Did Jesus exist?
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M*W: This debate is moot. Jesus didn't exist.
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M*W: No. Jesus was not a physical man. He did not preach anything. The writers of the new testament spoke for him. The NT was most likely written by members of the Roman Empire as a farce.
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M*W: No. He did not exist. Jesus was only a fictional character, therefore he did not have the qualities of a living human being.
5) Could Jesus have sinned?
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M*W: No. It was not possible for a fictional character to have sinned.
2) Was Jesus the "Son of God"?
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M*W: No. the "Son of God" refers to the "Sun of Helios." Jesus is a reference to the sun. The "sun" has been called many things -- "helios," "sun of mankind," "sun of god," etc.
3) Was Jesus the "Son of Man"?
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M*W: No. Jesus is just a reference to the "sun." That's all.
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M*W: Jesus didn't exist. Words that have been attributed to Jesus are the words of others, be it Paul or the actual writers of the NT.
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M*W: The fictional character of Jesus said nothing, because he didn't exist. Every word alluded to in the NT is false.
Yes.
Yes
It was against His will to sin. Can a Perfect being go against their perfect will?
Yes through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Yes through Mary.
You are probably right it would be impossible for a "man" to remember it all and put it all down. But not if a man has a Helper.
Jesus said:
John 14
25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
He has Helped me many times over the years to remember portions of scripture when i need them.
All praise to The Ancient Of Days.All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Jesus said:
John 14
25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
Correction. A book said that Jesus said:
Blah, blah, blah...
We have no idea if Jesus existed, or what he might have said if he did exist. And the veracity of the story we are questioning is precisely the story you are quoting. As far as circular arguments go, that is a pretty tight loop!
Just as we would need some evidence outside of Winnie-The-Pooh books to prove the Bear's existence, we need something outside of the string of Christian writings to verify that they are not simple fiction as well. For that reason, even the Dead Sea Scrolls are just more of the circulating manuscripts of the time. What we would need are some Roman accounts of the murder of a deity, for example. Or better archaeological evidence.
Look at it this way: There are thousands of historical figures older than Jesus that can be proved to have existed with many different sources and methods. Authors, philosophers, kings, engineers, architects, artists, craftsmen, scientists, etc... Jesus does not have the evidence that these other men and women have.
Almost everything we know about Jesus comes from Paul's interpretation of events. Even the four gospels were written long after Jesus died, and were most likely based on stories handed down from the prime source, which was Paul. Some biblical scholars (theists, I might add) often refer to Christianity as "Paulism". That is how much more influential he has been on the cult than people pretend that Jesus was.
So, please understand that this question must be taken seriously. Even biblical scholars take this question seriously. And the fact that you accept Paul's account of things, and base your life around it, without ever pausing to question it, should scare the bejeebees out of you.
not proven.
not proven.
still not proven, but for the sake of arguement.
if he existed at all, this is would be impossible, as he was born with original sin intact, through Mary
do you understand what perfect means.
and you will need to define sin and who he may have sinned against, the romans, and jews thought he was a trouble maker, you dont kill a sinless man, so he must have broke some laws
"Despite the claims of Christian apologists, there is absolutely nothing in the Old Testament (OT) that is of relevance to our question, apart from the possible fact that some prophets may have thought that an "anointed one" (a rescuer king or priest) would once again assume the leadership of the Jewish world.
The name Jesus occurs only seven times in the entire book... (NT) The Jesus of Revelation is a god who would later be made into a man - not a man who would later become a god, as liberal religious scholars would have it.
Thus, unless one supposes the argument of Irenæus to be other than ridiculous, we come to the conclusion that the gospels are of unknown origin and authorship, and there is no good reason to suppose they are eye-witness accounts of a man named Jesus of Nazareth."
http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html
It seems that Luke was written years after Jesus' death.
Luke:
http://www.abu.nb.ca/ecm/Luke00a.htm
"Traditionally the author of this book has been accepted as Luke the beloved physician and friend of Paul."
"Luke was not an original eyewitness or disciple of Jesus."
