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.
I never wrote it was a letter in response to the movie
@MGM - It looks like National Geographic made the story seem bigger than it was cause there's a letter by one of the sides who was really mad at them! So here's his letter.
he was never mad at Nat'l Geographic. he was mad at the depiction of the story of the blog.
------------------------------------ But anyways...
my point: not enough evidence to prove Jesus was the person the Christian bible says he was. what's the opposition's response?
@German3805, my response was in the fact that the previews made the story out to be bigger than it was shown in the 'movie'. There was no depiction of the story of the blog.
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@AnaLoGMunky - YES, let's talk about your points cause you keep making them and they keep getting ignored or whatever, and maybe I don't have the answers but at lease we could understand each other.
So. OK. Let me see if this is right then I'll come back later on with some kind of responses to start with.
The Holy Bible tells us that Jesus Christ performed all these miracles in his lifetime. So if they were so great then would have made a lot of news and the historians living whenever he lived should have wrote about him while he was doing these great acts. But there's nothing. This absence means that he probably didn't exist.
Is this right for your topic or is there something else?
The Holy Bible tells us that Jesus Christ performed all these miracles in his lifetime. So if they were so great then would have made a lot of news and the historians living whenever he lived should have wrote about him while he was doing these great acts. But there's nothing. This absence means that he probably didn't exist.
Yep... thats a lil more on the topic. Why would they not have written about him? Why only his disciples... AND after his death as well. It doesnt make sense.
@German3805, my response was in the fact that the previews made the story out to be bigger than it was shown in the 'movie'. There was no depiction of the story of the blog.
why does this matter?
The Holy Bible tells us that Jesus Christ performed all these miracles in his lifetime. So if they were so great then would have made a lot of news and the historians living whenever he lived should have wrote about him while he was doing these great acts. But there's nothing. This absence means that he probably didn't exist.
Didn't biblically exist. Everyone should know by now that in the time of the biblical jesus, someone else named jesus was alive as well. It's often that stories (ie: King Arthur, Beowulf) are accentuations of real people's lives. If jesus existed as the bible said he did, I find it hard to believe people would not spread it everywhere and write about it all the time, especially before the Christian bible was published, while jesus was out walkin on water and healin people and shouting on the top of soapboxes about his healing power.
Everyone should know by now that in the time of the biblical jesus, someone else named jesus was alive as well
But Im not talking about just any jesus. I am refuting the fact that the jesus in the bible, god powers or not, even existed. Even if there was someone CLAIMING they could do this, and to piss enuf people off to be killed, I also think there would be some record of this.
My theory of this is that a man wrote the Bible, one of the greatest books of all time, yet he did not want to take all the fame. So he wrote it without giving himself credit, then he buried it. Later other men found this book, believed it fondly, and spread it around to others. Then other people became jealous and crafted their own belief systems, AKA religions. Even though I am atheist, that is what I believe to be true. The Bibles are just great stories that people hold so fondly, that they start wars and feuds with people to prove right.
The Holy Bible tells us that Jesus Christ performed all these miracles in his lifetime. So if they were so great then would have made a lot of news and the historians living whenever he lived should have wrote about him while he was doing these great acts. But there's nothing. This absence means that he probably didn't exist.
Yep... thats a lil more on the topic. Why would they not have written about him? Why only his disciples... AND after his death as well. It doesnt make sense
@AnaLoGMunky,
OK. So the task in all of this is just to talk about Jesus as a Rabbi and not as Jesus as the Divine, cause the amount of divinity that a person gives to Jesus is just depends on there faith and if you don't have faith then you just want to know if it was possible that there was this guy named Jesus who was a Rabbi. I guess I'll just start with that idea, to assume he was just a Rabbi, and like that. So there's a couple of paths to think about.
The first one is just the question about his miracles. How is it that a Rabbi who performed all these miracles didn't take notice by outside historians? Well, it's not correct to think that this Rabbi was always performing miracles he just did them over a 3 year period whenever he started preaching. Is that is a long enough time for a outside historian to take notice, then make the trip to see him and record these things?
Just stop and think about that idea for a minute.
Another thing is that the Rabbi preached in small towns around Galilee, as he made his way to Jerusalem. He only made about 30 or 40 miracles, about once a moonth (Jewish lunar calendar), and some of them are supernatural, so that reduces the numbers cause we want to talk about a simple Rabbi and not Divinity. So next we have to see is this. Which ones in these miracles would be possible but maybe could be misunderstood as miracles in there time, and which of them would a nonbeliever just call nonsense?
