The Gospels—History or Myth?
- Thread starter Saquist
- Start date
When one starts with the belief Jesus did not exist, one then needs to speculate about how this conspiracy took place. All of this is pure speculation based on the initial presupposition. However if you actually bother to read the Bible, John is not talking about people who say Jesus never existed. He is talking about people who believe Jesus is not the Christ. Nothing unusual here that even raises an eyebrow. This speculation, or more accurately wishful thinking, eventually becomes rather fantastic when the whole conspiracy is put together.
Of course there were many who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Paul admonishes people to seek out and talk to people who DID meet Christ after the resurrection, more than 500 people who Paul said were still alive when he wrote. This demolishes the speculation, whoever’s it is.
Saquist,
You can see now my prophesy from my first post was perfectly correct. The anti-Christian crowd knows they have to show not just some inconsistencies in the Bible, but show Jesus did not even exist. It must all be a giant conspiracy.
This is really silly conspiracy grot. A religion, rapidly growing from the first to the fourth century to become the dominant religion, then suddenly in the fourth century someone says Oh, we have no evidence! Lets fabricate some! Without evidence these Christians wouldn't have existed in the first place!
I think some people in the 20th century desperately need to fabricate a lack of evidence.
Astrology predates Christianity but millions of people still believe in it. Does that make it true ?
There was a time when everyone believed the earth was flat. Were they right ?
The fact that a lot of people believe something does not guarantee its truth
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Paul was not only a skeptic but a persecutor of the early Christians. This was prior to experiencing a post-resurrection appearance. Paul's experience caused him to immediately change from a nasty persecutor of Christianity to one of its most aggressive advocates. He claimed that this change came only after personally interacting with the resurrected Christ, and he willingly suffered and died for his testimony.
Paul did not willingly die for a fictional story.
Perhaps you are confused, but my post had nothing to do with incredulity. Let me put this in words you'll hopefully understand.
The graph shows that as time progresses more and more extraordinary claims are added to the same story. This is quite typical for story telling over time - chinese whispers, creative addition etc. In this instance one would be best served looking at the earliest copy for the most accurate, (if claiming it is a true story).
What I am asking you is why you should believe the later stories, (that have clear additions that the earlier ones did not), should be considered accurate.
these comparisons are without merit. The hypothesis is the story of Jesus is fictional, without evidence. But Christianity grew at an astonishing rate, even under severe persecution. This could not happen without strong evidence, first hand reports and even miracles. One must have a very powerful belief, down to the depths of the soul, to willingly submit to persecution and die for it.
No one who became a Christian during this inflationary period actually witnessed any of the events described in the bible. I agree that martyrdom influenced many people, but that doesn't really say anything about the essential truth of things like miracles.
revolvr,
That he changed his mind about the Christian idea is irrelevant to his being a reliable authority on the existence of the alleged Jesus. He isn't.
Many people die for ideals. Many died in WWII to protect the concept of freedom or for what they thought was right, on both sides. I can clearly see how dying for the idea "that love your neighbor" is a great philoshopy could occur, especially if there was a convinction that death was a magical gateway to a utopian paradise. None of which offers any evidence that the focus of the idea, actually existed.
The point is that he never lived in the area where the alleged Jesus was meant to have lived, i.e. his letters are not eye-witness accounts of a man who is claimed to be a god.
That he changed his mind about the Christian idea is irrelevant to his being a reliable authority on the existence of the alleged Jesus. He isn't.
Many people die for ideals. Many died in WWII to protect the concept of freedom or for what they thought was right, on both sides. I can clearly see how dying for the idea "that love your neighbor" is a great philoshopy could occur, especially if there was a convinction that death was a magical gateway to a utopian paradise. None of which offers any evidence that the focus of the idea, actually existed.
Revolvr,
You need to also realize that without Constantine deciding to favor Christianity that the religion would likely have died out. It was Constantine who initiated the creed be written, and evidence would have been really usseful - hence the Josephus forgeries. These forgeries were not realized until quite recently so the fraud worked quite nicely for over 1000 years.
The Nicene Creed and its establishmenet was a critical moment in the history of Christianity. It created and defined the formal nature of Christianity and created the concepts of the trinity since without that the claim that Jesus was a deity conflicted with the assertion that was only one god. This creed formally defined Christainity and its would have been clearly of value if the authors could actually have shown some real evdeince for their claims.
