beliefs (ie divine visions, voices from the heavens, a belief that it was all "according to scripture" and clear statements saying "it came from no man" and "nor was I taught it by anyone"). That is very clear evidence of religious mythical belief, and clear evidence against a real HJ.

So in summary - the biblical writing is indeed evidence. But it's actually very strong evidence against the reality of a HJ.
 
IanS said:
So just to summarise & emphasise that -
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Edited by zooterkin: 
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Don't waste your computer in vain. None of your arguments are definitive proof that Jesus the Galilean did not exist. There is nothing strange about a small sect attributing increasingly unbridled miraculous deeds to its failed prophet. It's called cognitive dissonance, and similar things have been seen many times in history. This may cast a serious shadow of doubt over the whole gospel narrative, but not necessarily over the prosaic existence of its "divine" patron. That is something really inconsequential.

By the way, St. Paul does claim to have spoken to people who knew Jesus directly "in the flesh". Don't make things up.

Edited by zooterkin: 
<SNIP>
Edited for rule rule 12.



Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
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