Why is there no real proof of Jesus existing outside of biblical references?

GalzuFromQ

texastig

windword
LOL! The Bible doesn't prove the Bible is true! You can't use the Bible to prove Bible stories are true!

Yes they are true, because the Bible is 66 books, written by over 40 authors over a time span of 1,500 years
with the message of redemption of mankind through the Lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins.

Seems you know the path to redemption, may I ask... what is the path to redemption? Melchizedek is the Lord, AKA the holy spirit... not Jesus.

That order of the Melchizedek is not one to be trifled with; and Jesus was just a templated form of.

A lot of the posts on this thread illustrate a major corruption, evil, hideousness, suicidal habit, stupidity . . . etc. of our era.

. . . i.e.

outrageously obtuse and extreme ARROGANCE.

No big surprise given that's what got the dark lord kicked out of heaven . . . his acolytes will certainly follow in his footsteps on such scores.

Gryphon66
So ... it's okay according to your Christian values to quote someone else's dishonesty as if it were true???
ADDED IN EDIT:
You didn't cite www.probe.com as your source for your comment about Professor Sanders. You know that, I know that. I rarely use the word pathetic, but that is a pathetic level of dishonesty on your part.

edit on 12Sun, 05 Jan 2014 12:16:03 -060014p122014166 by Gryphon66 because: Removed disrespectful references.

There is no intentional dishonesty on my part. That someones else's dishonesty is not dishonest. What they wrote at probe.org is correct as evidenced by Sanders book which I linked to. I put the source of the quote in my reply to you and just because I didn't put the word "source" doesn't mean I'm dishonest. Here's the complete source below.
From: 'http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4227393/k.3AE2/Are_the_Biblical_Documents_Reliable.htm'
Subsection: Procedure for Testing a Document's Validity.
"In his book, Introduction in Research in English Literary History, C. Sanders sets forth three tests of reliability employed in general historiography and literary criticism.[1] These tests are:
Bibliographical (i.e., the textual tradition from the original document to the copies and manuscripts of that document we possess today)
Internal evidence (what the document claims for itself)
External evidence (how the document squares or aligns itself with facts, dates, persons from its own contemporary world).
It might be noteworthy to mention that Sanders is a professor of military history, not a theologian. He uses these three tests of reliability in his own study of historical military events."

Now let's get back to what you said, and I quote you, "The "bibliographical test" is a concept created for Christian apologetics by Christian apologists. [Italics for emphasis].

I won't call you pathetic as you have done to me. I will say that you should have exhausted all means to make sure what you said was correct. Will you state that you were wrong about "The "bibliographical test" is a concept created for Christian apologetics by Christian apologists." ?

GalzuFromQ
Seems you know the path to redemption, may I ask... what is the path to redemption? Melchizedek is the Lord, AKA the holy spirit... not Jesus.

John 14:6 [Jesus is speaking], "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

GalzuFromQ
What if there's no evidence because the stories of antiquity are actually stories about future happenings?

The Bible is the only book that correctly talks about future happenings. The book of Revelation has been opened.

windword
I understand that is what you believe. However, it's just a belief, and nothing more.

It's not my belief, it comes from the Bible. [Emphasis in bold is mine].
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 5:8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

windword
There are many people who've read the Bible and don't come away agreeing with you, or believe everything in the Bible to be true and reliable.

The majority believe that. They even agree with John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

windword
I don't know whether or not a character named Jesus, son of a carpenter in Nazareth really existed.

