Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[Brainache]

Re. the highlights - I did not say they were supernatural. I said that the bread and wine story may have come from the DSS Essene's, and we had precisely that discussion here before, many pages back. It's symbolic of religious beliefs about sacrifice unto a supernatural God in the heavens.

As far as what you called "parables" are concerned - which ones, what do they say? If they are talking about words believed at that time to be of great messianic wisdom and insight etc., then that is how I previously described them.

What do you claim is any evidence of Jesus as living human? That is the only relevant question here (the rest is smokescreen of continuous prevarication and avoidance).

Could someone please ask IanS where he is getting his 200 BCE date for the DSS?

I've asked him before but he never answered.

I'd ask him myself, but he gave up responding to me after he ran away from my dismantling of his reading of Paul.

 

[IanS]

That's what I mean. I am of the opinion that some were written by Paul, and others by other people, whose names I don't know. I merely asked for your opinion on this. You refer to Paul. Do you think any of this material was written by Paul, or do you agree with dejudge that it is all fiction concocted a century later? I see. Everything is now very clear. Thank you. However, given this dismissive response to my request for sources for your statements, it is remarkable that you can describe my #786 as unevidenced. In any case it consists of statements seeking mere comments from you, which you may give or not as you please.

May I also state that you are becoming unnecessarily abrasive, to put it mildly. These threads are intended for an exchange of ideas, but you seem to prefer disparagement to discussion. That is a pity. It's negative and uninformative.

I am not becoming abrasive at all ("unnecessarily" or otherwise). As I said to David Mo some pages back, I am simply losing patience with the prevarication and diversions into all sorts of things except for any clear answer as to what anyone here thinks is actually credible verifiable evidence of Jesus as a real person.

So far, several people have in the end told us that their evidence is the bible. And Foster Z has just told us that the fact that the religion eventually grew and spread, is evidence that Jesus was indeed a real human person.

But of course, neither of those things are in any sense actually evidence of Jesus at all. They are only evidence of peoples religious beliefs.

What is required is anything like the sort of evidence that we have for other figures of the time such as Roman emperors. Not necessarily the huge mountains of museums full of such robust verifiable evidence, but at least a few pieces of genuine verifiable evidence of that sort.

But in the case of Jesus, despite authorities such as Bart Ehrman writing books about it in which he says the evidence makes it “certain” that Jesus existed, it seem nobody here can actually cite any such genuine evidence of a human Jesus (except for the preaching of religious beliefs in the bible … but religious beliefs in a messiah that none of them ever knew, are of course not in themselves evidence of Jesus as a real person).

 

[IanS]

What "data" ? I said I was 60% convinced. It's my opinion.
.

Belz - with all due respect, when you make a statement like that, saying you are 60-40 "convinced" Jesus was indeed a real person, that statement literally does mean you believe that he did exist.

By saying it's "60-40" you are expressing a considerable level of hesitation or caution in that view. But nevertheless, what your words actually mean is that on balance you do believe Jesus existed.

If you meant to say something else, such as perhaps saying something like "I don’t know either way if he did or did not exist, I think he might well have done, but I do not have any firm opinion either way", if you had something like that then fine, but that sort of statement is quite different from you saying you are 60-40 convinced that he was real.

 

[davefoc]

...

But of course, neither of those things are in any sense actually evidence of Jesus at all. They are only evidence of peoples religious beliefs.

...

Evidence is an ambiguous word. In the legal sense all it means is information presented in court, whether true or not, that is used to support a case.

In the non-legal sense the word takes on the meaning that the user assumes it has. Some people equate evidence with proof. At the other extreme some people use the word to mean anything that would suggest a premise is true in the slightest way. Probably the definition assumed by most people resides some place between the two extremes.

I don't know what you mean by the word, evidence, when you use it but probably by your definition of the word you are right. You might not be right by somebodyelse's definition of the word, me for instance.

The fact that somebody set down information about a person whether in a religious book or not and presented it in a way that suggests he meant it to be taken as non-fiction is evidence of the existence that the person described existed. It might be weak evidence and without corroboration it doesn't approach proof that the person existed but by my definition of the word, evidence, it is evidence.

What I am suggesting above is that people arguing about whether something is evidence or not is pointless unless they carefully define what they mean by the word.

