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There is very good reason that no serious historic scholar actually believes that Jesus of Nazareth is a completely made-up person. The vast bulk of historical evidence indicates that he was a real person. The likelihood that he was entirely made-up makes the earliest years of Christianity massively complicated. You would need to have a very large group of people conspire to invent the person of Jesus. Everyone denouncing Jesus in the Jewish religious leadership would have loved to prove to all Judea that "Jesus of Nazareth is a made up person!" Especially true as Christianity really started drawing a lot of Jewish converts. If they had a leg to stand on, they'd have run the fledgling religion into the ground -- and they certainly did try to do that anyways.
The early apostles and other disciples would have needed to be in on the conspiracy. From very early on, Christians were branded a menace by the Roman Empire. It defies reason to assume that some of the men and women who claimed to know Jesus of Nazareth personally were not among those killed by the Romans and others. So if we hold to the notion that Jesus was a made up person, then hundreds of these co-conspirators would be tortured and brutally killed without a single one admitting that they made the whole thing up.
And when we look at the New Testament, it gets even more complicated. As anyone who has read them knows, there are a number of small contradictions and discrepancies between the four gospels. Time and time again, one gospel writer tells a tale that another also told, but the details are different. Now if you conspired enmasse in advance, then you tend to rehearse exactly the same story in perfect detail. But witnesses to things that really did happen tend to notice different things about events and almost always remember things differently. Two men possessed by devils in one account become one man in another. Differences in wording and chronology. But despite the little differences, the four gospels are clearly telling the same overall story from Jesus birth to his death. That actually makes it much more likely that these really were true eye-witness accounts. A conspiracy early on would have made sure that all accounts were identical. Later on, Zealous Christian revisionism would have done the same thing. The little variations don't prove that Jesus was the Son of God, but it does mean that a conspiracy to invent a fake person called Jesus of Nazareth is extremely unlikely.
Now, can anyone prove beyond all possible doubt that Jesus was real? No. Can you prove beyond all doubt that Charlemagne was real? Nope. You stand a better chance with Charlemagne than you do with Jesus. Charlemagne was such a important powerful conquerer, king and emperor while Jesus wasn't the ruler of anything. But so long as the doubters can fall back on the idea of huge and elaborately constructed conspiracy theories, you'll never prove to them that Charlemagne was a real person. For a more recent example: Can you prove that we really did land on the moon?
The sensationalists who put forward such claims are doing history backwards. History is full of holes and uncertainties. The historical record as we know it is very often just our best guess based on circumstantial evidence. But sensationalist revisionism will always be around. After all, inquiring minds want to know and unprovable sensationalism sells.
For example the best selling "newspaper" in the entire world:
There is very good reason that no serious historic scholar actually believes that Jesus of Nazareth is a completely made-up person. The vast bulk of historical evidence indicates that he was a real person. The likelihood that he was entirely made-up makes the earliest years of Christianity massively complicated. You would need to have a very large group of people conspire to invent the person of Jesus. Everyone denouncing Jesus in the Jewish religious leadership would have loved to prove to all Judea that "Jesus of Nazareth is a made up person!" Especially true as Christianity really started drawing a lot of Jewish converts. If they had a leg to stand on, they'd have run the fledgling religion into the ground -- and they certainly did try to do that anyways.
The early apostles and other disciples would have needed to be in on the conspiracy. From very early on, Christians were branded a menace by the Roman Empire. It defies reason to assume that some of the men and women who claimed to know Jesus of Nazareth personally were not among those killed by the Romans and others. So if we hold to the notion that Jesus was a made up person, then hundreds of these co-conspirators would be tortured and brutally killed without a single one admitting that they made the whole thing up.
And when we look at the New Testament, it gets even more complicated. As anyone who has read them knows, there are a number of small contradictions and discrepancies between the four gospels. Time and time again, one gospel writer tells a tale that another also told, but the details are different. Now if you conspired enmasse in advance, then you tend to rehearse exactly the same story in perfect detail. But witnesses to things that really did happen tend to notice different things about events and almost always remember things differently. Two men possessed by devils in one account become one man in another. Differences in wording and chronology. But despite the little differences, the four gospels are clearly telling the same overall story from Jesus birth to his death. That actually makes it much more likely that these really were true eye-witness accounts. A conspiracy early on would have made sure that all accounts were identical. Later on, Zealous Christian revisionism would have done the same thing. The little variations don't prove that Jesus was the Son of God, but it does mean that a conspiracy to invent a fake person called Jesus of Nazareth is extremely unlikely.