So Luke never even met Jesus or heard any of his speeches. He wrote what Jesus would have probably said.
Luke:
http://www.abu.nb.ca/ecm/Luke00a.htm
"Traditionally the author of this book has been accepted as Luke the beloved physician and friend of Paul."
"Luke was not an original eyewitness or disciple of Jesus."
So Luke never even met Jesus or heard any of his speeches. He wrote what Jesus would have probably said.
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The real authors are unknown
Mathew is believed to be St. Mathew, a tax collector who became an apostle of Jesus. This is doubted for many reasons including the fact that the original text was in Greek and not Aramaic.
He borrowed extensively from the gospel of Mark and other sources as well
Mathew is believed to be St. Mathew, a tax collector who became an apostle of Jesus. This is doubted for many reasons including the fact that the original text was in Greek and not Aramaic.
He borrowed extensively from the gospel of Mark and other sources as well
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Mark is believed to be Mark the Evangelist. It is widely believed that it is a source for the other Gospels Mathew and Luke and has been dated to between 60 and 70 ad.
I think it is quite obvious that these guys were making shit up. To whit:
There are three quotes given between the four books for what Jesus' last words on the cross were. Surely people would be able to get this shit right!
There are four versions of who went to the tomb and what they found there. One angel, two angels, rock already rolled back, rock rolled back as they watched, etc...
Infallible? First-Hand accounts?
I think it is quite obvious that these guys were making shit up. To whit:
There are three quotes given between the four books for what Jesus' last words on the cross were. Surely people would be able to get this shit right!
There are four versions of who went to the tomb and what they found there. One angel, two angels, rock already rolled back, rock rolled back as they watched, etc...
Infallible? First-Hand accounts?
Great points swivel. If all these guys who wrote about Jesus' life all had divine inspiration from a "Helper", then shouldn't all of the accounts be the same?
Oh? Must be because believers are empty handed, as ever. There was no "Jesus Christ" at all, objectively, and evidence for any ordinary historical Jesus is wholly lacking.
Strange, as many christians - of which I'm quite sure you are one - have stated that man was created perfect as were the angels, but that Adam and satan fell from that state of perfection.
{edit} What you're actually saying therefore is that as no perfect being can go against their perfect will that mankind and the angels were created imperfect. The only viable result would be that this perfect god of yours created imperfect beings but then got mad because these imperfect beings were imperfect. The only plausible outcome is that your god is an idiot.
Now, if man was created perfect but fell from that perfection then the answer to your own question becomes obvious, (and goes against what you have clearly always believed). If on the other hand you still hold to your statement then man never was perfect and due to imperfections created within him, the fall was an inevitability - because the very design of man was flawed.
As for the rest of your post.. It reminds me of a Don Henley line..
Have you noticed that a .. man
Can only get so far
Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
With the way things are
Your post is a prime example.. you're answering what you want to be true instead of looking for or caring what is.
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“If what you're looking for is proof positive that Jesus Christ lived and breathed--e.g., library card, baby pictures, etc.--you're out of luck. The big guy left no written records, and no accounts of his life were written while he was still alive. The earliest Gospels date from maybe 70 AD, 40 years after his demise.
Still, barring an actual conspiracy, 40 years is too short a time for an entirely mythical Christ to have been fabricated out of (heh-heh) whole cloth. (See below.) Certainly the non-Christians who wrote about him in the years following his putative death did not doubt he had once lived. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals around 110 AD, mentions one "Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius." The Jewish historian Josephus remarks on the stoning of "James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ." The Talmud, a collection of Jewish writings, also refers to Christ, although it says he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panther. Doubts about the historicity of Christ did not surface until the 18th century. In short, whether or not JC was truly the Son of God, he was probably the son of somebody.”
(Quoted from answer to the first part of the question, "Did Jesus really exist?" at StraightDope.com)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html
Not to mention that the Jews would have had to alter all the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah's incarnation, quite a chore, to be unbenownst to everyone, except the necessitated scribe alterationists.
