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Did Jesus really exist?

joobz said:
*crickets*
Do you think he'll admit the his error????
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I'm pretty sure he does it on purpose. The flaws in his argument have been pointed out too many times for him not to understand what he's doing wrong.
 
tsg said:
I'm pretty sure he does it on purpose. The flaws in his argument have been pointed out too many times for him not to understand what he's doing wrong.
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Oh, I know. I just thought it'd be fun to highlight his MO by bumping up all of the most recent examples of it.
 
joobz said:
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

How can something that only has hearsay evidence be the most proven historical event in history?

And how does a list of people who were killed have ANY bearing on that point? Does the number of people who were killed for robbery make robbery sacred?
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OH, c'mon joobz, are you seriously trying to tell me that the life and death of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is less reliable than a lesser witnessed and documented event like the life and death of John F. kennedy? I mean, THAT was only captured on film. Films can be faked, you know...
 
cj.23 said:
Secondly, arguably we do have sources in the Testimonium Flavium (controversial and difficult) and the Antiquities 20 sections of Josephus. More importantly, Jesus is ridicolously well attested by the normal standards Historians apply to the 1st century. Try and find me contemporary sources for Boudicca, Pontius Pilate (both significantly more important obviously) or say Theudas, John of Gamala and The Egyptian three other messianic figures mentioned in Josephus. What do you find? Now look at how many contemporary sources we have for two of the most important figures of Ancient History, Alexander the Great and Julius Ceasar, and the dates of the earliest extant manuscripts. None of this proves the depiction we have of this Jesus bloke is in any way accurate, but it is by normal historiographical standards almost certain.
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I'm not so sure you want to use Julius Caesar as an example since we have some of his actual writings, but the point is still sound.

Personally I don't really understand this seeming need to disprove the existence of Jesus.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
I'm not so sure you want to use Julius Caesar as an example since we have some of his actual writings, but the point is still sound.
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Yep, it's just as I'm writing on Virgil at the moment i happen to have looked up in bored curiosity the earliest extant manuscripts of a few people's books from the period. I think the earliest manuscripts of The Gallic War are tenth century? It's why I find the claim "well the Bible manuscripts are so late" so annoying, as they are historically well attested.

Of course even if we had original autographs from the day after event, that would tell us nothing about the truth of their claims. It's the misunderstanding of the way historians work and the nature of historical evidence which depresses me. :(

cj x
 
cj.23 said:
Yep, it's just as I'm writing on Virgil at the moment i happen to have looked up in bored curiosity the earliest extant manuscripts of a few people's books from the period. I think the earliest manuscripts of The Gallic War are tenth century? It's why I find the claim "well the Bible manuscripts are so late" so annoying, as they are historically well attested.

Of course even if we had original autographs from the day after event, that would tell us nothing about the truth of their claims. It's the misunderstanding of the way historians work and the nature of historical evidence which depresses me. :(

cj x
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Oh, sorry, is that what folks were complaining about in this thread? I'm afraid I hadn't read much of it and just assumed it was the same old -- but the gospels weren't written until at least 40 years after the fact and Paul's letters were at least 20-30 years after Jesus' death and he admittedly never met him during his life anyway. The only issue with the length of time lapsing between composition and surviving copies, at least as I see it for most of the survivals, is the possibility of transcription errors -- most of which are minor. We do have multiple copies of the New Testament showing what appear to be some deliberate changes based on orthodox ideology, but even those changes are not all that significant. And, of course, the Testamonium Flavium is highly controversial. Personally I think it is pretty clear that there is some alteration within it, but I don't know how anyone can decide between a partial interpolation and complete new creation.

When it comes to Caesar, though, we have not only the Gallic Wars but also The Civil War. I don't think many doubt the authorship, so this provides pretty darn good evidence of his existence. We, unfortunately, have no writings from Jesus, so his existence is less firm than Julius Caesar (though I don't doubt it for a minute) based on that criterion. Alexander I grant you fully since the only works I know of (and I am only vaguely interested in the subject) are from Plutarch, Arrian and Quintus Curtius Rufus -- all at least 300 years after Alexander died.

As to who Jesus really was, well that is open to significant interpretation. But consider this..........I'm watching a show about the Plague on the History Channel right now while wearing my Spamalot "I'm not dead yet" t-shirt. What are the chances?
 
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There's some lovely mud over here! :) Actually we can do better for Caesar - as well as his works we have contemporary references in Cicero and I think Virgil, and later accounts from Suetonius and Tacitus as I recall - the story of the Ides of March I think derives pretty much exclusively from Suetonius, without looking it up about a century later. I have never seen any real reason to doubt it though! Ceasar as Emperor is after all massively attested in material culture.

I did a thread on another forum looking at the "secular" sources for a Historical Jesus, and am always willing to reprise it if anyone is interested. I think Peter Kirby may have listed them all somewhere, possibly on the excellent Early Christian Writings website? Anyway I had a lot of fun doing it.

On Josephus & the TF yep I am certain there is an interpolation for obvious reasons, but when and why I know not. I suspect possibly a gloss may have been added to the text at some point. I have read a large amount of scholarship on the issue, from Richard Carrier through to NT Wright on the apologetics side, through to most of the articles in the Journal of New Testament Studies, and the JBL, and am not any clearer. :) I would have thought a computer analysis of style may have helped, though I believe a Coptic or Syriac ms with a TF variant emerged in the 70's. I lack the knowledge of Josephus' work to attempt any real critical comprehension on that one. Fun though!

cj x
 
ambnp said:
Paul wrote that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and was buried. He does not speak of a resuscitated lord. According to most biblical scholars this is the first mention and writings of Jesus's death. This is the sum total of what the christian church has in writing about the death and burial of Jesus until the eighth decade some fifteen or so years after Paul's writing, when the first gospel of Mark was written.
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I noticed you used the word "resuscitated" for some reason instead of Resurrected Lord. Paul definitely mentions the resurrected Lord as well as His human birth of a woman. Also Mathew is generally considered the first Gospel.
 
DOC said:
I noticed you used the word "resuscitated" for some reason instead of Resurrected Lord. Paul definitely mentions the resurrected Lord as well as His human birth of a woman. Also Mathew is generally considered the first Gospel.
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Thought Mark was considered to be the oldest and that Mathew and Luke either used Mark as a template and/or another - possibly Thomas or the postulated Q document, neither of which were included in the final canon.
 
Nogbad said:
Thought Mark was considered to be the oldest and that Mathew and Luke either used Mark as a template and/or another - possibly Thomas or the postulated Q document, neither of which were included in the final canon.
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Don't be silly. I goes Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so obviously Matthew is the oldest.
 
cj.23 said:
Of course even if we had original autographs from the day after event, that would tell us nothing about the truth of their claims.
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But would at least make us a fortune on e-bay.

Methinks I've just had an idea... :D
 
DOC said:
I noticed you used the word "resuscitated" for some reason instead of Resurrected Lord. Paul definitely mentions the resurrected Lord as well as His human birth of a woman. Also Mathew is generally considered the first Gospel.
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If I ever need to get defibbed, I'll really want a civil servant around to write it up later, when somebody else tells him a wee story about it.
 
DOC said:
I noticed you used the word "resuscitated" for some reason instead of Resurrected Lord. Paul definitely mentions the resurrected Lord as well as His human birth of a woman. Also Mathew is generally considered the first Gospel.
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Hearsay...
definitely not the most verified fact in history.
 
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