Now, can anyone prove beyond all possible doubt that Jesus was real? No. Can you prove beyond all doubt that Charlemagne was real? Nope. You stand a better chance with Charlemagne than you do with Jesus. Charlemagne was such a important powerful conquerer, king and emperor while Jesus wasn't the ruler of anything. But so long as the doubters can fall back on the idea of huge and elaborately constructed conspiracy theories, you'll never prove to them that Charlemagne was a real person. For a more recent example: Can you prove that we really did land on the moon?
The sensationalists who put forward such claims are doing history backwards. History is full of holes and uncertainties. The historical record as we know it is very often just our best guess based on circumstantial evidence. But sensationalist revisionism will always be around.
It is quite refreshing when the light of reason is brought to bear on these fabricated issues. Well done.
There is very good reason that no serious historic scholar actually believes that Jesus of Nazareth is a completely made-up person. The vast bulk of historical evidence indicates that he was a real person.
WHAT historical evidence? There isn't any. There is no historical Jesus at the core of the Gospels. From what I have researched, the Gospels are fabricated, consisting of scripture, legends, bits of oral tradition, anecdotes, stories, and mystical beliefs of existing Jewish cults. There also appears to be no evidence of a belief in an historical Jesus that effected Christianity as a whole until near the end of the second century. Until then, Christians expressed a belief in a spiritual Son of God, influenced more by the theological groundwork laid down by Philo, which pre-dated the supposed time of a Jesus ministry.
The mythical view seems also to fit in well with the historical record, or rather the lack of historical record as the case may be since no one wrote of a Jesus during his supposed lifetime. . If there is no evidence that someone existed, than we have no reason to believe that he or she did indeed exist. Thus, if we wish to be reasonable and rational human beings, we should not believe that said person existed.
History also follows a certain level of rational standards when putting together accurate time lines. If we are told that there is an important figure who existed at a certain time, in most cases, we would expect that signs of this figure exist. These signs may come in many different forms, but they must be reliable and relevant. No signs can be found during the time of Jesus to support that such a man even existed as a man, no more than that we should believe Hercules existed.
Absence of evidence, for a person claimed to have been as important and influential as your Jesus of Nazareth, is, for all intents and purposes, evidence of absence.
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The likelihood that he was entirely made-up makes the earliest years of Christianity massively complicated. You would need to have a very large group of people conspire to invent the person of Jesus. Everyone denouncing Jesus in the Jewish religious leadership would have loved to prove to all Judea that "Jesus of Nazareth is a made up person!" Especially true as Christianity really started drawing a lot of Jewish converts. If they had a leg to stand on, they'd have run the fledgling religion into the ground -- and they certainly did try to do that anyways.
Christianity, in it's early years was made up of small, warring sects. Had it not been for Constantine declaring it the state religion it would have lived and died as such.
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The early apostles and other disciples would have needed to be in on the conspiracy. From very early on, Christians were branded a menace by the Roman Empire.
Not so actually. There were one or two brief periods of persecution by certain Emperors but on the whole, the Romans were rather tolerant of Christians as they were of many other religions.
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That actually makes it much more likely that these really were true eye-witness accounts.
The gospels are not eye-witness accounts and you won't find many, if any scholars that would claim they are.
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A conspiracy early on would have made sure that all accounts were identical. Later on, Zealous Christian revisionism would have done the same thing. The little variations don't prove that Jesus was the Son of God, but it does mean that a conspiracy to invent a fake person called Jesus of Nazareth is extremely unlikely.
Fair enough! So if he wasn't the 'Son of God' then Christianity is proven false and collapses on it's arse right?
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Now, can anyone prove beyond all possible doubt that Jesus was real? No. Can you prove beyond all doubt that Charlemagne was real? Nope. You stand a better chance with Charlemagne than you do with Jesus. Charlemagne was such a important powerful conquerer, king and emperor while Jesus wasn't the ruler of anything.
It is not claimed that Charlemagne could walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, feed thousands with virtually nothing and make blind people see. Nor is Charlemagne reported to have died and come back to life. That is the difference you see. If anyone had ACTUALLY done all those things then there would have been some record of it other than a self serving book.