SVRP,
good post. So evidence points to the existence of a physical man whom the people of that time called Jesus Christ. True, if years right now are based on Before Christ (BC) and After Christ's Birth (AD) then there had to be some man in existence who had some kind of effect on enough people to base the calender years around his existenece.
But as you stated, even if historians and other primary sources note the physcial existenece, this still doesn't prove or suggest that Jesus was the Son of God. There is something, however, which might suggest that he was the Son of God: miracles.
I would like to see some written first-hand witness accounts (other than the 12 apostles) of Jesus performing any one of the many miracles he performed, such as turning water into wine, feeding 5,000 with one loaf of bread and a couple fish, making a blind man see, healing other people with incurable diseases, and about 50 other miracles which I haven't listed. If there were all these miracles performed in front of witnesses of 1,000's of people there surely must be a written first-hand account of them by someone other than the 12 apostles.
If I had access to a writing utensil and paper and witnessed any one of those miracles, why wouldn't I write them down on paper?
Also interesting to note that Jesus never actually wrote anything down himself. The only direct quotes we have of him aren't direct. Huge speeches from Jesus such as the "beatitudes" speech in the book of Mathew were written years after the actual speech. So every sentence spoken from Jesus in the Bible is not really the exact words he stated.
good post. So evidence points to the existence of a physical man whom the people of that time called Jesus Christ. True, if years right now are based on Before Christ (BC) and After Christ's Birth (AD) then there had to be some man in existence who had some kind of effect on enough people to base the calender years around his existenece.
But as you stated, even if historians and other primary sources note the physcial existenece, this still doesn't prove or suggest that Jesus was the Son of God. There is something, however, which might suggest that he was the Son of God: miracles.
I would like to see some written first-hand witness accounts (other than the 12 apostles) of Jesus performing any one of the many miracles he performed, such as turning water into wine, feeding 5,000 with one loaf of bread and a couple fish, making a blind man see, healing other people with incurable diseases, and about 50 other miracles which I haven't listed. If there were all these miracles performed in front of witnesses of 1,000's of people there surely must be a written first-hand account of them by someone other than the 12 apostles.
If I had access to a writing utensil and paper and witnessed any one of those miracles, why wouldn't I write them down on paper?
Also interesting to note that Jesus never actually wrote anything down himself. The only direct quotes we have of him aren't direct. Huge speeches from Jesus such as the "beatitudes" speech in the book of Mathew were written years after the actual speech. So every sentence spoken from Jesus in the Bible is not really the exact words he stated.
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I'm afraid not. None of the 'writings' mentioned by srvp come from the supposed "time" of the supposed jesus. What the 'evidence' points to is no greater than the evidence pertaining to the existence of Harry Potter.
A terribly faulty start to a post. By your reasoning the Roman god of war had to exist for anyone to ever name a planet Mars or a Roman god of the sea for anyone to call a planet Neptune. Heh, forget planets - clearly the Roman goddess Juno existed otherwise us several billion people wouldn't call a month of the year June.. or what the hell, this can't be Monday unless the Germanic moon god Mani exists..
Your statement fails.
[Edit] What is it with Romans and their gods? There's so damn many. Purely out of interest, who was it exactly that decided there was a jesus and he was a god? I'm sure it had something to do with the Romans...
Your questions are failed since they are easily answered:
1) No. A man named Yeshua may have existed, but no man named "Jesus" existed and lived the life of the Gospels.
From this 2-5 fail to be pertinent.
If 1) is yes, then necessarily - since (1) is true implies that Jesus is the Jesus of the Bible, then Jesus must have done the things of the Bible and so there is nothing really worth debating there.
Therefore you should try to reword your questions in a meaningful and thought-provoking way. A nice (and relevant) question to ask is 'of what significance is it that none of the NT was written by people who ever knew "Jesus"'?
There is far more evidence for the historicity of the New Testament than for the existences of Plato and Aristotle.
And why did the demarcation of human history end up being the time of Jesus' incarnation?
And why did the demarcation of human history end up being the time of Jesus' incarnation?