This thread has gone on for a long time with very little discussion of substantive issues. Mostly, in my view, because of the desire by some people to ignore what people are saying or to interpret what people are saying in simplistic ways so they can make repetitive posts using their stock phrases and interpretations on this subject. No research and no thinking required.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Not true (re the highlighted), and that's why jurors are mandated to reach their opinion only on the basis of being "beyond all reasonable doubt".

In which country is this the standard practice? "Beyond reasonable doubt" of what, innocence or guilt? Are you saying that a juror cannot vote "not guilty" unless he is 100% positive that the defendant is innocent?

On the overall claim that you are trying to make, you are wrong. If someone says that on balance, ie greater than 50-50, they believe something is true (eg the existence of Jesus). Then that is a statement of positive belief.

No it isn't. If someone says that he is certain that God exists, then that is a statement of positive belief. If someone says that he is certain that gods do not exist, then that is a statement of positive belief. If someone says, "I have no belief in gods but I don't know that they do not exist. I rate the probability that gods exist to be extremely small", that is not a statement of positive belief in the nonexistence of gods.

You appear to be making up your own rules regarding epistemology. Like I said, there's no point debating someone who's arguments go wrong at such a fundamental level. It's like trying to debate evolution with someone who thinks that it violates the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[davefoc]

...

If you meant to say something else, such as perhaps saying something like "I don’t know either way if he did or did not exist, I think he might well have done, but I do not have any firm opinion either way", if you had something like that then fine, but that sort of statement is quite different from you saying you are 60-40 convinced that he was real.

You are touching on what is a semantic issue that I have mused about a bit. I actually take Belz's quantification of his view about the probability of the existence of an HJ to mean pretty much what you say it does not:

"I don’t know either way if he did or did not exist, I think he might well have done, but I do not have any firm opinion either way"

I think a difficulty here, that HansMunsterman has dealt with a bit is that there are two levels of uncertainty that we are dealing with in this question: 1. what are the chances that an HJ existed. 2. What is the reliability of the information the we can base an estimate of the reliability of an answer to the question about whether and HJ existed or not.

I have come around to the idea that HM might be right with regards to an answer to question 2. There is just not enough reliable evidence to make a reliable estimate to an answer for question 1. (My apologies to HM if I have mischaracterized his view). So HM's answer to question one is just the simple statement that he doesn't know the answer.

I contrast this situation with trying to make a prediction about what side of a six sided die will land up. There is a lot of good evidence to think that a particular number will come up one sixth of the time. Any estimate about the possible existence of an HJ is mired in multiple layers of uncertainty, not the least of which is exactly what would constitute an HJ.

ETA: I don't think Belz is saying that there is enough reliable information to make a good estimate of the probabilities when he provides an estimate of his personal assessment of the situation. I think, he has attempted to just consolidate his view of a lot of conflicting and unreliable information into a single number. My guess, assuming that Belz's view is similar to mine is that he would admit to a large possibility that his assessment of the probability might not be very accurate. The bottom line here, I think, is that HM's idea that the truth about this is unknowable. There is just too long a period around the time of the origin of Christianity where there is no information or only unreliable information available to make a reliable guess to what went on. Sometimes we just don't friggin know and never will know. And this looks like one of those times to me.

 

[Belz...]

Belz - with all due respect, when you make a statement like that, saying you are 60-40 "convinced" Jesus was indeed a real person, that statement literally does mean you believe that he did exist.

No. I don't know how else to tell you: No, that's not what it means.

By saying it's "60-40" you are expressing a considerable level of hesitation or caution in that view. But nevertheless, what your words actually mean is that on balance you do believe Jesus existed.

On the balance. It's not a belief in Jesus, man or otherwise.

But since ballpark, BS numbers seem to confuse many posters, here, how about I retract the thing entirely, assume you're right about it meaning that I believe in Jesus, and instead say this:

"I don't know whether Jesus existed, but I'm leaning towards yes." ? Does that still mean I believe in him, or did the lack of numerals magically remove this connection ?

If you meant to say something else, such as perhaps saying something like "I don’t know either way if he did or did not exist, I think he might well have done, but I do not have any firm opinion either way"

You will not succeed in making me adopt your own opinion.

