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

Professor Bart Ehrman,
"Within a couple of decades of Jesus’s death, we have numerous accounts of his life in a wide geographical area."

“The Other is that the Acts account gives clear evidence of being very early and Palestinian in origin.”

reply to post by texastig


Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ

Opening paragraph of the wiki:

Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ) as portrayed in the Bible is only found in three places: the Bible itself, other early Christian writings, and references by the various early churches (c. 100 CE) to the long dead leader of those churches. There are no contemporaneous sources outside of the early Christian community.

Historians focusing on this era generally accept that there was likely an individual named Jesus who lived in Palestine roughly two millennia ago, had a very small following of people studying his views, was killed by the government, and whose life became pivotal to some of the world's largest religions. Beyond this, however, there is no evidence over the accuracy of any of the descriptions of his life, as described in the Bible or as understood by his believers. A small minority, past[1] and present[2] believe there is insufficient justification to assume any individual human seed for the stories, representing an extreme in the other end of belief.

So basically, if he existed, he was most likely just a regular guy who happened to have a bunch of followers.

texastig
Professor Bart Ehrman,
"Within a couple of decades of Jesus’s death, we have numerous accounts of his life in a wide geographical area."

“The Other is that the Acts account gives clear evidence of being very early and Palestinian in origin.”

A couple decades after his death leaves a LOT of room for embellishment.

reply to post by texastig

teria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned."

Pagan personages like Zeus, Aphrodite, Hercules, Persephine.....or real entities like Satan, Adam and Eve, Jehovah, Yahweh? OR do you mean ordinary people like Plato, Socrates, Salon......

As for Jesus, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

reply to post by texastig

"Within a couple of decades of Jesus’s death, we have numerous accounts of his life in a wide geographical area."

Kinda like "Elvis sightings"!

Unfortunately, these, supposed accounts are by one or two people, whose accounts are recorded by anonymous authors.

reply to post by wildtimes

Because it is almost entirely about control.

Something everyone is guilty of, to one extent or another.

What was the worse thing a Christian ever did to you personally?

I do understand there are many reasons to feel bitter, I do at times, I believe it would profit us more if we found common ground.

Wild, do you know how much I enjoy you post when it is not about religion?

Logarock

daskakik

BO XIAN
Clearly too many folks on the other side of these issues have not sufficiently investigated the solid Biblical translations.

Then there are those who understand that solid translations don't turn myths into facts.

Saying that simply shows yet another know not what is a myth or a solid translation is. You have some idea that never did a scholar take hold of translation the bible. Yep no educated folks every took on the task. It was all done by ignorant "c" student dropouts without any integrity whatsoever.

Nothing in that post claims what you are pretending to be offended by. Can you show any intelligent scholar that buys this crap without a premeditated agenda though?

reply to post by Stormdancer777

What was the worse thing a Christian ever did to you personally?

An Episcopal Priest and congregation who had me kneeling on a velvet-upholstered 'kneeler' reciting that I was not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under 'God's' table.

That I knew I'd "sinned against 'God'" in heart, thought, and deed, and was guilty of things I'd done, and the things I'd left undone..

Age about 4 is the first I recall, and thenceforward. Brutal.

Sorry, but those words are branded into my brain. They may not be in the correct order as presented in the Episcopal mass, or all contained in one single prayer, but those are what I recall being a little girl doing her best to be good.

And they were damaging.

Wild, do you know how much I enjoy you post when it is not about religion?

Nope, no idea.
But, thanks.

reply to post by wildtimes


WOW, that is harsh, yea I had bad experiences as a child and an adult, I don't wan to make excuse for what Christians do to one another,I was terrified I was going to hell most my life.

I don't believe in hell, but I wonder.

People will always let you down, I guess that is why I am kinda reclusive.

I always wanted to just sit at the feet of Christ and learn from the master, the way it was back in the day before it all became so corrupt.

Surely god knew this world happen, why yes he did it is written .

Maybe it is all a test.
It has to be.

I always come to the same conclusion, it is to teach us unconditional love, and forgiveness.

Krazysh0t
Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ

Wiki isn't reliable

Krazysh0t
A couple decades after his death leaves a LOT of room for embellishment.

