This is a subject that has cropped up in a couple threads already so I figure why not give it it's own thread.
So the questions Was the Biblical Jesus a real person? If not was there at least a historical Jesus used as a basis for the stories? Could it have been a complete fabrication?
Please provide evidence for or against your argument. If you use the Bible provide external sources to also back up your claim.
You can deny it but Jesus did do some of the miracles the Bible stated. I repeat the Jesus did SOME of the miracles in the Bible. This is true through out the Bible. Was Mary a virgin, yes. Did Jesus heal a blind man, yes. Did Moses completely part a large river, no. Did Noah really survive in a boat for 40 days, no. By the way, "40 days and 40 nights" is an expression that was popular thousands of years ago. It is like today saying "That took forever". You don't literaly mean forever, but you mean a long time.
Just guesing were talking about the Jesus who is said to have started Cristianity, and not the spanish name prononced Hey sus, I think it once said in one of my history books in school the historical Jesus was real... but then again the book may have been written by Cristians that wish to belive that. But the biblical Jesus definatly did not exist.
You can deny it but Jesus did do some of the miracles the Bible stated. I repeat the Jesus did SOME of the miracles in the Bible. This is true through out the Bible. Was Mary a virgin, yes. Did Jesus heal a blind man, yes.
What evidence do you have? So far it would seem he didn't do any of those things.
Every time I see someone quoting a bible verse as "fact", I want to cut their eyes out. Christian mythology does not represent the "truth" any more than the Norse, Greek or Roman mythologies did. The bible was written by MAN, translated countless times by MAN, and constantly misunderstood by MAN. Jesus had nothing to do with it. If you believe the bible, you are a fool. You're placing your faith in centuries old transcribers who may or may not have even been able to comprehend the subject matter they scribed.
Or did Jesus personally proof-read every copy of every edition of every version in every language the bible has ever been scribed, typed, printed and spoken in.
What evidence do we have of anything that happened before the advent of the camera?
Well in the context of this thread contemporary writing from unbiased sources, writing by the person himself, physical evidence the events took place. Just to name a few off the top of my head.
Seeing as we have another person who's story is almost identical to Jesus taking place before Jesus's time. Also while I'm not saying Jesus's story was a direct rip off or even help inspire the story, the basic theme does have similarities to many myths through out history. This would indicate Jesus did not do those things.
Is it possible Jesus existed and had some sound ideas? Yes Is it possible he really thought he was the messiah and died for what he believed? Yes So far the evidence doesn't seem that great but these things are possible.
Now Did Jesus preform the miracles the Bible says he did. based on our past experience with miracles this would seem unlikely. The same would go for a virgin birth.
Also again as I have said in another thread. Incredible claims require incredible evidence.
it's like my example of eating bacon and eggs for breakfast or eating bacon and eggs for breakfast on Mars with Elvis and a space alien.
You can deny it but Jesus did do some of the miracles the Bible stated. I repeat the Jesus did SOME of the miracles in the Bible. This is true through out the Bible. Was Mary a virgin, yes. Did Jesus heal a blind man, yes. Did Moses completely part a large river, no. Did Noah really survive in a boat for 40 days, no. By the way, "40 days and 40 nights" is an expression that was popular thousands of years ago. It is like today saying "That took forever". You don't literaly mean forever, but you mean a long time.
Mary was not a virgin, that would be entirely impossible unless she was asexual and not therefor human.
The truth is, no matter what you believe humans are still to ignorant of the world to know for sure. I believe he was real but believing and being able to prove it is completely different.
Mary was not a virgin, that would be entirely impossible unless she was asexual and not therefor human.
Nice, I like that. By extrapolation, Jesus would also be inhuman, being born from asexual mitosis. Jesus would also be imperfect, having only haploid chromosomes, making him some sort of genetic abomination.
Mind you, the bible also states that Eve was created from a rib of Adam. More asexual reproduction. Meaning that the Man created in gods image is not the same species that we are.
There were actual genuine documentations of Jesus the MAN, but not Jesus the Messiah. There are reasons for this. They did many tests, such as digging up the grave, finding documents writing of his ventures, and his inevitable end. But through all that searching did they find documents or any kind of dating showing that he was spiritual in any way.
What they did prove was that he was a man that founded Christianity. He rallied people to overthrow the Jewish population for their tyranny over the people, with special messengers that were his 'disciples'. He died because he took what the Jewish sermons and beliefs were and changed them**; most did not agree with 'defiling God's ways', so they crucified him.
I'm pretty sure back then people were very angry about what he was doing. If I was religious and I found out that a man was founding a religion by adding and changing mine, I would be pissed too.
**As an example but not as moving, one of the beliefs from the Jewish holy book was "love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy" which was straight from God's teachings, but was changed in the Bible to "love thy neighbor and love thy enemy more".
There were actual genuine documentations of Jesus the MAN, but not Jesus the Messiah. There are reasons for this. They did many tests, such as digging up the grave, finding documents writing of his ventures, and his inevitable end. But through all that searching did they find documents or any kind of dating showing that he was spiritual in any way.
Could you provide some links to this, because after hours of searching I haven't found any of this evidence. I do remember hearing of some people claiming to have found Jesus's resting place but it turned out to be untrue or unfounded, can't remember which.
The problem about His resting place is: There are many "burial sites" all claiming to be His grave, some even having similar evidence, just not one having irrefutable proof that that grave really is His. Some were ridiculous, like ones being in India, Russia, and even Japan, but the most popular one was of course what's in the Bible.
Now it has been a while that I last posted here, but nobody has responded to my comments back on page 16 it seems Let me say it again, and refer you back there to for my argument:
That is the question we need to answer if we want to find out if the real life of a historical Jesus was the reason that caused the NT writers to write their accounts of him the way they did.
Let me go one up on this: I am thoroughly convinced that, following the evidence, Jesus not only lived but was resurrected. The reason is that you do not have any other adequate explanation for the beginning of the belief in his resurrection.
One other thing. MageGrayWolf said a few pages back that the default position is to assume that a person did not exist. Sure, I don't just ad hoc postulate the existance of historical persons without any evidence. But if I have a historical document from around that time claiming the person existed, I have to assume that the person actually did exist, unless I have some kind of evidence to the contrary.
Please, could anyone provide even one shred of evidence that Jesus did not exist? Do we have any contemporary sources claiming he was never real? Is there anything other than a motivation of faith in naturalism that makes you want to deny the historicity. Again, Luke wrote in the genre history, so give me some kind of hard evidence to counter him.
Freakenstein, thank you for the link. There is quite a bit there to read I will have to get back to it when I have more time.
Please, could anyone provide even one shred of evidence that Jesus did not exist?
This is not an argument that can be made. Using this logic we can say all sorts of mythical things are real just because we don't have evidence they didn't exist.