Nor is there any independent contemporary historian around the age of the supposed time of this Jesus that even mentions the man. The very few references to a Christ by Josephus are considered to be forgeries added much later in time by Eusebius. If Jesus was a man of history, and if Jesus performed any miracles we would suppose many reports from contemporary historians. All accounts have been comprehensively examined and none of then adequately supports the existence of any 'Jesus.
So what do those not blinded by the rose coloured spectacles of religious dogma conclude from all of this? Either this Jesus was a divinity who chose to dazzle multitudes but leave no trace, who contrived to influence – not the Jewish people – but a mere handful of shadowy devotees whose successors rapidly split into numerous warring factions; or JC is the fabrication of human minds, a construct betrayed at every turn by contradiction and omission. I know which I'm going for.
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Can you prove that we really did land on the moon?
WHAT historical evidence? There isn't any. There is no historical Jesus at the core of the Gospels. From what I have researched, the Gospels are fabricated, consisting of scripture, legends, bits of oral tradition, anecdotes, stories, and mystical beliefs of existing Jewish cults.
Researched? Where? On the internet?
Truth be told, just cuz something is on the internet doesn't make it true. Wikipedia is a fine example. The greatest collection of opinions known to man.
There are so many people with agendas on the internet that it is hard to know what is true. Some of the stuff I read on the atheist sites (and in forums) is so bad that I call what I read "faith builders".
But go with what you believe. You will always be able to find people who will agree with you.
Is that it?? Is that all you have to refute my post??
For what it's worth,I've read extensive works on many of the world's religions. I find the subject fascinating. The internet is a valuable tool for research and if I do get information from it, I don't take it at face value, I cross reference it against other sites. If five sites are saying one thing and one site is saying something completely different that it's obvious which way to lean. As for Wiki, on just about all of the articles on there you can find a long list of references at the bottom of the article. You just need to check them out.
Now, how about refuting my post with something more substantial...if you can.
Fair enough! So if he wasn't the 'Son of God' then Christianity is proven false and collapses on it's arse right?
I'm trying to debunk this nonsensical notion that Jesus of Nazareth was a completely made up person. Many people like yourself LOVE to trumpet from the housetops that "because there's no proof that Jesus of Nazareth ever lived," then it automatically follows that he is a completely ficticious character. If I can get no farther than getting idiots to admit that it's unlikely to the extreme that there never was an actual person from Nazareth named Jesus -- a man who went on to become a controversial religious teacher among the Jews. I think it's fair to say he did live, teach and was eventually crucified.
I'm not going to bother trying to convince a atheistic zealot of anything further than that. What's the point? How do you convince someone who very loudly declares "there is no God" at every opportunity, that Jesus of Nazareth was his Son?? I won't bother trying to preach to you because I don't see the point. I'm not going to try to get you to accept walking on water, healing the sick, raising the dead, raising himself from the dead, etc. All of these things are a matter of faith.
But can you accept that it Jesus of Nazareth was a real living breathing human being? Can you accept that the circumstantial evidence to the affirmative is pretty overwhelming? That is all I'm driving at here: Just as we can accept that Charlemagne, Ramses, Mohammed, Confucius and others were all real people, so do was Jesus of Nazareth. Enough of the nonsense stating otherwise already. (Unless you can fully prove and substantiate the enormously complex conspiracy theory that would have been necessary in order to invent Jesus out of nothing.)
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Nor is there any independent contemporary historian around the age of the supposed time of this Jesus that even mentions the man. The very few references to a Christ by Josephus are considered to be forgeries added much later in time by Eusebius. If Jesus was a man of history, and if Jesus performed any miracles we would suppose many reports from contemporary historians. All accounts have been comprehensively examined and none of then adequately supports the existence of any 'Jesus.
Let's be honest, Jesus of Nazareth would not have been viewed as a person of great significance at the time. The only contemporary historian who had any reason to bother mentioning him would have been Josephus -- and since Josephus was a Jew and the Jews viewed Christianity as a highly radical Jewish break-off group, he may have simply not bothered to dignify their existence by mentioning them. Many radical Jewish sects came and went over the years, so he may have figured it was safe to assume that Christianity would do the same. Ultimately, there are all kinds of reasons why Josephus might not have mentioned Jesus of Nazareth, but practically speaking Jesus was not a historically significant within his own lifetime and not very significant in the first century.
Likewise Moses was probably a real person (though you need to drop a bunch of zeros off of the numbers in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy for it to make historical sense) but next to a historical giant like Ramses II, he was obviously historically irrelevant.