Decades in ancient terms is great. Historians look for information close to the source. Why? Because that means there was no myths or fables about the Bible because people were still alive that had seen Jesus as Paul the Apostle writes about in
1 Corinthians 15:6

windword
Pagan personages like Zeus, Aphrodite, Hercules, Persephine.....or real entities like Satan, Adam and Eve, Jehovah, Yahweh? OR do you mean ordinary people like Plato, Socrates, Salon......
As for Jesus, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

"For now I want to stress the most foundational point of all: even though some views of Jesus could loosely be labeled myths (in the sense that mythicists use the term: these views are not history but imaginative creation), Jesus himself was not a myth. He really existed."
Bart Ehrman - Did Jesus Exist?

Classicist Michael Grant
"Modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory [Osiris, Mithras, etc.]. It has again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars." [Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (Scribner's, 1977), p. 200.]

reply to post by texastig


Certainly, many people named Jesus have existed. And, a carpenter's son named Jesus, from an obscure, tiny village called Nazareth, could have existed. But, Jesus Christ, no, there is no proof, whatsoever, and I don't believe that the Godman ever existed.

I've always pondered the same thing myself. The bible to me, was written by regular people. It gives people hope because they fear what happens after death and feel they need that "guidance" from a higher power to feel complete.
I'm a firm believer in science. Everything needs to be proven to be a truth by science our physical proof.

windword
reply to post by texastig

 

Certainly, many people named Jesus have existed. And, a carpenter's son named Jesus, from an obscure, tiny village called Nazareth, could have existed. But, Jesus Christ, no, there is no proof, whatsoever, and I don't believe that the Godman ever existed.

I do for this reason. Jesus was an insert in Judea to fix a percieved probem with the Roman Overlord, possibly to cause an inserrection/revolt among the subjugated. It failed in its 'timeframe' of give or take 15 to 50 years. The Roman Empire was eventually destroyed by the Visigoth overlay in the end. However, in the demi gods "infant"esmal vision/wisdom introduced Mohammed to fix the problems once again within the region. This also failed to bring peace to the area, specifically Medina and Mecca and created more problems for the future. The meddling by others (off world demigods were banned) with these PMR civilizations failed. Im still trying to Grok Hitlers Germany and a world domination ARCHITYPE so recent (who was driving it/behind it and for what reasons). If demigods were disallowed to interfere there leaves only one other (and it was not satan).

vethumanbeing

windword
reply to post by texastig

 

Certainly, many people named Jesus have existed. And, a carpenter's son named Jesus, from an obscure, tiny village called Nazareth, could have existed. But, Jesus Christ, no, there is no proof, whatsoever, and I don't believe that the Godman ever existed.

I do for this reason. Jesus was an insert in Judea to fix a percieved probem with the Roman Overlord, possibly to cause an inserrection/revolt among the subjugated. It failed in its 'timeframe' of give or take 15 to 50 years. The Roman Empire was eventually destroyed by the Visigoth overlay in the end. However, in the demi gods "infant"esmal vision/wisdom introduced Mohammed to fix the problems once again within the region. This also failed to bring peace to the area, specifically Medina and Mecca and created more problems for the future. The meddling by others (off world demigods were banned) with these PMR civilizations failed. Im still trying to Grok Hitlers Germany and a world domination ARCHITYPE so recent (who was driving it/behind it and for what reasons). If demigods were disallowed to interfere there leaves only one other (and it was not satan).

edit on 8-1-2014 by vethumanbeing because: (no reason given)

Oddly thats why im sure he existed your looking at it the wrong way. Would they have made Jesus so weak killed by there oppressors if they just made the story up? See Jesus didnt fill the role of savior as the jews saw him in fact thats why to this day many jews deny he was the savior. If they were just going to make up a story hundreds of years later they could have made Jesus a super hero battling the romans like david did in the earlier days. Instead they got a a simple man as you put it i think it proves he existed was he the son of god well i dont know never met him. But the point of this was to simply show he existed and i think we can safely say he did.

FINIS just for a minute ...

Pinning the "scholarly credentials" argument for Historical Jesus on Grant and Ehrman is interesting.

Grant was apparently an unrepentant atheist. He was also known for making very complex historical studies into very simple and digestible narratives for his many popular-selling books. (The quotes are from his best-seller Jesus: A Historian Looks at the Gospels)

Erhman, when he's not writing books about how Historical Jesus is real (three so far, one for each year 2012, 2013, coming up 2014), (best sellers, by the way) writes about the forgeries of the almost half of the books of the NT and other early Christian works.

