I changed my mind on the Historicity of Jesus

It was a period of political and religious upheaval and a period of discovery and trade with many distant lands (the Silk Road was open).
There were many people preaching their "truth" at that time.
I am sure more than a few of them had followings of different sizes.
I am also sure quite a few of them with different sized followings were not written about by Jospehus, Pliny or anyone else.
 
Josephus' reference is still very disputed and unclear.

Pliny and Tacitus were born after Jesus was gone.
 
one_raven said:
It wasn't until the Roman Catholic Church co-opted the image of this philosopher, turned him into a God-man and decided to codify the "religion" that it started to become the powerhouse that it became.
Click to expand...
The earliest Christian writings are those of Paul, followed by the writer of Mark.

In Paul's writing Jesus is definitely a kind of divine being. He makes hardly any mention of his life as a man, and never met Jesus while he lived.

You would like Tom Harpur's book 'Water into Wine'.

waterintowine-web.jpg
 
I am surprised, and very disappointed, that more of the Jesus deniers did not post in this.
 
I don't care if he existed or not. It doesn't matter to me - I'll get to that later.

I think that cults that powerful do not come from nothing. Historians AFTER his time talked as if he did in fact exist, while historians FROM his time, do not make mention.

That means at his time he was very important to his (relatively) small group of followers. These followers did far more to create "christianity" than Jesus did. John in particular is the primary reason for Christianity going to Europe and thus it being able to "make it".

I stick to my opinion I stated in feb on this:

Even in the "official" canon that finally got agreed upon some 300 years after Jesus supposedly walked on water, Jesus does not expand the Hebrew's God, YHWH's "love" to the rest of us until fairly late on in his life. Even then my take is, well religion is power and why not spread it- more powerful - perhaps he even had a little hint of genius in the back of his mind that re-spinning an ancient superstition, might take on pretty good with some of the weak minded Romans. This is if he existed.

It's not like it all suddenly popped up with "Jesus", we are talking all the way back to before the Hebrews ripped off the mythology of the Babylonians, Egyptians and they in fact ripped their stuff off from Akkadian-Sumerians and nile dwellers before.

Ever play that game where you whisper a story in someone's ear and they do the same to the person next to them and it goes around in a circle until the other person next to you blurts out the final version(which grows or shrinks in each telling). It always sounds ridiculous to the original teller.

I find it amazing people believe such garbage.
Click to expand...

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1760734&postcount=29
 
one_raven said:
I have changed my view on this topic.

People who claim that an historical Jesus never existed are making an unreasonable claim, in my view.

Certainly, his life and times were exaggerated and even partially fabricated by the Roman Catholic Church who was attempting to codify a hero and build a religion, but that does not mean the man did not exist.

First, people claim a lack of extra-Biblical evidence. Well, the Bible is hardly one book, it was written by numerous people, over many years – it is a collection of books and letters. Sure, we don’t have newspaper clippings of Jesus turning over the money-changers’ table or a YouTube clip of him reciting the Beatitudes, but to discount it as “just the Bible” is an oversimplification of the facts.

Second, I think the Nag Hammadi library should not be overlooked – and it is an extra-Biblical source. It is a source that has been dated back to perhaps 80CE, it was not discovered until 1945 AND it is rejected by the Catholic Church. Why would the Church have written the Gospel of Thomas – which is really damning to the structure of the Church – and then disavow it as heresy? That makes no sense to me.

Third, and most important to me, is the fact that had the Roman Catholic wanted to create a God-man out of thin air and totally fabricate his existence, I don’t think the Bible would read as it does. Why would there be four gospels in the Bible, instead of 12 (or 13)? Why would John not align with the Synoptic Gospels? Why would Revelation read like the maniacal ravings of a lunatic mind? Why the apparent contradictions? I believe if they had just decided to make him up, they would not have had to spin so much doctrine and dogma to fill in the blanks and account for these apparent contradictions. Why did it take so many years to determine the Canon? Why so much debate over it? Why were so many books rejected?

While there is not doubt that the Roman Catholic Church did doctor, twist and pervert the story of Jesus, it seems entirely unreasonable to claim he did not exist, simply for the dearth of mention by historians. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Good post. One doesn't look in Madagascar for a history of the life of George Washington any more than one looks outside of Israel for the history of Christ. ;) The Catholics don't believe the bible so they're not Christians. That's why they call themselves the "Catholic religion", not the Christian religion. Their god is the pope because they believe everything he says, especially when it contradicts the bible. That's why they call the pope "Our Holy Father" when Jesus tells us we have only one Holy Father and He's in heaven.
 
I was trying to explain this before in a thread ages ago, I agree with Raven. People look past the gospels and say "but thats just the bible", The bible is actualy documented events of a persons life.


Jesus in my opinion had decent philosophy nd was a good person, peple do not look at it from a philosophical point of view, they just see that it's about god and superstition nd debunk it without consideration. You will find people that believe in god or are open to the idea of god will consider jesus alot more, even if they are hindu or muslim they will approach it with open mind.

People cannot separate the name of jesus from his so called miracles, they cannot view him as a regular guy with good philosopy. It is either jesus existed as was said, or it's ll complete myth with no truth. They do not take into consideration chinese whisper effect with exagerations.

peace.
 
The History Channel did an interesting 2 hour peace on all the people who may have been Jesus. There's were quite a few....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top