Let me try to help you. Here's some good info from my friend, Robert Webb [Emphasis in bold is mine].
"We can go to the eyewitness basis of the Gospels and we can start the evidentiary evaluation to get to the eyewitness basis of Gospels by starting with the eyewitness basis of Peter, James, the twelve and the five hundred for Paul's Corinthian Creed on the crucifixion and Resurrection dated by even atheist and liberal scholars to within 3 years of the crucifixion and Resurrection (a few extend to 8 years) making the historical testimony eyewitness testimony.
Current evidence on the eyewitness basis of the Corinthian Creed dated to within 3 years by most scholars including atheist and liberal scholars to end this debate and demonstrate the eyewitness basis of the Gospels, Acts and Paul's Creed." This will come in two comments:

From: chab123.wordpress.com...
"As Gary Habermas notes, “Even critical scholars usually agree that it has an exceptionally early origin.” Ulrich Wilckens declares that this creed “indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.” (8) Joachim Jeremias calls it “the earliest tradition of all.” (9) Even the non-Christian scholar Gerd Ludemann thinks that “the elements in the tradition are dated to the first two years after the crucifixtion….not later than three years after the death of Jesus.” (see Gerd Ludemann, The Resurrection of Jesus, pg 38).

The majority of scholars who comment think that Paul probably received this information about three years after his conversion... Paul visited Jerusalem to speak with Peter and James, each of whom are included in the list of Jesus’ appearances (1 Cor. 15:5, 7; Gal. 1:18–19). Most scholars who provide a date as to when Paul received this teaching locate it two to eight years after Jesus’ crucifixion. This places it at roughly A.D. 32–38. Even the co-founder of the Jesus Seminar (not some hyper- evangelical group) John Dominic Crossan, wrote:

”Paul wrote to the Corinthians from Ephesus in the early 50s C.E. But he says in 1 Corinthians 15:3 that “I handed on to you as of first importance which I in turn received.” The most likely source and time for his reception of that tradition would have been Jerusalem in the early 30s when, according to Galatians 1:18, he “went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas [Peter] and stayed with him fifteen days” (10).

This comment by Crossan makes sense because within the creed Paul calls Peter by his Aramic name, Cephas. Hence, if this tradition originated in the Aramaic language, the two locations that people spoke Aramaic were Galilee and Judea. (11) The Greek term “historeo” is translated as “to visit” or “to interview.” (12) Hence, Paul’s purpose of the trip was probably designed to affirm the resurrection story with Peter who had been an actual eyewitness to the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:5).
8. Wilckens, U., Resurrection, trans. A. M. Stewart. Edinburgh: St. Andrew, 1977, 2
9. Jeremias,J. New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden. New York: Scribner’s, 1971, 306.
10. Crossan, J.D. & Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, 2001, 254.
11. Jones, T.P., Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2007, 89-94.
12. Ibid.

reply to post by texastig

It's not my belief, it comes from the Bible.

Right. You believe the Bible. I don't, and quoting the Bible to back up what the Bible says isn't proof that the Bible stories are true.

There are lots of people who don't believe Bible stories are true. In my opinion, there are more people who don't take Bible stories literally that there are those that do.

Frankly, I'm amazed that there are any who still take the stories literally! Thankfully, I think these people are rarer and rarer. Fundamentalist can be dangerous.

texastig

GalzuFromQ
What if there's no evidence because the stories of antiquity are actually stories about future happenings?

The Bible is the only book that correctly talks about future happenings. The book of Revelation has been opened.

Proove it. The Revelations are a fear mongering missive to frighten the CHILD HUMAN into submissiveness. ITS EVIL in its intent and I will say to you 'John of Patmos' you are not of gods good will intent so are condemed to your own pathos (that some actually believe in) YOU ARE LAUGHABLE in your attempt to create fear mongering; I do not believe you or your past/future/or now living constituants in this negative dogmatic belief system.

reply to post by texastig


ABSOLUTELY INDEED.

Heaven and earth will pass away but His Word will never pass away and will never fail nor fall to the ground empty or ineffectual.

Unbelievers CANNOT BEGIN to grasp the rock solid foundation to reality that the very Word of God is (spoken and written).

Folks either will become broken ON THE WORD OF GOD

or

CRUSHED UNDER IT.

There are not a lot of choices.

Dr1Akula

BO XIAN

Some things are more reasonably debatable, to me than others.

Everyone has his own standards, But things that affect societies are a priority to me.

BO XIAN
With more than 3,000 hours of intense group process experience . . . I enjoy a vigorous, even intense, heated exchange as long as there's some discernible mutual respect for personhood on both sides.

