[Crimson Dynamo]

In this day and age, or is that yet another internet rumour?

[NettoSuperstar!]

I havent seen anyone deny Jesus's existence only him bein the son of god and all the immacuate conception marlarkey etc

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by NettoSuperstar!

I havent seen anyone deny Jesus's existence only him bein the son of god and all the immacuate conception marlarkey etc

Yes, this ^^^^

I think people just question the validity of the him being the son of God and if the miracles attributed to him etc. are true, that's what people question

[Crimson Dynamo]

We have more written evidence about the life of Jesus than any other sub 10th century historical character - and i mean a LOT more.

[NettoSuperstar!]

Sooo...

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

We have more written evidence about the life of Jesus than any other sub 10th century historical character - and i mean a LOT more.

Yes but it's all second hand evidence and stories.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

We have more written evidence about the life of Jesus than any other sub 10th century historical character - and i mean a LOT more.

And how do you know the strangers who wrote about his life were completely without agenda? It was only a handful of men, after all. And no doubt the old stories inspired the new ones. And many of these men would have read and believed in the Old Testament and thus would have subconsciously written the New Testament to fulfill the Old's prophecies as accurately as possible. Jesus could have made this so much easier if ... you know ... he traveled to each and every culture in the world instead of relying on a group of second hand strangers to spread SUCH an important message. You would think. No? He is the freaking messiah, like.

Anyway. Enough of me and my rationality.

By the way, I am not doubting that Jesus existed. He most certainly did.

And this thread reeks of preaching. Sorry. There is another thread directly about Christianity that is still being discussed which your views could have fitted into.

It's also worth mentioning once again that Jesus was a Jew. He believed in the Old Testament and the story of creationism. He believed in Original Sin, Adam & Eve, Noah and the worldwide flood. And obviously this is completely incompatible with the scientific evidence that the earth is in fact more than 4,000 years old.

Perhaps he was capable of amazing things, but as a Jew he channeled it through the Abrahamic God and believed himself to be the son of god.

After all, if we were followers of, say, Religion X, and there was no scientific evidence or enlgitened views to discredit our staunch worship, and if we found out we could heal people, wouldn't we attribute it to the amazing powers of Religion X?

Of course we would.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

Yes but it's all second hand evidence and stories.

as opposed to what?

CCTV from the garden of gethsemane

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by ProbeEight

snip
It's also worth mentioning once again that Jesus was a Jew. He believed in the Old Testament and the story of creationism. He believed in Original Sin, Adam & Eve, Noah and the worldwide flood. And obviously this is completely incompatible with the scientific evidence that the earth is in fact more than 4,000 years old.

snip.[/U]

that was a date the Bishop of Usher (rather wrongly) came up with in the 17th century! - not Jesus

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

as opposed to what?

CCTV from the garden of gethsemane

I'm not suggesting an alternative, smarty pants!! I'm just telling you what it is which is not very reliable evidence! If you choose to believe it all then thats your prerogative but I don't expect me to!

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

I'm not suggesting an alternative, smarty pants!! I'm just telling you what it is which is not very reliable evidence! If you choose to believe it all then thats your prerogative but I don't expect me to!

what type of historical evidence do you rely on that is better than say eyewitness accounts?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

that was a date the Bishop of Usher (rather wrongly) came up with in the 17th century! - not Jesus

So? Jesus still believed in Adam & Eve. Do you? Do you believe all life was destroyed after the flood and that every kangaroo in the world is somehow descended from the two that somehow made it onto the worlds biggest, and presumably, most crash proof ark? What about the dinosaurs? How big was this ark?

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

as opposed to what?

CCTV from the garden of gethsemane

He was the messiah. You would think he could do anything he wanted, as opposed to letting the saving of our entire race depend on letting a handful of strangers spread the message. Just saying.

Of course, the real question was how many Jesus' there was!!!

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm

Is it unreasonable to ask just who recorded not only one of the last prayers of the godman but also the last occasion when the "living" superhero was with his acolytes? The only possible witnesses were asleep.

'And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt."
And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, "Simon, sleepest thou? Couldest not thou watch one hour?
Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak."
And again he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words.
And when he returned, he found them asleep again, (for their eyes were heavy,) neither wist they what to answer him.
And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, "Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners."

