Mythic Jesus

[del]

poor, poor sky

 

[hortysir]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Nothing that has been found, that is.

The message was passed along, somehow, in that time frame. Either written or orally. Or both.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Read up on the Jewish historian Josephus.

He mentions Jesus and the early Christians.

Who cares if nothing was recorded until 70 years after his death and by the way that is not accurate there were books of the bible written shortly after his death.

 

[Douger]

Interesting thread. All I know is I'm picking up an incredible 34 year old this morning at nine, on horseback. She thinks I'm Gawd.
Thou shalt anointeth her !

 

[Moonglow]

One of the problems faced by Christian scholars is that there is no record of Jesus's existence in any contemporary source. The earliest literature concerning him was written by Paul, who never knew him or anyone else who might have known him and who never heard anything about his life story. Paul mentioned none of these now-so-familiar details, which were added much later by unknown writers who pretended to bear the names of various disciples and who sprinkled their writings with mythic data gathered from sacred-king traditions of contemporary Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and Levantine salvation cults.
The Jesus Myth | Is Christ a Historical Person?

many Christians [Christ Like] do not practice what they preach ...but Jesus Christ practiced what he preached !! love,forgiveness,understanding,piece ,humility,charity ,and many more wonderful things !! Sky it is understandable to doubt Christianity when you see so many so called Christians and sinners ,but even if you doubt what is the harm in believing that once there was a man that did all these wonderful things !! And remember Jesus said let he who is without sin cast the first stone !! I know you've seen my posts and some of them are over the top !! but I don't claim to be greater than thou !! i just like to have a little fun !! but on the serious side maybe you should seriously look into Jesus ....and even though you are not perfect and you are ridiculed by others Jesus doesn't teach that ...remember let he who is without sin cast the first stone !! I know I don't live by that creed, very few people do !! but what would life be like on earth if everybody did !!

talk about a dumping a steaming hot load.

 

[Truthmatters]

Jesus had things to teach other people about being good to others.

How I wish the words atributed to him mattered more than the silly crap the surrounds organized religion.

When you organize belief like man has you set up a system that people can use to lead each other arround by the nose and to get them to act in ways completely contrary to the words of the religion.


This is why so many horrible things have been done to people under the guise of religion.


Just heed the good words and forget the rest.

 

[Avatar4321]

Jesus is a myth. But he's a myth many people believe in. The Book of Mormon is based on the idea that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Yet another myth...

It doesn't bother me that people believe in myths.

To some, Joseph Smith was a prophet, to others, he was paranoid schizophrenic.

Myth and facts aren't mutually exclusive.

You wanted contemporary record. I provided one. If you choose not to believe that's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that there evidence from a contemporary record.

What's so frustrating is that the Spirit will testify that Jesus is the Christ. You can learn from God, Himself, that the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ are real. Anyone can. But so few bother trying to find out for themselves.

Contemporary record?

Does that make "Jaws" a contemporary record of shark feeding habits?

It's FICTION.

No. It isn't. You can disbelieve it all you want. But the Spirit of the Lord says otherwise. And who am I to deny God?

 

[Dragon]

There is no historical proof of Jesus. If Jesus did not exist, it makes Christianity a much more incredible phenomena than if he did.

Your second sentence is exactly my point. Your first is acknowledged but absence of proof is not proof of absence. That Christianity would be "more incredible" (i.e., harder to explain) without a real Jesus is evidence, although not proof, that he did exist.

 

[Caroljo]

Jesus had things to teach other people about being good to others.

How I wish the words atributed to him mattered more than the silly crap the surrounds organized religion.

When you organize belief like man has you set up a system that people can use to lead each other arround by the nose and to get them to act in ways completely contrary to the words of the religion.


This is why so many horrible things have been done to people under the guise of religion.


Just heed the good words and forget the rest.

