Okay, convince me Jesus existed.

[RandFan]

or that jesus was queer..... (he hung out with 12 guys, and never married)
or that jesus was a witch..... (turning water to wine...wow...now that's magick!)

Agreed.

 

[Dayan81]

...It would be akin to claiming that Jesus wasn't circumcised, wore robes woven of cotton and wool, ate shell fish and kept the Sabbath for a few hours on Sunday.

I shall never forget the day when I was told that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Christian.

 

[RandFan]

I shall never forget the day when I was told that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Christian.

Oh I know. This was one of the few significant things I figured out on my own from a fairly young age and it really caused me a great deal of dissonance.

Later I learned that what Christians believe, that their faith is largely consistent all the way back to Christ, is a myth. That is demonstrably untrue. Followers of Christ were Jews. They didn't reject Judaism. They didn't go around spouting "cleanliness is next to godliness". They didn't say "god helps those who help themselves". They didn't go to Church. They often went to temple. The "Church" was the body of Jews who believed that Christ held some importance. Most salient was that the importance of the story of Christ was not universally agreed on. What we now see as a largely unified belief system (that is forever fracturing and causing wars) was the result of concerted effort to expunge diverse thought through writing (the New Testament) the Councils of Nicaea and many told and discussions and debates.

 

[bikerdruid]

I shall never forget the day when I was told that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Christian.

sadly, it is a common fundamentalist delusion.
the irony of accepting every word in the bible as absolute truth, except the bits about tolerance and that jesus was a jew, is staggering.

 

[mrgrouch]

using biblical writings to prove the existence of jesus is like using dc comics to prove the existence of superman.

 

[bikerdruid]

using biblical writings to prove the existence of jesus is like using dc comics to prove the existence of superman.

nominated for it's bloody perfection.

 

[RandFan]

using biblical writings to prove the existence of jesus is like using dc comics to prove the existence of superman.

nominated for it's bloody perfection.

Agreed.

 

[Brainache]

...

I'd like to see Kapyong's take on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Have you heard of Robert Eisenmann?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Eisenman

Anyone?

 

[Ethnikos]

Knowledge of Judaism. Its a very rare occurance for a Jew to proclaim himself the Messiah. And even those that have have never claimed to also have been the Son of God.

You see, we Jews do not believe that God can have children. Not even Muslims accept that Jesus was the God's son, for the exact same reason. Had Jesus not been proclaimed God's son, Jews may have been much more likely to accept him.

You don't have as good a knowledge of Judaism as you think you do. The Jews at the time of Christ did understand that the messiah would be the son of God, and the Word, as in John 1:1.
Read the first few verses in the Book of Hebrews. That book was written for the Jews and it used their language to describe Jesus as they believed the Word, or their Messiah was and was to be.

 

[DC]

You don't have as good a knowledge of Judaism as you think you do. The Jews at the time of Christ did understand that the messiah would be the son of God, and the Word, as in John 1:1.
Read the first few verses in the Book of Hebrews. That book was written for the Jews and it used their language to describe Jesus as they believed the Word, or their Messiah was and was to be.

reading Christian drivel to learn about Judaism?

 

[RandFan]

You don't have as good a knowledge of Judaism as you think you do. The Jews at the time of Christ did understand that the messiah would be the son of God, and the Word, as in John 1:1.
Read the first few verses in the Book of Hebrews. That book was written for the Jews and it used their language to describe Jesus as they believed the Word, or their Messiah was and was to be.

I think the NT a poor source to substantiate the claim. The NT existed as propaganda to mold perceptions. I strongly recommend Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. Ehrman documents quite nicely how the authors of the NT created a narrative to justify their view of the Church.

 

[Gazpacho]

I shall never forget the day when I was told that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Christian.

The implicit view of the Southern Baptist faith is that he was American.

 

[catsmate]

The Resurrection, upon which there is very much historical evidence for its occurrence.

No there isn't. Remember you signally failed to produce any in the numerous other threads where you've lied about this.
Even your "holy book" can't get the details straight.

 

[bikerdruid]

reading Christian drivel to learn about Judaism?

very similar to reading caesar to learn about the druids.

 

[catsmate]

There's really no point mincing words - this is an outright lie, DOC.

Religion, it rots the brain. How else can one explain why those suffering from it not only feel the need to lie so often and even after their lies are exposed continue to repeat those lies?

 

[I Ratant]

I shall never forget the day when I was told that Jesus was not a Jew, but a Christian.

.
Scene in "Little Big Man"....
Faye Dunaway is giving Dustin Hoffmann a very thorough bath, and mentions that...

 

[catsmate]

If you have a couple of weeks you can read this 500 page thread.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124603

The thread where you failed to show any evidence for the trurth of the New Testament? Where you lied, misquoted, evaded and otherwise tried to cover over your failure? That thread?

 

[Kapyong]

Gday Brainache

I'd like to see Kapyong's take on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Have you heard of Robert Eisenmann?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Eisenman

Well,
My impression was that the D.S.S. had nothing to do with Jesus. I thought the consensus was they were Jewish sectarian books.

Although I know of K.Thiede (champion of 7Q5) and others (Jesuit Josep O'Callaghan-Martínez, and Barbara Thiering) who argue that Jesus and/or Paul are mentioned in code (I though B.Theiring was a crackpot, so was Thiede.)

Eisenman however, is a committed expert scholar (he was first to doubt the James ossuary) and I've skimmed his huge blue book on James, as I recall his argument was that "if James existed, so did Jesus", and he has a lot of evidence that A James existed (he says the Righteous Teacher). But I don't think it's all that clear, and he hasn't convinced wider scholarship.

What do you think ?


Kapyong

 

[Kapyong]

Gday,

In case you did not know, there were lots of rabbis at the time of Christ who had said very similar ethical teachings.

Really?
Will you ever be posting some evidence?

Or will it be like your empty claim that HISTORIANS recorded meeting Jesus 1st hand ?


K.

 

[Gazpacho]

The question should not be "Did Jesus exist?" but rather "In what way did Jesus exist?"

Did he exist as a person in the minds of followers? Yes, undoubtedly
Did he exist in any contemporary record? No, only transcriptions at best.
Did he exist as flesh and blood? There's no evidence for or against that.

These questions and answers are all independent. As usual, I recommend comparison to the Nation of Islam. Its founder undoubtedly existed as flesh and blood, but he did not exist as the person he claimed to be, or his followers later claimed him to be. This one example is enough to debunk the troubled thesis of Acharya S, that because Jesus didn't exist as a supernatural person, he must have been invented in a Roman COINTELPRO office.

e: Lest I be accused of misrepresenting Acharya's conclusion:

In this highly controversial and explosive book, independent scholar of comparative religion and mythology, historian and linguist D.M. Murdock, aka "Acharya S," marshals an enormous amount of startling evidence to demonstrate that Christianity and the story of Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion. In making such a fabrication, this multinational cabal drew upon a multitude of myths and rituals that already existed long before the Christian era, and reworked them for centuries into the story and religion passed down today.