From an interview about his book Forged (2011):

"In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul. At least according to Bart D. Ehrman, a renowned biblical scholar, who makes the charges in his new book “Forged.”

“There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.In “Forged,” Ehrman claims that:

* At least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries.

* The New Testament books attributed to Jesus’ disciples could not have been written by them because they were illiterate.

* Many of the New Testament’s forgeries were manufactured by early Christian leaders trying to settle theological feuds.

So, I'm not sure Ehrman is your guy if you want to prove that the New Testament is the greatest ancient reference of all time for everything but especially the unassailable, yet utterly undocumented assertion that Jesus was really real.

Really. No, really.

Why hasn't anyone pulled out Occam's razor yet?

I mean, it is extremely unlikely that a movement on the scale of Christianity began thousands of years ago and grew to what it is now based on nothing else but a fictitious individual...

All the writings we have concerning Jesus, whether they were contemporary or not doesn't even matter, they still lend credence to actual existence...because again, Occam's razor....

Think of the time scale involved and the people involved and how grand a scheme it is to fool billion's of people for thousands of years....And then to top that off, all the people THAT DIED for this "conspiracy"....

Please, let's use our brains a little bit more around here...

We believe in aliens, we believe in government cover ups and blackOPS, we believe in remote viewing, we believe in ghosts and sasquatch and all other sorts of cryptids....but we can't seem to pull ourselves together to believe in Jesus the Christ? REAAALLY?



This sort of thinking reminds me of a movie I just recently watched...."God Bless America"....When I hear people that believe in aliens and sasquatch and Loch Ness and government conspiracys far and wide, but they turn around and deny Christ as a real individual....Well, it makes me feel like this guy.....right at about 4:00 in....

youtu.be...

With all that said, I'd like to come back to the freakin aliens....Of all the "sightings" and "stories" and "encounters" NONE, NOT A SINGLE FRIGGIN ONE, has been scientifically verified....And STILL, the number of alien sightings and encounters DOES NOT EVEN COME CLOSE, to the number of proclaimed Christians on this planet.... Yet we take their word as valid saying..."well there are so many sightings, so many reports, they can't all be fake" ....WITH NO EVIDENCE MIND YOU....And then you say "oh well Jesus isn't real, Aliens really created us..." REAAAALLLY? WWWWHAAAT TTHEEEE FFFFFFFFF?????

a2d

Like almost everything else, it's ultimately about money.

Where do scholars work? Universities and seminaries, right?

How much theology do you have if Jesus did not exist?

How much history do you have if Jesus was a myth instead of a real person (though not the magical man)?

90% of these books are dedicated to the academic politics between historicism and mythicism.

It's about money; let's let Dr. Ehrman explain it to us ((Source):

“Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine."

Wow, so no disputation of the claims the mythicists make, Dr. Ehrman? No counter-arguments? No conflicting facts? Just "they don't have PhDs"? Why is that so important again?

"There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds — thousands? — of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.”

Oh, so ... it's about who wins in the high competition for the very, very scarce jobs in the field?

Money ... and well, you know, book sales of course. Three in three years.

Agree2Disagree
Why hasn't anyone pulled out Occam's razor yet?

I mean, it is extremely unlikely that a movement on the scale of Christianity began thousands of years ago and grew to what it is now based on nothing else but a fictitious individual...

All the writings we have concerning Jesus, whether they were contemporary or not doesn't even matter, they still lend credence to actual existence...because again, Occam's razor....

Think of the time scale involved and the people involved and how grand a scheme it is to fool billion's of people for thousands of years....And then to top that off, all the people THAT DIED for this "conspiracy"....

Please, let's use our brains a little bit more around here...

Occam's Razor, huh?

Okay, so billions of followers over thousands of years are the proof of authenticity?

Prophet Muhammad will be glad to hear it, because 1,619,314,000 Muslims in the modern world certainly believe in him and have for over 1400 years.

The Buddha can breathe easy now as well, because 1.2 billion Buddhists believe in him and have for over 2600 years.

And, Vishnu, Rama, Brahma, Krishna and the rest of the 33 million gods can pop back into existence ... because a billion Hindus have believed in them for over 3200 years (or more).

And ... there are 1.1 Billion more or less who are secular/nonreligious/atheist/agnostic ... so wait, wait, does that mean that Mr. Occam says none of those nice deities really exist after all? This is so confusing!

/crocodile tear

(Source)