– Mark 14.36,41 (Matthew's version is almost identical, Luke has a shortened version and John omits the scene entirely.)


But of course as sacred theatre – a fabula praetexta – such paramulations back and forth and rhetorical declamations to an audience are precisely what we would expect.

'Jesus of Nazareth' supposedly lived in what is the most well-documented period of antiquity – the first century of the Christian era – yet not a single non-Christian source mentions the miracle worker from the sky. All references – including the notorious insertions in Josephus – stem from partisan Christian sources (and Josephus himself, much argued over, was not even born until after the supposed crucifixion). The horrendous truth is that the Christian Jesus was manufactured from plundered sources, re-purposed for the needs of the early Church.

It is not with a human being that the Jesus myth begins. Christ is not a deified man but a humanised god who happened to be given the name Yeshu. Those real Jesuses, those that lived and died within normal human parameters, may have left stories and legends behind, later cannibalised by Christian scribes as source material for their own hero, but it is not with any flesh and blood rebel/rabbi/wonder-worker that the story begins. Rather, its genesis is in theology itself.

The archetypal Jewish hero was Joshua (the successor of Moses) otherwise known as Yeshua ben Nun (‘Jesus of the fish’). Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Ioshu in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’) probably every band in the Jewish resistance had its own hero figure sporting this moniker, among others.

Josephus, the first century Jewish historian mentions no fewer than nineteen different Yeshuas/Jesii, about half of them contemporaries of the supposed Christ! In his Antiquities, of the twenty-eight high priests who held office from the reign of Herod the Great to the fall of the Temple, no fewer than four bore the name Jesus: Jesus ben Phiabi, Jesus ben Sec, Jesus ben Damneus and Jesus ben Gamaliel. Even Saint Paul makes reference to a rival magician, preaching ‘another Jesus’ (2 Corinthians 11,4).

The problem for this notion is that absolutely nothing at all corroborates the sacred biography and yet this 'greatest story' is peppered with numerous anachronisms, contradictions and absurdities. For example, at the time that Joseph and the pregnant Mary are said to have gone off to Bethlehem for a supposed Roman census, Galilee (unlike Judaea) was not a Roman province and therefore ma and pa would have had no reason to make the journey. Even if Galilee had been imperial territory, history knows of no ‘universal census’ ordered by Augustus (nor any other emperor) – and Roman taxes were based on property ownership not on a head count. Then again, we now know that Nazareth did not exist before the second century.
Nazareth –
The Town that Theology Built



It is mentioned not at all in the Old Testament nor by Josephus, who waged war across the length and breadth of Galilee (a territory about the size of Greater London) and yet Josephus records the names of dozens of other towns. In fact most of the ‘Jesus-action’ takes place in towns of equally doubtful provenance, in hamlets so small only partisan Christians know of their existence (yet well attested pagan cities, with extant ruins, failed to make the Jesus itinerary).

What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings – all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

what type of historical evidence do you rely on that is better than say eyewitness accounts?

Eye witness accounts from a handful of people who as ProbeEight already pointed out we don't know much about or what other agendas they had

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

Eye witness accounts from a handful of people who as ProbeEight already pointed out we don't know much about or what other agendas they had

welcome to historical evidence

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by ProbeEight

So? Jesus still believed in Adam & Eve. Do you? Do you believe all life was destroyed after the flood and that every kangaroo in the world is somehow descended from the two that somehow made it onto the worlds biggest, and presumably, most crash proof ark? What about the dinosaurs? How big was this ark?


He was the messiah. You would think he could do anything he wanted, as opposed to letting the saving of our entire race depend on letting a handful of strangers spread the message. Just saying.

Of course, the real question was how many Jesus' there was!!!

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm



'Jesus of Nazareth' supposedly lived in what is the most well-documented period of antiquity – the first century of the Christian era – yet not a single non-Christian source mentions the miracle worker from the sky. All references – including the notorious insertions in Josephus – stem from partisan Christian sources (and Josephus himself, much argued over, was not even born until after the supposed crucifixion). The horrendous truth is that the Christian Jesus was manufactured from plundered sources, re-purposed for the needs of the early Church.



