Rambo Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Alexander The Great Julius Caeser Cleopatra Jesus/Isa (arabic) King Henry All historical figures. I know (believe/convinced) that Jesus (Isa - arabic) existed. I know (believe/convinced) that he was crucified by the Romans. The baptism of Jesus and the crucification of Jesus are two historically certain facts in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 jesus isnt a historical figure at all. most of his mentioning throughout history is based on gospel writing and not actual history. i could be wrong i havent looked into it in a long time...but i think it'd be hard to find an account of someone in history actually giving proper evidence of his existence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Apart from Tacitus/Nero's letter there is correspondence from Pliny The Younger and Josephus, all of these are within 60 years of his death. There are other later documents which aren't directly from the bible as such, Dead Sea Scrolls, whatever it was they found in urns in the desert in Egypt, Lucian, Babylonian Talmud. It is highly likely he did exist, he was a real figure who went around preaching and he was executed for being a trouble maker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 if jesus had a gun...we'd know the truth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 http://www.toomanymornings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/jesus-gun-wwjd4.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 There is no contemporary evidence.... period... jesus and his disciples are all entirely fictional... How dare you mention Pliny The Younger... the entirery that is attributed to him has been a known forgery for decades, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 seriously... if there were actual proof that jesus was an historical figure, christians would be even bigger pieces of shit than they are now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 I am having trouble finding any kind of evidence for the letter as a forgery outside of equally dodgy evangelical atheist and conspiracy websites. Care to hook a brother up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 The entry that appears prior to the entry about Jesus (about this time there was a man....) (again, not contemporary) is entirely rejected by scholars/historians.... because #1, pliny was a jew... and #2 the entries prior to, and after the jesus entry talk about catastophies, and the jesus entry simply does not fit between the two.... ergo it is believed to be a forgery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Tacicuis mentions christians... which no doubt existed. but not christ,.... because once again, he is not contemporary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 where is the contemporary evidence? it doesn't exist because jesus didn't exist.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmy Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Apart from Tacitus/Nero's letter there is correspondence from Pliny The Younger and Josephus, all of these are within 60 years of his death. There are other later documents which aren't directly from the bible as such, Dead Sea Scrolls, whatever it was they found in urns in the desert in Egypt, Lucian, Babylonian Talmud. It is highly likely he did exist, he was a real figure who went around preaching and he was executed for being a trouble maker. I always thought it strange that Jesus didn't write anything. I mean, he is supposed to have come with a message for mankind so why didn't he write down his philosophy like many others at the time did? Yes, I think some preacher, or group existed that held new beliefs. The miracles and stories I personally doubt, obviously. All we have are the gospels (including the others not in the bible) to go on, and the most modern copy ever known was written 400 years after jesus is said to have died. The gospels come from authors with an agenda to convince people of this new religion. Christianity was still developing, and they only represent part of the story. Christianity meant many things to many people until the church formalised it all into one dogma. Like Nehi, whenever I've looked up these "mentions" of Jesus at the time they proved to be irrelevant or unreliable. And personally, I think if half of it were true the whole of classical literature/history would be absolutely full of extended and detailed references. I bet the story is more an amalgam of people and events at the time, with Jesus becoming the focus and figuehead, and events exaggerated. The main thing was the modernisation of Judeaism and the Hellenisation/Romanisation of Jewish ideas - Taking the old religion and making it acceptable to disenfranchised jews and other nations. Probably about a tenth of what you read in the gospels is true of Jesus IMO, another tenth are true contemporay events/speaches/proverbs from other people later attributed to Jesus IMO, and the rest, well, you can guess MO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/582500_431747980228753_1167949377_n.jpg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Tacitus wasn't contemporary but he existed before any of the gospels and so forth were written and as you said does refer to Christians and mentions they are so named after 'Christ', or a messianic figure. Pliny is more or less the same. I concede that there are not contemporary records but this is generally the case with a lot of figures who become historically prominent post-mortem. I don't discount the possibility that you're correct and he wasn't a real person, but I think the implications of the available evidence and Occam's Razor would suggest the most likely situation is that he was a real dude who inspired some sort of following, or at least a following of him was stirred up by someone after his death. