Jesus Christ. Man or myth?

[Carthage]

It is largely indisputable fact that a man lived who started a ruckus at the temple and was crucified for religious preachings. It is accepted by most historians - objectively - that this man was named Jesus, and he was from Nazareth. The only evidence, though, are letters from Senators in Rome describing it and the millions of modern Christians.
Is he the son of God? That depends on your religion. But to the thread question - he does not seem to be a myth.

 

[All Else Failed]

Keep in mind, the name Jesus was very common in that era.

 

[Carthage]

Keep in mind, the name Jesus was very common in that era.

Which makes it all the more likely that the man who made the ruckus and was crucified was named Jesus.

 

[groundpounder]

you keep saying evidence is abound, yet you still haven't mentioned one piece of evidence..

yeah, I've been kinda waiting on that..

 

[pladecalvo]

It is largely indisputable fact that a man lived who started a ruckus at the temple and was crucified for religious preachings.

Where can the evidence for this "fact" be found?

It is accepted by most historians - objectively - that this man was named Jesus, and he was from Nazareth.

How does that work when Nazareth didn't exist in the 1st century?

Nazareth is not mentioned in any historical records or biblical texts of the time and receives no mention by any contemporary historian. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha and it does not appear in any early rabbinic literature. Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon which mentions twelve towns and six villages. Nazareth is not included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus. Nazareth is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.

Nazareth did not exist as a town until the third century CE. Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscans to prove that such a town existed but actually they have shown the site to have been a cemetery during the first century CE.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

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The only evidence, though, are letters from Senators in Rome describing it

Are you referring to the 'faked' letters of Pilate?

 

[pladecalvo]

yeah, I've been kinda waiting on that..

What are you waiting on....evidence for the existence of Alexander the Great?

 

[Carthage]

Where can the evidence for this "fact" be found?

There really isn't much.

How does that work when Nazareth didn't exist in the 1st century?

Nazareth is not mentioned in any historical records or biblical texts of the time and receives no mention by any contemporary historian. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha and it does not appear in any early rabbinic literature. Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon which mentions twelve towns and six villages. Nazareth is not included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus. Nazareth is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.

Nazareth did not exist as a town until the third century CE. Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscans to prove that such a town existed but actually they have shown the site to have been a cemetery during the first century CE.

Probably just mis-written by the Gospel wirters and later translators and interpreters to the point where we think it was Nazareth but wasn't really. But does it matter which town he was born in? There are tons of historical figures we don't even know the birth year of.

Are you referring to the 'faked' letters of Pilate?

I did not know those were faked.

 

[pladecalvo]

I did not know those were faked.

This 'myth' regarding Pilate's letters to Seneca in which he is alleged to have mentioned Jesus comes from a work by a guy called W.P.Crozier. Pilate's letters are mentioned in this work and Christians have jumped on it like starving vultures as evidence for their man-god. They haven't yet realised that the work by Crozier called "Letters of Pontius Pilate - Written during his Governorship of Judea to His Friend Seneca in Rome" is in fact his first NOVEL and depicts what Crozier thinks Pilate would have said to his friend regarding Jesus.

Now if we look at real letters of the times, such as those written by Philo of Alexandria to Gaius Caligula c. 40 CE we find a whole paragraph in which Philo is complaining what a miserable tosser Pontius Pilate had been. In the course of that denunciation he never mentions that Pilate may have killed someone who "multitudes" hailed as the Messiah. Even more amazingly, he never mentions that the man that Pilate killed supposedly "came back to life" which would seem to be a pretty clear indication that "god or the gods" were not happy with Pilate's action.[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]The facts are that Jesus is absent from all non Christian literature, including the works of contemporaneous historians such as Josephus, Philo-Judaeus, Seneca the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Marcus Fabius Quintilian and Plutarch.

Justus of Tiberias, a Jew and a contemporary of Jesus, lived near Capernaum (where Jesus was said to live) and wrote a history of the Jews beginning with Moses and extending into his own times, but never mentioned Jesus.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[pladecalvo]

Carthage,

If you look at this site regarding "Pilates Letters"...

Prophetic understanding - Letters From Pontius Pilate To Seneca

...you will see how low some Christian sites will stoop to con the faithful. Note how it's headed:

"LETTERS OF PONTIUS PILATE
written during his Governorship of Judaea to his friend Seneca in Rome."

...but there is not one mention that the source that is being quoted comes from a novel written in 1928. So along comes the credulous Christian and immediately thinks that what is being quoted are the actual letters of Pilate mentioning Jesus.

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

Apart from two forged documents by contemporaneous secular historians and the Bible, there is no evidence for the existence of the Jesus described in the Christian Bible. Everything we know about this character is from second or third hand 'hearsay' accounts.

Question for debate.
Was Jesus Christ man or myth?

I suppose the Egyptian pharaohs didn't exist either because you didn't see them.

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

2 of Jesus's followers wrote accounts of Christ's life. If their writings are not good enough for folks to believe than the writings regarding the life of Alexander the Great are not believable either and neither are a countless number of other historical writings.

