How do we know Jesus ever lived at all?

[Heathen Hammer]

Originally Posted by TempusFugitive

Heathen Hammer fallacy.

While it would certainly suit my glory to be enshrined with a fallacy named for me, unfortunately your 'fallacy' isn't a fallacy of any real type; just a child's railing against an opponent. It should be a description of a logical fallacy, in order to be cited by others. You might as well just call it the TF Crybaby Fallacy, for all the thought you invested in it; using the term "thought" loosely.

[bluescityleon]

Originally Posted by Lucidkitty

He most likely was not either one. He probably had a small following from john the baptists movement,taught for a short period of time, and was killed for sedition. In the scheme of things jesus was not important enough for contemporary writers to write about because he in their minds was simply another messianic rabble rousing jew. Jesus in the time frame of then was simply not important. All of judea was not buzzing about him as they say in jesus of nazareth. The only reason his religion survived happened to be the addition of a man called paul who took it into the greater part of the roman empire. Simply put it jesus was in the right time, and the right place.

.........It's sounds as if you were there......Yeah Paul didn't need Jesus, is that you opinion? And are you saying he existed as a person.?.....and why did Paul die for a Lie...?.....was he hpnotized by the modern media of the day...dreams and visions......

[urbancharlotte]

How do we know Jesus ever lived at all?

Originally Posted by bluescityleon

You first...................

We don't. Your turn.......

[Heathen Hammer]

Originally Posted by bluescityleon

.........It's sounds as if you were there......Yeah Paul didn't need Jesus, is that you opinion? And are you saying he existed as a person.?.....and why did Paul die for a Lie...?.....was he hpnotized by the modern media of the day...dreams and visions......

There are hundreds of cult leaders who died for their own lies, or lies they believed. David Koresh, in your own lifetime... it happens all the time.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by bluescityleon

.........It's sounds as if you were there......Yeah Paul didn't need Jesus, is that you opinion? And are you saying he existed as a person.?.....and why did Paul die for a Lie...?.....was he hpnotized by the modern media of the day...dreams and visions......

Nice post, Kitty...yes. Once one has 'got into the story' as it were, it is almost as though one was there as an observer and it is astonishing how improbabilities and discrepancies pop up when one sits down with the characters.

When you sit down with Paul, you see someone who certainly had a very doubtful belief in his mind, but was ready to suffer and even die for it. Just as, I might say, many believers in different religions are prepared to die for their (false) beliefs.

Of course, Leon, I understand that you are saying that he was closer to the events and, if Jesus never existed or was not the divine person of the Gospels, Paul would not have even converted, let alone die (if necessary) for his belief in Jesus.

I agree. While it is true that Paul never met Jesus or certainly not for long enough to believe in him until long after the crucifixion, he must have got these ideas from somewhere and from where if not from the apostles? If Paul is not a myth, then the apostles are not a myth and if they are not, then Jesus is not, as I cannot believe that a mythical character invented by them could have convinced Paul.

Moreover, if there was a real Jesus, then their teachings about him must have been the basis for Paul's teachings and the only area of dissent was on whether gentiles could be Christians as well as Jews. Somehow the apostles must have believed in Jesus' resurrection and sacrifice and ability to give salvation.

That would seem to confirm everything that Christians believe as well as explaining why Paul could believe it and be willing to die for it. But it doesn't because Paul did not believe in Christianity as it is now. He did not believe that Jesus was God incarnate, though he did believe that he was messiah (spirit of David and probably of Adam, too) incarnate and would be incarnated again very soon to end all things and judge - and Paul wanted desperately to have his fellow citizens to be on the right side of the judging.

He did not even believe in the Gospel idea that Jesus was the Holy Spirit incarnated, which is close to God in man but not quite. It follows that the apostles certainly did not believe in God incarnated but that Jesus' messianic spirit had left the body and had gone to heaven and would come again which, in a Christian - garbled way, is what the Gospels tell us.

It is also true that Paul did not believe or know of a bodily resurrection but a spiritual one - for him the irrelevant body was still in the tomb at Jerusalem. And that was what he got from the apostles.

It does mean, I am sorry to say, that even if the strong suggestion that Joseph of Arimathea put the Fix in crucifixion to get Jesus down off the cross and out of the tomb as soon as possible, it didn't work and Jesus had to have died. I wish it wasn't so as I like the conspiracy plot very much and it is hard to explain why Jesus died so soon - unless John's eyewitness was correct about the spear stab, which the Synoptics don't mention at all. But, I can't help it. If Jesus didn't die, then it is hard (not impossible, but hard) to explain why the apostles believed that he had.

In any case, that's enough of my pet theories. But it does explain why Paul died (if he actually did die) for a lie. In fact his writings make it clear that he lived for a lie as his arguments and reasonings are very faulty and in fact he should have realized that his teachings simply did not stack up - especially when supposed Faith did not make his converts behave any better than when they hadn't had Faith. But by then he was totally blind to the fact that his convictions were unsound.