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 LeoP - Mohammed didn't write anything either, he was illiterate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Name 1 historical figure that we do not have contemporary, or at least first-hand reports of existing.... Jesus did not exists. Period. There is Zero evidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manfred Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 LeoP - Mohammed didn't write anything either, he was illiterate I always figured that was the proof that Islam is bullshit. If I'm God, and I've had two prophets already, and I'm frustrated that man keeps jacking up the message, and I decide to try ONE more time, why would I pick someone who can't write the shit down? lol So it goes from God, to Gabriel, to Mohammed, to a handful of folks who wrote it down. Serious chain of custody problems there, lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Manfred, agreed Their proof was meant to be that the metre and rhyme of the prose of The Qu'Ran is unique and unable to be replicated, so the fact that an illiterate man could come up with it and repeat it on request is the proof of divine inspiration. I too am less than convinced, but I can't read Arabic and am not an expect on the language so I'll leave that analysis to the pros and base my disbelief on the many other factors, like the lack of receipt... Nehi - I never claimed there wasn't contemporary (surely this is first hand? ) evidence for all of these historical figures, just that it is common for people to get more famous after their death. Like I said, you may well be right that he never existed (I am no Christian so it doesn't bother me either way in that aspect) but from a deductive perspective it would suggest a cause and then an effect. The closest we have to contemporary is 60-100 years after his death, people who swear he existed and that had seen him and met him and heard him, etc, etc, were prepared to be killed for that belief. Absolute speculation at best though, you're right. EDIT: Should say, first record of 'Christian' persecution was 64AD after Rome went up in smoke. So make that 30-70 years after his death ^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmy Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Tacitus wasn't contemporary but he existed before any of the gospels and so forth were written and as you said does refer to Christians and mentions they are so named after 'Christ', or a messianic figure. Pliny is more or less the same. I concede that there are not contemporary records but this is generally the case with a lot of figures who become historically prominent post-mortem. I don't discount the possibility that you're correct and he wasn't a real person, but I think the implications of the available evidence and Occam's Razor would suggest the most likely situation is that he was a real dude who inspired some sort of following, or at least a following of him was stirred up by someone after his death. I agree with almost everything you say. It's just that these scraps of contemporary evidence that christians always point to don't amount to much. Like you, I believe a character existed who inspired these exaggerations, but that's only because it seems likely. I don't think there's anything out there to prove it. Mentions of messiahs or Christ (Greek for messiah) shouldn't be taken to mean Jesus, as there were many so-called messiahs. LeoP - Mohammed didn't write anything either, he was illiterate Well, as he was an early iron age carpenter, it wouldn't surprise me if Jesus was illiterate. Especially as he didn't write anything. There is something I remember in the gospels about him studying scripture as a boy though, so according to them he could read at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 None of the people who wrote about Jesus ever said they met him, this included the apostle paul (saul of tarsus) whom wrote most/or all of the epistles of paul. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Believing in an historical jesus is akin to believing in the stork method of childbirth... children exist therefore storks... christians exist therefore christ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 No one said they did Nehi. It clearly says the people who were persecuted/executed for their heresies and blashpemies against the Roman God system. LeoP - I agree with you. Given the Christian tendency to take a bunch of popular mythologies and so forth from other regions and religions and slightly alter them and merge them all together to make their one story. Wouldn't surprise me if the 'Messiah' was quite a few different crazed preaching type dudes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Believing in an historical jesus is akin to believing in the stork method of childbirth... children exist therefore storks... christians exist therefore christ... I have hard scientific and first hand knowledge of how children are conceived and born. What is your hard scientific knowledge of how Christians were created? I too don't have any, just supplying a theory which fits the known facts. Conspiracy theories are always more wildly improbable than a simple explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nehi Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Do you not have hard scientific data that christians exists? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Do you not have hard scientific data that christians exists? Is English your native language Nehi? I feel like we're not communicating on the same wavelength... What is your hard scientific knowledge of how Christians were created? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.