 

[Craig B]

Brigham knew Joe personally so unless you want to claim that Paul and Jesus were good friends your comparison is false.

Tsig, I was joking because I thought you were being mildly facetious. Seemingly you're deadly serious. Very well.

Evidence that suggests that a particular wandering preacher really existed is of a different order from evidence that indicates that a supernatural being exists. The existence of wandering preachers is well attested; they abounded in first century Judaea, as they abound in many a land today. The question is, if a particular named one happened to exist - not whether that category of being exists. It does.

Thus, to say that something is evidence that a particular person exists is not to say that such evidence is adequate to sustain the hypothesis that a supernatural being exists. To find archaeological proof that, for example, King David really existed (I've no idea whether he did or not) would not prove that the god YHWH exists, even though the written records which tell us that David did exist, also tell us that YHWH does too. The standards of proof required respectively to prove the existence of David and of YHWH are different. Do you understand that? It is because we know that kings exist, and therefore maybe this one did, but we don't know that gods exist, so we can't say well maybe this one does.

So me saying maybe Jesus existed or maybe Joseph Smith, is not like saying the angels Gabriel or Moroni exist. Is it? No.

Now, to examine the point you make. Paul claimed a relationship with a resurrected Jesus in the sky. Do I think he really had one? No. Even if I was certain that rabbi Yeshua the Nazarene existed, would I therefore believe in Paul's talking light in the sky? No. So it doesn't matter for this purpose whether Paul knew Jesus or not. Paul believed he was getting messages from Jesus. That has nothing to do with whether a human Jesus had previously existed, does it? It has to do with events occurring inside Paul's brain. It is not affected in the least by the existence or non-existence of Jesus.

 

[IanS]

The fact that somebody set down information about a person whether in a religious book or not and presented it in a way that suggests he meant it to be taken as non-fiction is evidence of the existence that the person described existed. It might be weak evidence and without corroboration it doesn't approach proof that the person existed but by my definition of the word, evidence, it is evidence.

Well ... you have to be careful to ensure that what you call "evidence", is actually evidence of that which you are claiming. As opposed to being evidence of something else entirely.

In your above example - the fact that, as you say, "somebody set down information about a person in a religious book", is not evidence that what he set down about that person was actually true. And the fact of whether the writer may or may not have, as you say, "meant it to be taken as non-fiction", is again not evidence that the writer was either correct in what he wrote or even telling the truth about what he wrote. What the author wrote is not in itself evidence of the truth of which he writes.

What would be evidence that the author had indeed written truth, would be something verifiable as a fact supporting what the author had said. That's what is needed to make it evidence of that which the author claims ... not merely the authors written claim itself.

However, in the case of Paul's letters and the canonical gospels, what those authors wrote or preached about Jesus, whilst no doubt at the time considered so wonderful that it simply had to be true, has since been discovered to be physically impossible. Their descriptions of Jesus do not merely contain one or two claims which are probably untrue or fictional. They are absolutely packed with claims that are now known to be completely untrue and impossible supernatural fiction.

Afaik, there is actually nothing at all in that biblical writing which is evidence of anything other than the authors religious beliefs. Certainly not any evidence presented to show that their beliefs about Jesus were ever true.

But against that, the continuous mass of highly incrementing impossible claims, is most certainly "evidence" that none of those biblical writers should be believed in anything they wrote in the bible, unless there is very clear and verifiable external independent non-religious evidence to confirm any of it.

 

[Craig B]

I am not becoming abrasive at all ("unnecessarily" or otherwise). As I said to David Mo some pages back, I am simply losing patience with the prevarication and diversions into all sorts of things except for any clear answer as to what anyone here thinks is actually credible verifiable evidence of Jesus as a real person.

That accusation of prevarication is unacceptable from you. I provided you with a post discussing why the NT contains evidence of a possible Jesus, human of course. And you refused to read it, and gave me a contemptuous response when I asked you if you had. Now you're going on about other people's prevarications and diversions. You are losing patience, are you? How sorry I am to be responsible for that, my dear sir!

Well my patience is also exhausted. Go back and read what I wrote to you before making any more such accusations of prevarication.

ETA Moreover, when I asked you for sources for this, did you provide them?