The archetypal Jewish hero was Joshua (the successor of Moses) otherwise known as Yeshua ben Nun (‘Jesus of the fish’). Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Ioshu in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’) probably every band in the Jewish resistance had its own hero figure sporting this moniker, among others.





HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

and in a similar post I could cut and paste

9/11 was caused by the USA government and was ordered by George Bush. However I could back that up with some youtube stuff too and a picture of a cloud with the Devils face in it.

It is all about source work my dear Holmes

[Niamh.]

ProbeEight - On that point about the Dinosaurs, my husband told my daughter to ask her teacher about where the Dinosaurs fit in to the Adam & Eve story and do you know what she said?????? Oh the Dinosaurs were a mistake lol!!! Can you believe that????

[Stu]

Again you completely dodged any point I raised and made an abstract comparison to an entirely different event.

What was the point in opening this thread if your faith is so blind that your not open to actual discussion? Read my post, try and counter every point made in both those links, then get back to me sister.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

ProbeEight - On that point about the Dinosaurs, my husband told my daughter to ask her teacher about where the Dinosaurs fit in to the Adam & Eve story and do you know what she said?????? Oh the Dinosaurs were a mistake lol!!! Can you believe that????

Many Christians will tell you the dinosaurs, along with fossils, were put here as a test from god. Because apparently, ****ing with our heads by telling us two specie of every animal on the planet made it, somehow, into the one ship was not enough.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by ProbeEight

Many Christians will tell you the dinosaurs, along with fossils, were put here as a test from god. Because apparently, ****ing with our heads by telling us two specie of every animal on the planet made it, somehow, into the one ship was not enough.

lol, hmmm, Fossils, to me would be as good as CCTV footage as far as good evidence goes!

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by ProbeEight

Again you completely dodged any point I raised and made an abstract comparison to an entirely different event.

What was the point in opening this thread if your faith is so blind that your not open to actual discussion? Read my post, try and counter every point made in both those links, then get back to me sister.

you made no point you simply cut and paste some random text from a bog standard new village atheist website

and you committed the bog standard forum crime by saying "you did not answer my question"

I am not your personal google. If you have questions then research yourself using the same method that you found "your" questions.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

lol, hmmm, Fossils, to me would be as good as CCTV footage as far as good evidence goes!

fossils of Jesus and his apostles?

[Stu]

Also, to raise another point, the following occurred to me about LeatherTrumpet's post.

and in a similar post I could cut and paste

9/11 was caused by the USA government and was ordered by George Bush. However I could back that up with some youtube stuff too and a picture of a cloud with the Devils face in it.

It is all about source work my dear Holmes

And in a similar post I could cut and paste

There was a Jewish superman called Jesus who came to earth to save us from the sin through sacrificing himself on a tree so that we could symbolical eat his flesh and live forever.

It is all about source work my dear Holmes

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Shot. In. The. Foot.

Damn, I am having fun.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

fossils of Jesus and his apostles?

LOL no silly!! The dinosaurs!!

[Stu]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

you made no point you simply cut and paste some random text from a bog standard new village atheist website

and you committed the bog standard forum crime by saying "you did not answer my question"

I am not your personal google. If you have questions then research yourself using the same method that you found "your" questions.

Excellent arguments as usual. I suppose it was Google that recorded what Jesus said in the garden WHEN ALL THE OTHER APOSTLES AROUND HIM WERE ASLEEP?

The fact that I copied and pasted makes no bearing on my argument. The website still raises dozens of completely valid points. Like the FACT that 'Jesus of Nazareth' supposedly lived in what is the most well-documented period of antiquity – the first century of the Christian era – yet not a single non-Christian source mentions the miracle worker from the sky.

Or the FACT that ALL his miracles and acts appeared before in other characters of ancient mythology?

Blind faith. No getting through to you. I pity the fool.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by ProbeEight

Also, to raise another point, the following occurred to me about LeatherTrumpet's post.





HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Shot. In. The. Foot.

Damn, I am having fun.

oh the irony of misplaced self congratulation.....