Exactly my point.

And for those that have no desire to seek, no amount of my writings would cause an ounce of fruitation to take place.

So true.

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

Straight to hell the lot of you will be going. One way ticket. :nod:

 

[Pudding Time]

....for what?

:willy_nilly:

 

[pladecalvo]

I suppose the Egyptian pharaohs didn't exist either because you didn't see them.

There is a mountain of evidence to show that the Egyptians existed. There is no non-religious evidence for your Christ.

:willy_nilly:

You said you were "waiting on evidence." I'm asking you what evidence you are waiting for.

Exactly my point.

I'll ask again. Which two followers wrote accounts of Jesus Christ?

 

[pladecalvo]

I suppose the Egyptian pharaohs didn't exist either because you didn't see them.

You are missing the point by a mile. We don't have to have seen the Pharaohs to know that they existed and we don't have to have lived in ancient Greece or Rome to know that the Greeks and Romans existed. The civilisations and the lives of people who lived there are recorded in history which can still be seen today. The sources for our knowledge of the Pharaohs can be verified in history.

Neither you or I were alive during WW1 or WW2 but do we say they can't be verified to have happened... because we were not there? Of course not! We rely on the people who were there and who recorded it at the very time it was happening. There are a myriad of sources that tell us that the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans existed. There is also a myriad of sources all over the world that confirm the world wars......but when we come to Jesus, what do we have....the Bible! A self serving, contradictory document compiled and written by people who thought the world was flat and the Sun revolved around the Earth. If any other event in history had only one single dubious, unverifiable source, would you believe it?

Our knowledge of ancient history comes from the records of people who were there at the time, those who saw it, those that lived it. In the case of Jesus, that didn't happen. Not one contemporaneous historian mentions him. The only source of information we have for Jesus is the Gospel. The Gospels were not written by Jesus' followers but by unknown authors decades after the events are alleged to have happened.

 

[Pudding Time]

You said you were "waiting on evidence." I'm asking you what evidence you are waiting for.

Where did I say that?

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

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[/FONT]..........The facts are that Jesus is absent from all non Christian literature, including the works of contemporaneous historians such as Josephus, Philo-Judaeus, Seneca the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Marcus Fabius Quintilian and Plutarch.

Are you saying there's no mention of Jesus (or by another language interpretation/name) in the Qu'ran?

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

You are missing the point by a mile. We don't have to have seen the Pharaohs to know that they existed and we don't have to have lived in ancient Greece or Rome to know that the Greeks and Romans existed. The civilisations and the lives of people who lived there are recorded in history which can still be seen today. The sources for our knowledge of the Pharaohs can be verified in history.

Neither you or I were alive during WW1 or WW2 but do we say they can't be verified to have happened... because we were not there? Of course not! We rely on the people who were there and who recorded it at the very time it was happening. There are a myriad of sources that tell us that the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans existed. There is also a myriad of sources all over the world that confirm the world wars......but when we come to Jesus, what do we have....the Bible! A self serving, contradictory document compiled and written by people who thought the world was flat and the Sun revolved around the Earth. If any other event in history had only one single dubious, unverifiable source, would you believe it?

Our knowledge of ancient history comes from the records of people who were there at the time, those who saw it, those that lived it. In the case of Jesus, that didn't happen. Not one contemporaneous historian mentions him. The only source of information we have for Jesus is the Gospel. The Gospels were not written by Jesus' followers but by unknown authors decades after the events are alleged to have happened.

You acknowledge the existence in the Pharaohs because it was recorded in history right? The same can be said about Jesus. Who wrote about the Pharaohs?

"the Bible! A self serving, contradictory document compiled and written by people who thought the world was flat and the Sun revolved around the Earth"

Didn't the historians who wrote about the Pharaohs at that time believe the earth was flat too? If this is so your belief in the existance of the Pharaohs by such historians is flawed.

"The Gospels were not written by Jesus' followers but by unknown authors decades after the events are alleged to have happened".

Who related the history of Jesus to generations? Not the very people who knew him?
And who recorded it? Not historians that recorded it by virtue of the history being passed on to them?

You have to remember those times were not like today with the technology we have for instant recording.

Do you also believe that the Holy Qu'ran is false?
Who wrote the Holy Qu'ran? Was it Mohammed himself?

 

[pladecalvo]

Are you saying there's no mention of Jesus (or by another language interpretation/name) in the Qu'ran?

No. I'm saying that there is no evidence for Jesus from his contemporaries and no evidence from secular sources. I do know that he is mentioned in the Qur'an but that is not a secular source and Muslims don't believe he was the son of a god. Many scholars believe that the Qur'an copied many things from the Bible.

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

No. I'm saying that there is no evidence for Jesus from his contemporaries and no evidence from secular sources. I do know that he is mentioned in the Qur'an but that is not a secular source and Muslims don't believe he was the son of a god. Many scholars believe that the Qur'an copied many things from the Bible.

But you are contradicting yourself my learned colleague.

You said (not me).......and I quote:

".........The facts are that Jesus is absent from all non Christian literature"