Originally Posted by IanS... Paul, saying that he was consulting the OT, added his belief that the messiah was someone of the past called "Yehoshua" who had been persecuted unto death according to what Paul says he believed was written in the OT.

You did not.

 

[IanS]

But since ballpark, BS numbers seem to confuse many posters, here, how about I retract the thing entirely, assume you're right about it meaning that I believe in Jesus, and instead say this:

"I don't know whether Jesus existed, but I'm leaning towards yes." ? Does that still mean I believe in him, or did the lack of numerals magically remove this connection ?

OK, well if you wrote instead the highlighted sentence, saying you were leaning towards thinking he did exist, then you would be in exactly the position that some of us have put repeatedly to you, where we asked "in that case, if you are leaning towards thinking Jesus existed, what evidence are you using to persuade you in that direction?" ....

... unless you can cite some clear evidence for that sort of leaning, then the point is (as I have said many times before), what you are really doing is coming to your view on some other basis but not on any actual evidence that you can cite for the existence of Jesus ... you are, presumably coming to that sort of view by thinking that the religious beliefs stated in the bible must surely contain something useful which you can't quite put your finger on!

 

[Craig B]

... unless you can cite some clear evidence for that sort of leaning, then the point is (as I have said many times before), what you are really doing is coming to your view on some other basis but not on any actual evidence that you can cite for the existence of Jesus ... you are, presumably coming to that sort of view by thinking that the religious beliefs stated in the bible must surely contain something useful which you can't quite put your finger on!

And I have explained what is meant by NT evidence, and you contemptuously refused to read it, IanS.

 

[Brainache]

And I have explained what is meant by NT evidence, and you contemptuously refused to read it, IanS.

The point seems to be winning, rather than actually solving the problem.

 

[IanS]

That accusation of prevarication is unacceptable from you. I provided you with a post discussing why the NT contains evidence of a possible Jesus, human of course. And you refused to read it, and gave me a contemptuous response when I asked you if you had. Now you're going on about other people's prevarications and diversions. You are losing patience, are you? How sorry I am to be responsible for that, my dear sir!

Well my patience is also exhausted. Go back and read what I wrote to you before making any more such accusations of prevarication.

ETA Moreover, when I asked you for sources for this, did you provide them? You did not.

Craig - how many posts are there in these several concurrent HJ threads? How many times have we been over all of these points? I don’t believe that the post you refer to, contains anything new which we have not already discussed many times in these threads.

That's why I am losing patience with it. Because we have been over all of it many times ... and still without anyone being able to cite any genuine credible verifiable evidence of Jesus except for the discredited miracle filled religious writing of the bible.

What is needed is something which corroborates what is written about Jesus in the bible, from an independent non-religious source that is credible in what the authors say, and verifiable at least to some genuine degree.

But what is not credible as evidence of a human Jesus, is to cite biblical writing that is stacked full of untrue statements in almost every relevant mention of Jesus.

If you assure me that the post which you refer too, is not once again citing the bible statements as evidence of Jesus, then I will by all means go back and read what you have written, and respond honestly and openly to what you say. But was that post of yours relying on the bible as evidence, or not?

 

[Belz...]

OK, well if you wrote instead the highlighted sentence, saying you were leaning towards thinking he did exist, then you would be in exactly the position that some of us have put repeatedly to you, where we asked "in that case, if you are leaning towards thinking Jesus existed, what evidence are you using to persuade you in that direction?" ....

Would pointing out that this has been repeatedly answered count ?

Also, you have failed to answer my question: would you still claim that I believe in Jesus if I amended my statement so ?

 

[Craig B]

Craig - how many posts are there in these several concurrent HJ threads? How many times have we been over all of these points? I don’t believe that the post you refer to, contains anything new which we have not already discussed many times in these threads.

That's why I am losing patience with it. <snip>

If you assure me that the post which you refer too, is not once again citing the bible statements as evidence of Jesus, then I will by all means go back and read what you have written, and respond honestly and openly to what you say. But was that post of yours relying on the bible as evidence, or not?

Not only are you losing patience, but now you're demanding assurances regarding the arguments I choose to use, before you will deign to read what I have written to you? I don't feel I can comment on that. Have a nice day!