You need to also realize that without Constantine deciding to favor Christianity that the religion would likely have died out. It was Constantine who initiated the creed be written, and evidence would have been really usseful - hence the Josephus forgeries. These forgeries were not realized until quite recently so the fraud worked quite nicely for over 1000 years.
I'm glad you brought up Muhammad (pbuh). This is another good example of a charismatic leader (in this case, a military leader) for whom people would fight for and die for. If Muhammad (pbuh) had not existed and it was all a fictional hoax, would anyone follow him to death? Would Islam even exist today? No, of course not! Likewise with Jesus - he had to be real or Christianity would never have taken off.
But this thread is arguing the historical Jesus, not the validity of Islam. We can take that to another thread.
The reality of Allah is irrelevant to this thread. The reality of Muhammad is.
Have you heard of the Albigensian Crusades ? Over 1,000,000 Cathars , regarded as heretics by the Vatican , were slaughtered.
Most of the Cathars were dualists. They believed in two gods, a bad one who made the world and a good one who created heaven. As a result they were not worldly people. When attempts at conversion failed, the Pope ( Innocent III ? ) launched a crusade against them. So here you have an example of people dying for their faith.
Notably, the last 220 of them left their refuge when surrounded, and walked into pyres that had been prepared for them. What was said to be the largest human bonfire in history happened during this period. I can't remember the number of people involved.
I have been to Carcassonne , among other places, in Southern France where this shameful business took place. So the notion of people dying for their faith is not confined to a handful of early Christians.
In the light of what you have previously said, I would expect you to give credence to dualism on the basis that many people died for their belief in it, as you seem to regard dying for a belief his as some sort of litmus test for the veracity of that belief. Do you now agree with dualism ?
The Cathars were only dualistic in that they put Satan on par with God. They also believed in the divinity of Jesus and the New Testament. So I'm not sure what your point is. So they died for their version of Jesus too.
We are arguing the historical accuracy of Jesus and whether or not Jesus even existed and if the Gospels were fictional. The veracity of their fight only goes to the power of Jesus. One could argue they were fighting for their land as well. But that doesn't advance your argument either.
There is no credible evidence Jesus is made up. The preponderance of the evidence shows otherwise. Without His miracles and the miracles of the early evangelists, and the power and logic of His message, Christianity could not have grown so rapidly under near impossible circumstances. This would never happen with a fictional hoax made hundreds of years later. Thousands saw Jesus after His death on the cross; those people were converted instantly, even those who previously persecuted the Christians. And we haven't gotten to the verified prophesy from the Old Testament. No other religion has this.
All of this makes for powerful arguments for Jesus. It is proof? No. But people who are intellectually honest and have an open mind often find themselves believing. The intellectual machinations required to deny this must presuppose Jesus cannot exist and the Bible cannot be true, thus are highly biased and are often forced to be dishonest.
The point I was getting at is that people will die for their beliefs irrespective of what that believe The Cathars were going against the prevaling orthodoxy so it was not simply a question of dying for Jesus; it was a question of their version of the message of the Bible. You used the example of people dying for their beliefs to support your view that the gospels must be true. The thread is about the gospels, not just about Jesus. As you are not a dualist, you must regard the Cathars version of the Bible's message as wrong. So it follows that dying for one's beliefs says nothing about the veracity of one's beliefs.
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Exception does not validate speculation.
There is also no evidence available to feed that speculation that events did not occur as he testifies they occured.
You see the difficulty that a justice system provides in discounting testimony? You may proppose it's fiction and asail it's validity but without true contradictory evidence you might as well say such conclusions for closing arguements. It's a matter of implicity not explicity at this point.
Lets see if I may summarize.
You provided a graph which shows a progression of extraordinary events in the Gospels. By providing this you hope to illustrate what you perceive as exagerations to an original story.
I then countered your statements indirectly by identifing your premise as sustained by a definition of incredulity...the root word of which is incredible, which means you found the later accounts ever increasing in unbelievability.
I am saying that is a system of belief. There are no judicial standards that may govern a system of belief. Isolating what is unbelievable to one person will not necessarily translate vertibatim to another person's perception. This is not a hard and fast method of determining anything but your own perception.
Thus this is really inadmissable. This is not factual but it is perceptional.
It seems almost obvious that the gospels are partly historical, partly myths, and partly deliberate fabrication.
Far more interesting is the the question of religious writings from that era that were not included in the Bible, many of which have been lost.
Far more interesting is the the question of religious writings from that era that were not included in the Bible, many of which have been lost.