I totally agree. and since respect must come both ways, and it is not only the right of the religious, I think religious people should also respect the opinions of other peoples beliefs
for ex. the belief that bible is just a fairytale.

BO XIAN
In my region of the SW USA . . . farmers and cowboys tended to say things bluntly . . . often with flavor and bite . . . not necessarily personal . . . just being real with an aversion to pussy-footing around reality.

I totally respect that, so you wouldn't mind if others use the some way of expressing themselves about their opinion on religion,

BO XIAN

I have some obligation to be hearable. But the hearer also has some obligation to earnestly endeavoring to hear.

And, I've found from hard experience that even when I'm my most gracious and gentle, the other side as often as not will still be disinclined to hear. I'm not talking about agreement . . . I'm talking about hearing and understanding what was said/written.

Besides what you might think is your obligation, the other side is not at all bound to listen or understand you.
You may believe you hold the truth and proof on your words, but that requires an acceptance of belief from the others, To an atheist that's wishful thinking.

Beside that I totally understand your POV and what you are saying, I used to be a Christian, I used to argue and ''fight'' for the ''truth'' of Jesus and I used to defend the bible.
But getting old I kept finding things that didn't make sense. When I met logic and critical thinking I started question the bible and christian ideology, and after a decade of research and truth seeking, I not only find the bible a fabricated fairytale, but I disagree with everything christianity stands for.

A message of light you might say
A few words of light warped in ignorance, arrogance, murders, and misery backed up by an imaginary being in the sky who the primitive Jews thought was the answer to their existence.

In ancient Greek philosophy and cosmology, we have much much much better messages on how to live your life and teachings of goodness, ethics and standards, that a society must rely on - for the well being and healthy future of humanity. I am an atheist physicist and I don't believe in miracles, Holy spirits, sins, devils, demons and messiahs cause my God is nature and my bible is science but I'm keeping an open mind on everything I can change my mind about something, all I need is physical proof.
You see my ideology is not a dogma and I also believe in the existence of good and evil but only in the minds of humans.
and the most evil this world has ever seen was from the religious minds.

I know we can never find agreement on the subject since I am an atheist, but that doesn't mean I can't respect you as a person.

I shared already on another page, link to a video story (Huffington Post) of the 2011 Italian research on the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Our Lord.

Have faith, ask God in prayer to give you faith to believe. The marks made, happened at the moment of Our Lord's Resurrection. Proof of Christ and His claim to being God and man.

Back to the Italian study, your bible is science, a quote about the findings:


...In case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct
marks, the report spells it out: This degree of power CANNOT be reproduced by any normal UV source
built to date."


www.huffingtonpost.com...


GBY,


colbe

BO XIAN

Seems to me . . .

a more realistic, accurate, true to reality title would be . . .

Why Is There No Acceptance Of The Abundant Proof That Is Available Of Jesus' Existence By the So Called "logical" [cough cough] Objectivists On ATS?

Oh, right . . . this thread is not about Attachment Disorder, rebellion, narrowly rigid blind bias etc. LOL. My error. LOL.

I for one would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see that abundant proof that even biblical scholars cannot find. Apparently you have something no one else does. Please share it.

reply to post by Scope and a Beam


You are simply not looking. He is mentioned in the book of Enoch and several other dead sea scrolls found there. He ha a prominent roll in the Koran. And in other religions texts. It is there if you look....

The Bot

reply to post by texastig


This is not a complicated situation, no matter how much you frantically try to muddy the water because you were caught red-handed in misrepresentation. One more time and I'm done.

I QUOTED the Sanders book and page. GO back and read it, for goodness sake; click your own link. The Sanders book does not say what you said it did. Sanders DOES NOT SPEAK of a "bibliographic test," he refers to physical bibliographic evidence which is the NATURE OF THE MATERIAL PRINTED ON and not the made up "textual tradition" that you and the probe.org site alleges it does.