Exactly....we've gone to several different churches, some we really liked....but i have such a problem with someone telling me how i should act, what i can do and can't do because it's against their "rules". Jesus is the only one i need to listen to, and much of the rules that different denominations have are all Man Made, not God made! And then they can even change their rules...such as years ago Nazarene's were not allowed to go to movies or dances or play cards...now it's just fine! I'll stick with His word by reading my Bible, prayers and TRY to live my life like i believe He wants me to.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Nothing that has been found, that is.

The message was passed along, somehow, in that time frame. Either written or orally. Or both.

Oral stories of a dude who pissed off the local status quo enough to get crucified by righteously bitching about the current economic and political conditions of his day, committed to paper 70 years after the event by a guy named Paul who had a 'vision' and fell off his horse during another time of oppression.

Sorry, Bro'... I'm just not buying the version of events that survived. Especially after it's adoption and use in politics by the status quo starting in year 300.

 

[Sunshine]

One of the problems faced by Christian scholars is that there is no record of Jesus's existence in any contemporary source. The earliest literature concerning him was written by Paul, who never knew him or anyone else who might have known him and who never heard anything about his life story. Paul mentioned none of these now-so-familiar details, which were added much later by unknown writers who pretended to bear the names of various disciples and who sprinkled their writings with mythic data gathered from sacred-king traditions of contemporary Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and Levantine salvation cults.
The Jesus Myth | Is Christ a Historical Person?

Are you a Christian scholar? Wait. No. You are a recovering Buddhist! Silly me!

 

[AVG-JOE]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Read up on the Jewish historian Josephus.

He mentions Jesus and the early Christians.

Who cares if nothing was recorded until 70 years after his death and by the way that is not accurate there were books of the bible written shortly after his death.

62 AD was when Paul was martyred in Rome. 64 AD was when the Emperor Nero burnt Rome and blamed the fire on Christians to launch the Roman persecution of Christians. 70 AD was when the then general and future emperor Titus sacked Jerusalem.

When Was The New Testament Written?

A mythical hero Jew is promised to return and kick ass for the truly righteous as Jerusalem is sacked..... Coincidence?

 

[AVG-JOE]

Myth and facts aren't mutually exclusive.

You wanted contemporary record. I provided one. If you choose not to believe that's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that there evidence from a contemporary record.

What's so frustrating is that the Spirit will testify that Jesus is the Christ. You can learn from God, Himself, that the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ are real. Anyone can. But so few bother trying to find out for themselves.

Contemporary record?

Does that make "Jaws" a contemporary record of shark feeding habits?

It's FICTION.

No. It isn't. You can disbelieve it all you want. But the Spirit of the Lord says otherwise. And who am I to deny God?

You are Man. Get used to it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

One of the problems faced by Christian scholars is that there is no record of Jesus's existence in any contemporary source. The earliest literature concerning him was written by Paul, who never knew him or anyone else who might have known him and who never heard anything about his life story. Paul mentioned none of these now-so-familiar details, which were added much later by unknown writers who pretended to bear the names of various disciples and who sprinkled their writings with mythic data gathered from sacred-king traditions of contemporary Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and Levantine salvation cults.
The Jesus Myth | Is Christ a Historical Person?

You don't think Josephus counts as a contemporary source? What about Tacitus? Pliny the Younger?

How am I supposed to believe that Nero was able to blame his followers for the burning of Rome at a point where, if we believe the anti-Christs, Paul was actually creating the myth? Then we have the fact that Pliny is specifically asking about what to do with the Christians that are so numerous in his district in 112 CE, which is less than 100 years after Jesus would have died.

Jesus is not the myth here, that is obvious to anyone who actually knows the historical record, the myth is that he did not exist, and that there is no historical evidence of that existence.

By the way, reading your link I see she dismisses Josephus' references to Jesus out of hand. While it is almost certain that most of the passage she is talking about was added by a scribe later, there are enough copies of Antiquities floating around that scholars are confident that he did mention Jesus. Then there is the second reference to him as the brother of James who was put to death by the Sanhedrin that she completely ignores.