The 13 colonies were also historically irrelevant when they gained their independence from Great Britain -- they were a money sinkhole for the Brits and the really amazing thing is how determined they were to bring the colonies to heel. Best guess: It was the principal of the thing.
Many things that eventually grew to be hugely important in the world today were not very significant when they first started out.
I'm trying to debunk this nonsensical notion that Jesus of Nazareth was a completely made up person. Many people like yourself LOVE to trumpet from the housetops that "because there's no proof that Jesus of Nazareth ever lived," then it automatically follows that he is a completely ficticious character. If I can get no farther than getting idiots to admit that it's unlikely to the extreme that there never was an actual person from Nazareth named Jesus -- a man who went on to become a controversial religious teacher among the Jews. I think it's fair to say he did live, teach and was eventually crucified.
OK! Let's run with that. 'Jesus' was an itinerant rebel rabbi who oversteped the mark and was executed by the Romans. He was not a 'god' or son of a god, he had no special miraculous powers. I can live with that possibility of that but as I said earlier. If that is the case then the whole core belief of Christianity is false and it collapses on it's arse... and the New Testament is false. You OK with that?
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I'm not going to bother trying to convince a atheistic zealot of anything further than that. What's the point? How do you convince someone who very loudly declares "there is no God" at every opportunity, that Jesus of Nazareth was his Son??
It's easy!! You just produce the verifiable, objective and testable evidence to support your claim. Nothing difficult about that pal. It's your side that keeps touting that there is "historical evidence", or "a preponderance of evidence" for the guy. Well let's see it.
Another confusing thing here is that on the one hand, you want to claim that Jesus was an insignificant rabbi preacher yet on the other hand, you want to convince us that he was the 'son of god'. He can't be both. Which one are you pushing here?
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I won't bother trying to preach to you because I don't see the point. I'm not going to try to get you to accept walking on water, healing the sick, raising the dead, raising himself from the dead, etc. All of these things are a matter of faith.
Well you seem to be arguing for two different two completely different characters here. Who are we looking for here? Jesus the itinerant rabbi or Jesus, son of god'?
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But can you accept that it Jesus of Nazareth was a real living breathing human being?
Well I can accept that if there ever was a "Jesus of Nazareth", he was nothing more than a travelling preacher. I'd say that most if not all atheist would accept the possibility of that. What we don't accept is the claim of divinity.
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Can you accept that the circumstantial evidence to the affirmative is pretty overwhelming?
No, because I don't see any evidence.
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That is all I'm driving at here: Just as we can accept that Charlemagne, Ramses, Mohammed, Confucius and others were all real people, so do was Jesus of Nazareth.
OK! So Yeshua ben Yosef (there was no Nazareth in the 1st century) may have been a real person, an ordinary Joe, an early day Che Guevara, a travelling Rabbi preacher. So what does that do to the "truth' of Christianity?
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Let's be honest, Jesus of Nazareth would not have been viewed as a person of great significance at the time. The only contemporary historian who had any reason to bother mentioning him would have been Josephus -- and since Josephus was a Jew and the Jews viewed Christianity as a highly radical Jewish break-off group, he may have simply not bothered to dignify their existence by mentioning them.
Agreed...providing you are not making this Jesus out to be some kind of god who carried out miraculous acts in front of thousands.
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Many radical Jewish sects came and went over the years, so he may have figured it was safe to assume that Christianity would do the same. Ultimately, there are all kinds of reasons why Josephus might not have mentioned Jesus of Nazareth, but practically speaking Jesus was not a historically significant within his own lifetime and not very significant in the first century.
So then, do we agree that "Yeshua ben Yosef, if he did exist, was an insignificant Jewish preacher with no magical power. He was not the son of a god. He was a unknown nobody that pi$$ed of the Romans for some reason and paid the price for that?
Is that it?? Is that all you have to refute my post??
. As for Wiki, on just about all of the articles on there you can find a long list of references at the bottom of the article. You just need to check them out.
So you think Wiki is a good, difintive source for truth? I then rest my case?
You do realize that anyone with an opinion can add or post up on Wiki whatever they think on any subject regardless? Regardless whether their opinion is based on fact ot the thoughts in their head
Please consider this: just because it is on the internet does not make it true.
Last edited by Mr5150; 05-01-2011 at 11:51 PM..
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