So maybe we should try to agree on which of these miracles could have some scientific explanation to them. There's a website below that gives a paragraph about each one, so maybe we could stop here and just look at them to decide about that cause we're not on the other path yet:
So the task in all of this is just to talk about Jesus as a Rabbi and not as Jesus as the Divine,
That's completely wrong. did you read the first post?
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?
not talking about Jesus the Rabbi. Talking about whether or not Jesus is the man the bible says he is. the thread had already established that Jesus was a (more or less) historical figure.
also, that link had very few, if any (i did not see any after looking through half of them) scientific explanations. they say things like "Jesus said 'your son will live' and within the hour the son had no fever". That link is solely believable through faith.
One of the problems with there being no records of Jesus preforming his miracles is that he often did the miracles in front of crowds of people, in some cased hundreds of people. With so many eyewitnesses it would be very strange for there to be no historians taking notice of these events.
the thread had already established that Jesus was a (more or less) historical figure.
How so? So far the best that has been offered is a wikipedia link.
These are the possibilities as I see it so far.
1: The Bible is accurate Jesus did exist and he healed people, walked on water, revived the dead, rose from the dead and ascended.
2: Jesus was just a ordinary guy with maybe a few good ideas for his time. He heard of the stories of Simon and decided that turning himself into a martyr in a similar fashion would be the best way to establish himself as a messiah in order to spread his cult beliefs. Those who knew him were in on it and years later didn't just write about him, but heavily embellished the story to put him in the best of light possible.
3: Jesus was never real, he was the invention of a small group of people. Drawing from various sources and a bit of there own imagination they established the story of Jesus which over time became more and more fanciful. This story quickly became an urban myth drawing in many believers and establishing a religion around it.
With 2 and 3 we can see other examples of similar events happening in more recent history. For instance with 2 there are many embellished stories of gun slingers from the old west. With 3 the cargo cults and Scientology are excellent modern examples of how completely factitious characters can become the focal point of a religion.
Your possibilities are good except they go on to much. Maybe we could go on the first parts and then add the next branches like.
1. Jesus was the Christ. 2. Jesus was just a man. 3. Jesus was imaginery.
So I'm going on the 2. part. For now, I'm just trying to find acts that science could explain but maybe could be misunderstood as miracles in that day, cause the miracles weren't all done in front of crowds. A lot of them that were done in front of crowds wouldn't be something that science nowadays would say could be done, such as healing lepers. So lots of those crowd ones would be something done by 1. or by 3, but not by 2, and 2. is what I'm trying to talk about.
So I could give some ideas on this for starters but I'm just waiting to see if AnaLoGMunky has anything to say about it since he was kind of ignored a lot in previous. I don't think people who have something to talk about should be ignored!
So I'm going on the 2. part. For now, I'm just trying to find acts that science could explain but maybe could be misunderstood as miracles in that day, cause the miracles weren't all done in front of crowds. A lot of them that were done in front of crowds wouldn't be something that science nowadays would say could be done, such as healing lepers. So lots of those crowd ones would be something done by 1. or by 3, but not by 2, and 2. is what I'm trying to talk about.
The problem with saying that "not all of them were done in front of crowds" is the fact that "a lot of them" were still done in crowds like healing lepers. If someone healed a leper in front of an entire courtyard or market square, plenty of people would have spread it and plenty of people would write about it. That's not something that gets ignored.
Also, if someone turned a bunch of water into really nice wine in front of a whole party, that person would be unbelievably famous. Considering we've found things like "the tomb of Jesus Christ", if he was really a savior who healed lepers and turned water to wine and walked on water, wouldn't you think they'd at least find a half-decent amount of documents about it?
that wasn't a reliable link, it didn't have any news source backing it nor a mention of a reputable person making it.
Patient raised from the dead - 2007
No witnesses of any of the raising from the dead that the doctor went to, and he didn't even attempt to explain it in a scientific sense when he was explaining the main one. (sounds fishy, i suppose.)
Infant raised from the dead - July 2008
biased source; if an infant was really raised from the dead miraculously, it would have been on the news last year and if it truly had no scientific background (or wasn't fake) then it would have stirred up quite a bit of buzz.