 

[IanS]

I think a difficulty here, that HansMunsterman has dealt with a bit is that there are two levels of uncertainty that we are dealing with in this question: 1. what are the chances that an HJ existed. 2. What is the reliability of the information the we can base an estimate of the reliability of an answer to the question about whether and HJ existed or not.

I have come around to the idea that HM might be right with regards to an answer to question 2. There is just not enough reliable evidence to make a reliable estimate to an answer for question 1. (My apologies to HM if I have mischaracterized his view). So HM's answer to question one is just the simple statement that he doesn't know the answer.

Well, do you think the above (highlighted) is any different to what I have consistently said throughout all these HJ threads?

What I have said all the way through is that since we do not have any truly reliable independent evidence of a real human Jesus outside of what was written in a bible discredited by what is now known to an absolute mass of untrue supernatural claims in almost every passage about Jesus, we are left in a position of having in all honesty to say that the lack of any such truly credible evidence for Jesus means we cannot logically and honestly say more than we just don’t know if he did exist or not ...

... but certainly, on that basis of the bible "as evidence", and on the negative side for Jesus, there really is not any credible verifiable evidence of Jesus there in the bible. That is a lack of the necessary evidence for Jesus.

And also on the negative side, what you most certainly can cite as actual evidence to the contrary, is the fact that in the biblical writing (which is our only known original source for any mention of Jesus) the way Jesus is described all throughout the NT bible, is most definitely very real and indisputable evidence that those biblical authors wrote fictional accounts of Jesus and that they are therefore according to real verifiable evidence, not to be trusted in what they wrote about Jesus in the bible. That is positive verifiable and abundant evidence against the truth of our only known original source of any mention of Jesus.

What do I personally conclude from that? I conclude that Jesus may or may not have lived as a real 1st century preacher of some sort. Though not as described throughout the bible. And where there appears to be no credible verifiable evidence of him as a human person.

 

[Brainache]

Well, do you think the above (highlighted) is any different to what I have consistently said throughout all these HJ threads?

What I have said all the way through is that since we do not have any truly reliable independent evidence of a real human Jesus outside of what was written in a bible discredited by what is now known to an absolute mass of untrue supernatural claims in almost every passage about Jesus, we are left in a position of having in all honesty to say that the lack of any such truly credible evidence for Jesus means we cannot logically and honestly say more than we just don’t know if he did exist or not ...

... but certainly, on that basis of the bible "as evidence", and on the negative side for Jesus, there really is not any credible verifiable evidence of Jesus there in the bible. That is a lack of the necessary evidence for Jesus.

And also on the negative side, what you most certainly can cite as actual evidence to the contrary, is the fact that in the biblical writing (which is our only known original source for any mention of Jesus) the way Jesus is described all throughout the NT bible, is most definitely very real and indisputable evidence that those biblical authors wrote fictional accounts of Jesus and that they are therefore according to real verifiable evidence, not to be trusted in what they wrote about Jesus in the bible. That is positive verifiable and abundant evidence against the truth of our only known original source of any mention of Jesus.

What do I personally conclude from that? I conclude that Jesus may or may not have lived as a real 1st century preacher of some sort. Though not as described throughout the bible. And where there appears to be no credible verifiable evidence of him as a human person.

What do you think about Josephus mentioning Jesus' Brother James?

ETA: This bit:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/antiquities-jews/book-20/chapter-9.html

...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: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified...

 

[IanS]

Also, you have failed to answer my question: would you still claim that I believe in Jesus if I amended my statement so ?

If you said that you were just ” leaning" towards that view, then I think that would be a statement of you leaning towards belief in Jesus, but without giving any clear evidential reason for that leaning.

IOW, when you use a very vague term like "leaning", what you presumably mean is that you are ”thinking that he might" be real, but you would not like put any figure on that thought, nor make any more clear statement about the origin of that thinking.

 

[Belz...]

If you said that you were just ” leaning" towards that view, then I think that would be a statement of you leaning towards belief in Jesus, but without giving any clear evidential reason for that leaning.

IOW, when you use a very vague term like "leaning", what you presumably mean is that you are ”thinking that he might" be real, but you would not like put any figure on that thought, nor make any more clear statement about the origin of that thinking.

I conclude that you are unwilling to answer my question. Presumably you realise how silly your accusation of belief on my part were, now that the numbers are removed.