Hiya,
Originally posted by Bombeni
Christianity presents a founder who is unmatched in history - one who really lived, taught unlike any other, performed miracles that testified of His
authority, really died, and really rose from the dead to be seen by literally hundreds before His ascension.
Yes, this is the preaching of the beliefs of Christians.
Originally posted by Bombeni
Either He existed, and was who He claimed to be - Lord and Savior; or not.
Bollocks,
He could conceivably have existed and been a nobody.
But the evidence argues he never existed at all.
Originally posted by Bombeni
If He did exist, fulfill prophecy, perform miracles, die in our place, and rise again, then you, I -- we all -- have to deal with the ramifications of
this.
If Osiris did exist, fulfill prophecy, perform miracles, die in our place, and rise again, then you, I -- we all -- have to deal with the
ramifications of this.
Originally posted by Bombeni
1. Non-Christian, non-Jewish sources (principally Roman, Greek). These consist of the writings of a number of Greek or Roman historians,
Well, are you going to cite them ?
Originally posted by Bombeni
and refer to the history of Jesus because of the trouble the Christian movement was causing in the empire at the time. The records are normally
antagonistic, since they have nothing to gain by admitting the historicity of the events.
False.
They do NOT refer to the history of Jesus.
Instead the refer to LATER BELIEFS about Jesus.
But Jesus himself left no contemporary evidence at all.
Nor do we have any evidence of anyone who ever met the alleged Jesus.
Originally posted by Bombeni
2. Jewish sources - Josephus,
JOSEPHUS (c.96CE)
The famous Testamonium Flavianum (the T.F.) in the Antiquities of the Jews is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious
problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the devout Jew Josephus
(who remained a Jew and refused to call anyone "messiah" in his book which was partly about how false messiahs kept leading Israel astray.),
* The T.F. was not mentioned by any of the early Church fathers who reviewed Josephus.
* Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present c.200CE.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* The other tiny passage in Josephus refers to Jesus, son of Damneus. The phrase "so-called Christ" may have been a later addition by a Christian
who also mis-understood which Jesus was refered to.
An analysis of Josephus can be found here:
www.humanists.net...
In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)
But, yes,
it COULD just be actual evidence for Jesus - late, corrupt, controversial but just POSSIBLY real historical evidence.
Originally posted by Bombeni
the Talmud.
TALMUD (3rd C. and later)
There are some possible references in the Talmud, but:
* these references are from 3rd century or later, and seem to be (unfriendly) Jewish responses to Christian claims.
* the references are highly variant, have many cryptic names for Jesus, and very different to the Gospel stories (e.g. one story has "Jesus" born
about 100BC.)
So,
the Talmud contains NO evidence for Jesus,
the Talmud merely has much later Jewish responses to the Gospel stories.
Originally posted by Bombeni
3. Christian sources - the Gospels, early church fathers and historians.
Not one of which was written by anyone who ever met any Jesus - such is the consensus of modern NT scholars.
Originally posted by Bombeni
The four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - are judged by most scholars to be reliable, historical testimony of eye-witnesses.
False.
Only faithful believers faithfully believe this faithful beliefs. Real modern NT scholars (e.g. Ehrman, Brown, Metzger) do not.
(Anyway - even according to CHRISTIANS, only TWO of the Gospels are even considered to be by eye-witnesses. Did you even KNOW that, Bombeni?)
Originally posted by Bombeni
These gospels, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul and the other Apostles, are judged to have been written from 40 A.D. to 100
A.D. -- all within a few decades of the life of Jesus.
False.
The real dates are 70CE - 150CE.
Originally posted by Bombeni
The early church fathers were the leaders and teachers in the church who followed the apostles - many were also disciples of these same apostles.
There is no actual evidence of anyone actually meeting or knowing Jesus. What we actually see is LATER writers making CLAIMS that earlier writers were
followers of discisples etc. - when the actual writings of those earlier persons make NO SUCH CLAIMS.
Come on Bombeni -
show us ONE SINGLE book which in which the author speficially claims to have been a disciple of someone who met Jesus.
NOT a later claim by someone else, please.
I mean something clear and obvious like :
" yea verily I say to you that I, Ignatius of Smyrna did meet with the apostle Peter who met Jesus."
There is NOTHING like that.
And there most certainly is nothing remotely like :
"I, John, met with Jesus during the month of Nissan and saw him preach blah blah".
All we have is later stories, and stories ABOUT those stories, on and on....
But nothing at the epi-centre where Jesus allegedly was.
Iasion
