Did Jesus Actually Exist?

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I think your point is well taken.

You finally understood one of my points???

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I am persuaded there was a single individual who recognized the need for a departure from the vengeful, barbaric dictates of what would become "The Old Testament"...and who preached in that direction.

It's more complicated than that IMO. It's easy to load JC with an anti-Torah agenda but that may not have been his aim. Jesus is not in it to reform Judaism or to found Christianity. That's what he ended up doing, not what he wanted to do. He wanted to usher in the Kingdom of God. Like any good messiah would...

As I see him, he became at some point convinced he was the Messiah. He starts doing what is required of a Messiah for instance, like entering Jerusalem on a donkey, to recall or parrot Zechariah 9:9 (Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.)

A Messiah does not preach in some reformist direction... He is not writing sermons and letters, hence the lack of written trace of JC. A Messiah fights to change the world. That's the concept.

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@edgarblythe,

If the epistle of James is by James the Just, then we have a letter written by JC's own brother about 20 years after JC's death, circa 50 AD. The question is of course, is it by this James or another?

And that brings us back to the issue of what criteria do you use. Even if we find the diary of Jesus, its authenticity would be open to question. The only evidence that could possibly end the polemic would be if archeologists found his tomb, with his name on it, in the middle of Jerusalem and in a sediment layer corresponding to the times.... which has very little chance of happening.

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@Olivier5,

It was not likely written that early, according to numbers of scholars. And it certainly does not claim to be the work of a brother, anyway.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
I think your point is well taken.

You finally understood one of my points???

I've understood many of your points, Olivier, just as I understand the point of people who think the Earth was flat.

I just don't agree with many of your points.

Quote:

Quote:
I am persuaded there was a single individual who recognized the need for a departure from the vengeful, barbaric dictates of what would become "The Old Testament"...and who preached in that direction.

It's more complicated than that IMO. It's easy to load JC with an anti-Torah agenda but that may not have been his aim. Jesus is not in it to reform Judaism or to found Christianity. That's what he ended up doing, not what he wanted to do. He wanted to usher in the Kingdom of God. Like any good messiah would...

As I see him, he became at some point convinced he was the Messiah. He starts doing what is required of a Messiah for instance, like entering Jerusalem on a donkey, to recall or parrot Zechariah 9:9 (Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.)

A Messiah does not preach in some reformist direction... He is not writing sermons and letters, hence the lack of written trace of JC. A Messiah fights to change the world. That's the concept.

I understand that is what you think. But I disagree with that part. You may be right though, I will acknowledge that.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

It was not likely written that early, according to numbers of scholars. And it certainly does not claim to be the work of a brother, anyway

If Jeff Bush were to write an op-ed, he would not sign it 'the brother of W', as his family ties are not his only claim to fame.

All the more so for James, who was bishop of Jerusalem, and primum inter pares among the apostoles. He also professed humility, and was part of a group that increasingly saw his brother as divine. He would never have signed: James, ya know, the brother of Jesus.

There is no good reason to doubt an early date for the letter. It fits well in pre-war times, could well be a warning to Jewish Christians to keep their head down and stay away from trouble in the run-up to the war of 66.

I would think that, had the letter been written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, its tone would have been quite different (less 'cocky', more mournful), and it would have made a reference to the temple fire.

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The earliest extant manuscripts of James usually date to the mid-to-late third century.

Case closed.

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@edgarblythe,

Dates of extant manuscripts mean nothing. The earliest copy of the Iliad dates to the 10 century AD...

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@Olivier5,

The Iliad doesn't even mention Christianity or James or Jesus.

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@edgarblythe,

That's not the point. The Iliad is thought to have been composed in what? -800? but the earliest known manuscript dates from the Xth century. Hence the date of the earliest manuscript means little in relation to the date of writing. It only provides the latest possible date of writing, the terminus ante quem.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

It seems to me that Jesus became more of a superhero as the gospels progressed.

You gotta be jivin' us boy!
No way did the gospels try to make him a superhero, in fact they said stuff like-
Many of his followers got fed up and deserted him,
He was unable to do miracles in some villages,
He showed anger and kicked over the market stalls in the temple,
He showed loneliness in Gethsemane and said he wished his disciples had stayed awake as company,
He showed fear by asking God to get him out of crucifixion if he could.

That's why we can trust the gospels because they paint him warts and all, thereby proving that they've come down to us over the centuries without being edited or messed about with to try to make him look good.. Smile

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@Olivier5,

It also means the original may have been markedly different from the present. Plus, the gods it mentioned are almost universally no longer believed in.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

I have timeline software for reconstruction of multiple complex sources of natural events and system result . The event can easily be given historical dates instead of "system, series, stage" times.
I think that this discussion needs such a timeline analyses. Right now it seems to me to be "dueling accounts" with no end in sight.
People are letting out with their own pet data and my focus is getting strained. Im not sure whose on the mark and whose just reciting .

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@farmerman,

I go mostly on what I already know here. I am no scholar and I am not going to spend the whole day searching for an answer.

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It isn't necessary to have a program to understand the problems with dating texts. The earliest mention of the putative mention of Jesus by Flavius Josephus was by Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century. It is significant that Origen mentions no such passage, even though he was born a century after Flavius Josephus died. There is no mention in any source of the putative mention of Jesus in Tacitus until the 15the century. The oldest surviving copies of the so-called gospels date to the early 4th century--they are written in Koine Greek without punctuation, and in most passages, without spaces between the words.

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@Setanta,

a timeline displays what you are all arguing about> Many of us are more visual.
Ill volunteer one of my staffers to do it. (but it has to include all the actors and their roles and their references above)

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@Setanta,

Quote:

The earliest mention of the putative mention of Jesus by Flavius Josephus was by Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century. It is significant that Origen mentions no such passage, even though he was born a century after Flavius Josephus died.

That is factually wrong. While the longer testimonium flavianum (in book 18 of the Antiquities) is not mentioned by Origen, he did quote the book 20 passage I have mentioned upthread in Contra Celsum:

Quote:

Book 1, Chapter 47

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist,baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless— being, although against his will, not far from the truth— that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ)

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@farmerman,

The silliest thing about this is that, as i've mentioned many times over the years, what matters is not whether or not the boy existed, but that so many people have for almost two years, believed he existed. It amazes me who tenacious people are in attempting to claim that there is contemporary evidence, when there is no contemporary evidence. I've not said, and never have said, that he didn't exist. I've just pointed out the lack of evidence.

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And I have pointed out and proven beyond reasonable doubt the EXISTENCE of a near-contemporary mention of Jesus in book 20 of the Antiquities...

Facts, anyone?

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@Olivier5,

Well, you are close enough on that one that I will concede he possibly did exist.

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I won't give it a hundred percent, because no original copies of his work exist.

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Did Jesus Actually Exist?

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