ah, i see, this is a Zen practice. "to comprehend nothing" is a great koan, i'll give you that. it's almost as good as your posts' method of "understand nothing".


okay, i'll sum the reasoning up.

seeing that i named "who wrote about Jesus more or less within the timespan of his contemporaries". those people (the writers) are generally well known. their biases are well known as well. Josephus biases were pro-Roman. his works have been altered to suit the Christian narrative. the changes are crude. Jesus is talked about in a part talking about the life of Pontius Pilate. the obviously fabricated parts changed it fits right in. the whole work doesn't mention Jesus that much at all. he also mentions other prophets and messiahs. it is reasonable to presume that those accounts are not fabricated. it is also reasonable to assume that the account regarding Jesus was not fabricated.
there's also Tacitus' second hand accounts. and Pliny the Younger's accounts taken from the Christians by a Roman pagan.
this is very much evidence for a historical person in antiquity. more than of many other persons believed to have existed. there is more reason to question the historicity of various other persons, whose existences are widely established as well. we can conclude that Jesus likely did exist.

summa summarum: if the question was about the existence of anyone else but Jesus there wouldn't even be a discussion here. it is nothing but ideological drivel.

i also made clear that it would not make any sense for Jesus to be a fabrication. this works in tandem with the aforementioned writers' accounts.

and then there's the Christian accounts, but i decided to leave them out because they might offend the religious sensibilities of our resident atheist population.

This post was edited by Gastly on Nov 28 2014 12:42pm

There is historical references to Jesus by Josephus as well as the roman historian Tacitus. Few people doubt Jesus actually existed, unless they choose to be selective with history to try and cast doubt on Christianity. On the other hand if the question was to be presented as do you believe in Jesus as Lord and what he said about himself, than we have two camps. Christians that believe that he is God or everyone else that thinks he is a great moral teacher/prophet.

And your little "do you read" comment is lol. Far greater minds tried and failed so please move along with your intelligence level of potato.

I don't think he was a great moral teacher...

I'd be in the third camp that believes that a person called Jesus probably existed as recorded by Tacitus but that the stories about him are likely an amalgamation of myths and legends - making the Jesus of the bible a myth. Much like Robin Hood.

This post was edited by Scaly on Nov 28 2014 05:44pm

The time between Jesus's death and the writing of the gospels isn't considered enough time elapsed for legend/myths to develop. Well, at least that's what the historians think. (I'm sure Thor could show you a few atheist's who majored in history who disagree)

This post was edited by IceMage on Nov 28 2014 09:51pm

Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct.

The nativity yarn is a concatenation of nonsense. The genealogies of Jesus, both Matthew's version and Luke's, are pious fiction. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs.

With multiple authors behind the original gospel story it is no surprise that the figure of "Jesus" is a mess of contradictions. Yet the story is so thinly drawn that being a "good Christian" might mean almost anything.

The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin, that idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses. The pagan world knew all about virgins getting pregnant by randy gods: The Mythical "Virgin Mother".

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road.

Comparisons between Christianity and pagan mythology have been around for more than 200 years, lol. Christian scholars have thoroughly debunked the claims before that.

The Christian religion must be understood in the context of the times and location it was introduced.

This post was edited by IceMage on Nov 28 2014 10:01pm

On what reason should we accept the parables, the metaphors, the spiritual truths were not the words of Jesus himself?

This seems like the best explanation for a new found religion, not just some average joe carpenter who became the scapegoat for humanity.

I hope you see that even IF the existence of the historical Jesus were disproved, the Jesus of the gospel narrative is still quite alive and offering salvation to those that seek it.

Professional historians are not necessarily engaged by any particular interest in the issue of Jesus – and are all too aware of its controversial nature. A scholar who announces that he thinks there was no historical Jesus is likely to face scorn, even ridicule, and will gain little for his candour.

Thus most scholars, raised and educated in a Christian culture are content either to assume Jesus lived (and defer to the opinions of biblical specialists who are often men of faith) or, given the paucity of evidence for a great many historical personages, preface their uncertainty with a "probably". It is much safer for them to aver the "probability of a man behind the legend" even while arguing that layers of encrusted myth obscure knowing anything about him.

This "safe" and gutless option maintains simultaneously the "obscurity" of a carpenter in an ancient provincial backwater ("absence of evidence is not evidence of absence") and an academic detachment from "faith issues" which raised that supposed obscure guru to an iconic status.

Simply not true. The West is increasingly secular and historians have no allegiance towards the Christian faith. In fact, they would love to disprove His existence. The evidence shows pretty clearly that a man named Jesus existed in those times. It's probably the worst conspiracy in history to claim that He didn't exist.

You and Thor seem to have a problem with historical standards and methods for ancient figures... but historians don't.

This post was edited by IceMage on Nov 28 2014 10:13pm

As it happens, we have an excellent witness to events in Judaea in the first half of the first century A, Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 BC-47 AD). Yet Philo says not a word about Jesus or Christianity! Feel free to explain.