The Theory . . .

A

Athelwulf

Rest in peace Kurt...
Registered Senior Member
Sometimes those Google ad banners link to somewhere interesting.

I've seen an ad banner for a movie called The Beast, which is to be released world-wide on June 6th, 2006 (6-6-06).

I clicked, and I came to the site where ya can watch their teaser trailer. I also found an "About" link. I clicked, and I found the plotline for the movie:

When her father, a biblical scholar, mysteriously disappears, a Christian high-school student named Danielle investigates. She discovers that he had stumbled across a cover-up of Christianity's best-kept secret: That Jesus Christ never existed.

Now that she possesses proof of this dangerous fact, Danielle must confront two strong forces: A band of fundamentalist Christians who will stop at nothing to suppress the truth, and her own desire for Jesus Christ to be real.

Diving into factual territory well-explored by scholars but largely hidden from the view of the public, The Beast is an epic story of innocence lost, faith in crisis, and the astonishing power of the truth to survive.
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The page instructs me to "click for more information". I get a pop-up window. It includes this snippet:

The theory that Jesus Christ never existed, while largely unknown to most lay Christians, is gaining credibility among scholars. Historians do not consider the Gospels to be historically accurate accounts. The authors of the Gospels, writing 40 to 90 years after the supposed life of Christ, never intended for their works to be read as biographies. There are no credible non-Christian references to Christ during the period in which he is said to have lived.
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I'm curious. Are there any SciForumers that know about this theory, and can expand to this?

- Peace, Love, Health, and Happiness to all! Âðelwulf.
 
Im fairly sure the theorys been around a while just with little evidence to back it up, more a lack of evidence for existance, but i had a similar theory myself a few years back, hopefully someone can fill us in on the finer details but to my knowledge the only 'proof' of christs existance is contained in the bible which wasnt written in his time and we have no proof of who actually wrote it, its pretty much circular logic.
 
Either this plot- or a conspiracy to "prove" that Christ never existed- is a fairly often used plot. Guy Thorne had a best-seller before World War One, When it was Dark, based on the second version. The Master and Margarita has a character who sets out to prove Christ never existed. Piers Paul Read in On the Third Day has a plot which involves evidence he did not rise again.
I don't actually see why there's such a fuss. If Jesus is god, and god is omnipotent, then Jesus can simply choose to exist or not exist. As faith is so important, then believing in the non-existent is surely a supreme test of faith.
 
If Jesus is god, and god is omnipotent,(impossible) then Jesus can simply choose to exist or not exist. ( but no historical record of the existence)As faith is so important,( (to you . and xians)facts and truth are more important) then believing in the non-existent( you dont believe in non-existence, if nothings there, then theres nothing there, it simply is. ) is surely a supreme test of faith.( no it's not to us, faith is a religious thing, so it is to you, and the xians).

and to answer the original post, in all my years of study, I have never come across any documented evidence, that a person named jesus or emanuel or any other name you may want to give it, ever existed, this is not a theory, only the religious will say that, the same as they say the bible is infallible and there no such thing as evolution etc..
but to us it's the factual truth.

now you will get some nugget of a religious person, saying the opposite, however common sense will always prevail.
 
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Athelwulf said:
Sometimes those Google ad banners link to somewhere interesting.

I've seen an ad banner for a movie called The Beast, which is to be released world-wide on June 6th, 2006 (6-6-06).

I clicked, and I came to the site where ya can watch their teaser trailer. I also found an "About" link. I clicked, and I found the plotline for the movie:



The page instructs me to "click for more information". I get a pop-up window. It includes this snippet:



I'm curious. Are there any SciForumers that know about this theory, and can expand to this?

- Peace, Love, Health, and Happiness to all! Âðelwulf.
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Hello Athelwulf,

If you're truly interested in this area then I'd recommend reading "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, preferably with an open mind. It should keep you occupied until this hollywood blockbuster is released.

Dave
 
Athelwulf,

Try - The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/jesus.html

And - The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S.

http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/redir/index153.html

You should read both these books since they make an overwhelming convincing case that shows that Jesus never existed.

You might also like to read the - The Lost Gospel by Burton L Mack.

This is about the 300 year work on Q, an in depth investigation into the historicity of Jesus. Whilst this work doesn't conclude he never existed it does show that pretty much everything surrounding Christianity is creative mythology.
 
Thanks guys for the links.

This thread is missing something . . . I know! People to argue against the theory! Where are they? *Looks around* Come out, come out, wherever you are!
 
Oh, and as for:
There are no credible non-Christian references to Christ during the period in which he is said to have lived.
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See Jesus & Christians in non-Christian sources. Not to mention that the statement implies contemporary "Christian" sources to be unhistorical. Unless I am mistaken, "bias" is simply an allegation, an assumption can only be motivated by historical data.
 
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The best proof that Christ really existed is that so many different people so quickly attempted to exploit His Name. Paul made a career out of throwing the Name of Jesus around. It should be obvious then, that Jesus had become famous enough to be thus exploited.

What if Jesus never existed. It was a rather Cosmopolitan World. The Evangelists were not simply converting isolated villages. Christ had been purported to have been crucified in a major Metropolitan Center. It would have been easy enough for anybody to find out that no such thing ever happened.

Also, all the writing speaking of Jesus were not all that remote from the life time of Jesus. If the Gospels were indeed written from 70 to 90 A.D., well that would be like the equivalent of us writing about the Vietnam War and John F. Kennedy. Yes, it is awhile ago, but there are still all manner of people who would know whether or not we would be lying or not. For instance, I could write as many books as I liked about a Jewish Man named Emmanuel who performed numerous miracles in the Greater New York Area from 1963 to 1966 who was eventually Crucified in Times Square, but nobody would believe me because there would still be too many people everywhere who would know to call me a liar. Thus it was in the Cosmopolitan Emperial World of the Roman Empire in the first Century. People exploited the Name of Jesus because Jesus had made it famous, and the stories about him were not contradicted as they certainly would have been had they been invented out of thin air.
 
The best proof that Christ really existed is that so many different people so quickly attempted to exploit His Name.
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Im sure theres a list of fictional characters that have been exploited or have had such an attempt, which reminds me i must go to harry potters brooms n bobs shop later.... harrys a very close friend of mine ;)
 
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