You, probe.org and virtually every Christian apologetics site out there reference this same fabricated "biographic test" like it's a valid and known criteria like a "litmus test" or "polygraph test" when it reality it is merely oft repeated slang for "academic sounding" nonsense that each site copies-and-pastes from each other trying to build the illusion of a consensus.

If you cut-and-pasted something from the probe site without verifying EITHER SOURCE, you're merely perpetuating this dishonesty.

Further, this exercise proves the absolute ludicrosity of claiming that "textual tradition" or the practice of copying a text over and over somehow lends credence to it. You've conclusively proven here that copying and recopying only creates more incidences of dishonesty.

BO XIAN
reply to post by texastig

 

Unbelievers CANNOT BEGIN to grasp the rock solid foundation to reality that the very Word of God is (spoken and written).

I'll have a go at grasping the reality of the written word... The written word was put onto paper 100 years after Jesus died, there is no way they are accurate, also through translation, multiple re-writing from leaders that have conquered, even religious leaders deciding to alter the texts to fit in with societies that they moved to (to make it easier for people to convert) has led to the Bible being nothing more than dogma designed to rule the masses.

As for the spoken word, since the source is usually the bible, I would again say extremely flawed and unreliable, also a quick game of Chinese whispers will prove that most of that is just the word of man and men are corrupt.

Folks either will become broken ON THE WORD OF GOD

or

CRUSHED UNDER IT.

There are not a lot of choices.

This God you describe sounds ruthless and quite evil, whilst I totally believe Jesus existed I think you can keep you Christianity to yourself, seems flawed. Why not just do good deeds and worship God in your own way rather than conforming to a book that has been changed a silly silly amount of times over the past 2000 years.

dlbott
reply to post by Scope and a Beam

 

You are simply not looking. He is mentioned in the book of Enoch and several other dead sea scrolls found there. He ha a prominent roll in the Koran. And in other religions texts. It is there if you look....

The Bot

The composition of Enoch dates to 300 BCE. It cannot be a contemporary reference to Jesus.

His "roll" as you put in in the Quran is as "Prophet Isa" and dates to 610 CE at the EARLIEST. It is not a contemporary reference to Jesus it's 600 years after his alleged life.

BO XIAN
There are not a lot of choices.

Maybe you just don't see them because your too busy defending your god.

reply to post by Scope and a Beam


Did you see my short story entry?

Check it out.

You will see your proof if you examine the evidence.

The only "rock solid foundation" that the Bible presents is a confusion of several thousand scraps of ancient writings and several hundred subsequent "translations" of those scraps NONE OF WHICH AGREE WITH EACH OTHER. Every version is rife with internal contradictions. The only way in which it is the most "well attested" ancient text is as a record of human gullibility and chicanery, in my opinion.

dlbott
reply to post by Scope and a Beam

 

You are simply not looking. He is mentioned in the book of Enoch and several other dead sea scrolls found there. He ha a prominent roll in the Koran. And in other religions texts. It is there if you look....

The Bot

You are mentioning papers written by men from the exact same time/place. Zeus is written about far more than Jesus. Does that make him real too?

BO XIAN

A lot of the posts on this thread illustrate a major corruption, evil, hideousness, suicidal habit, stupidity . . . etc. of our era.

. . . i.e.

outrageously obtuse and extreme ARROGANCE.

No big surprise given that's what got the dark lord kicked out of heaven . . . his acolytes will certainly follow in his footsteps on such scores.

Wow...how did Voldermort get in this?

Oh...of course....The Third Testament!!

In 100 years time, after a catastrophic episode (?), ancient scholars will find the word of the "Potter".
Authors will write books of the adventures of the Potter.
Potterism will expand the knowledge of man, as he has fought the Dark Lord and won.
People will quote phrases as "Occulous RepairO", and know that means...fix and open thine eyes.
"Lumos" will light the way for the people.
People will shout "Expecto Patronum" to ward off all demons and evil on Earth.
People with glasses will be venerated.
All Hail the Potter!!!!

Sing the Prayer...."Our Potter...Whom art in Hogsworth (a future Valhalla), ....etc etc.

Silly...but just as believable........