I suggest you do some real research using credible sources before you claim that Jesus is a myth.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Sky Dancer, one problem with that is that we are then faced with a tougher job of explaining where Christianity came from. When Paul did his thing, there was already a community of Jews who claimed to be followers of Jesus living in Jerusalem (they weren't called "Christians" then and saw themselves as a Jewish sect). We do have independent confirmation of this sect. If Jesus did not exist as a man, it becomes harder to account for the sect's existence. Not impossible, but Occam's Razor suggests that a real historical Jesus is the more likely hypothesis.

Also, while Paul never knew Jesus himself, he lived in a time when Jesus (if there was such a person) was living memory, and his preaching could easily have been refuted by anyone who knew the truth, assuming there was no such person. As that did not happen, and as Paul is definitely known to have preached that Jesus was a real person (we see that in his surviving letters), again the most likely hypothesis is that Jesus did exist.

Now, to be sure, the likely existence of a real flesh-and-blood Jesus is not to say that he had all of the characteristics of the mythical Jesus. I'm just saying that a hypothesis of "he never existed" is unlikely on the face of it, given what we know to be true.

There is no historical proof of Jesus. If Jesus did not exist, it makes Christianity a much more incredible phenomena than if he did.

There is historical proof of Jesus.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Further, the three years of Jesus life, when he was "in the desert", he was actually in Tibet receiving meditation instructions from masters of awareness.

See how easy it is, we can believe anything we choose to.

He mastered it in 40 days?

I believe you are lying, and I can back it up by the fact that you claim he did not exist, and you claim he studied in Tibet. Those tow positions are mutually exclusive.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Not true.

30 years after his death Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome. 70 years after his death the Romans were trying to wipe out his followers.

Want to try again?

 

[AVG-JOE]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Not true.

30 years after his death Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome. 70 years after his death the Romans were trying to wipe out his followers.

Want to try again?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/185450-mythic-jesus-3.html#post4155884

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Nothing about Jesus of Nazareth was committed to paper until at least 70 years after his death. There is also compelling evidence that he lived and died and was buried in Israel. http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/166938-if-a-tomb-was-found.html

The fact that a dude by the name of 'Jesus' lived a political life in Israel 2000 years ago I've never questioned - what you have to ask yourself is, "Did he walk out of his tomb?"

Knowing that the stories of his miracles were committed to paper some 70 years after his death and done so during unstable and revolutionary times makes me highly skeptical. A complete absence of the miraculous during modern times, and a world history that mocks the existence of righteousness makes me call 'bullshit!' on the whole thing.

Not true.

30 years after his death Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome. 70 years after his death the Romans were trying to wipe out his followers.

Want to try again?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/religion-and-ethics/185450-mythic-jesus-3.html#post4155884

Try this one.

Chronological Order

It is extremely biased, ignores modern textual criticism, and wants to make fools of anyone who thinks Jesus was a real person, but they at least they pay attention to reality.

As you will see when you read it, Mark is dated back to 61 CE, which was before the burning of Rome, and less than 70 years after Jesus died. You will also see that Revelation was written by 93 CE, which, again, is less than 70 years after he died.

That makes the entire basis of your argument wring. Thanks for trying again, and proving you are dishonest.

 

[FactFinder]

One of the problems faced by Christian scholars is that there is no record of Jesus's existence in any contemporary source. The earliest literature concerning him was written by Paul, who never knew him or anyone else who might have known him and who never heard anything about his life story. Paul mentioned none of these now-so-familiar details, which were added much later by unknown writers who pretended to bear the names of various disciples and who sprinkled their writings with mythic data gathered from sacred-king traditions of contemporary Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and Levantine salvation cults.
The Jesus Myth | Is Christ a Historical Person?

Let's see..Peter wrote about Him. so did Matthew, Luke, John, James. How about Jude? They were by His side. Think you are twisting things a bit here?