Who claimed to have personally met a historical Jesus ?

Kapyong

Writer
Registered Senior Member
Gday all,

It is frequently claimed that we have multiple eye-witnesses who claimed to have met Jesus. This is probably why believers respond with cries of
"why would they die for a lie?"
"how could it all be a hoax?"
"that's just a conspiracy theory"

when a sceptic claims the Gospels are not true history.

Because - believers are convinced we have numerous reliable claims from identifiable people that they met Jesus - thus if Jesus did not exist, then all those eye-witness claims must have been a "hoax". If Jesus was not historical, the claims to have met him must have been a "lie", If Jesus never lived then all those multiple claimed eye-witnesses must have been involved in a "conspiracy".

So, let's examine the evidence -
How many :
identifiable people
claimed to have met Jesus
in authentic writing
?

Paul
Paul never met a historical Jesus, and never claimed to.
He did claim to have had revelations "thru Christ" etc.
He did claim to have had a vision of Christ.
And others (Acts) claim Paul had a vision of Christ.

It is worth noting that Paul does not place Iesous Christos in history :
No places - Paul never mentions Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary, etc.
No dates - Paul never places Iesous Christos in time.
No names - Paul never mentions Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Judas, Nicodemus, Lazarus etc.
No miracles - Paul never mentions the miracles/healings of Jesus
No trial/tomb - Paul never mentions the trial or the empty tomb etc.
Paul's Christos is a heavenly being, not a historical person.

the 500
Paul claims 500 others had a vision of Christ. The Gospels do not mention that, no other writer mentions that, and we have no names or evidence for any of the 500. Even IF it happened - they had a VISION like Paul - nothing historical.

G.Mark
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to traditon, Mark was a secretary of Peter and never met Jesus. This Gospel, like all of them, started out as an un-named book.

G.Matthew
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to tradition it was written by an apostle - but it never says so, and it mentions Matthew without the slightest hint that HE was writing it.

G.Luke
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to tradition it was written by a follower of Paul.

G.John
According to tradition this Gospel was written by the apostle John, and the last chapter says :
"This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true."
This is part of a chapter that was added to the Gospels, and it is clearly someone else making a claim for the book. It most certainly does not even come close to specific claim that anyone personally met Jesus.

Jude
This letter contains no claim to have met Jesus.

Johanines
1 John contains this passage :
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our[a] joy complete."
Some believers assert this is a claim to have met Jesus.
What did he see and hear? He certainly never says it was Jesus. He just had a spiritual experience and wants to tell everyone about it - "God is light". Nothing here about any historical Jesus at all.

James
There is no claim to have met Jesus in this letter - supposedly from Jesus' BROTHER ! Yet it contains NOTHING anywhere about a historical Jesus, even where we would expect it. It is clear this writer had never even HEARD of a historical Jesus.

Revelation
No claim to have met Jesus.

the Petrines
2 Peter has this passage :
"1.16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. "

Here we see Peter directly claim to have witnessed Jesus' transfiguration. The ONE and ONLY such direct personal claim in the entire NT.
But -
2 Peter is the very latest and most suspect book in the whole NT - scholars agree it is a forgery, so do many Christians, ancient and modern. A late and deliberate forgery that claims NOT to be based on "cunningly devised fables" - probably in direct response to critics claims. THAT is the one single book that contains a claim to have met Jesus.

Papias
Does not claim to have met Jesus or anyone who had. He did claim to have met Presbyters who told him what some disciples had said. Discusses two books of Matthew and Mark , not called Gospels, not quite like modern Gospels.

Polycarp
Never claimed to have met Jesus or anyone who did. Irenaeus claimed Polycarp met discples who met Jesus

Justin
Never claimed to have met anyone who met Jesus. Discusses UN-NAMED Gospels not quite like ours.


Summary

The entire NT contains only ONE specific claim to have met a historical Jesus - from the most suspect forgery in the whole book.

There is NOT ONE reliable claim by anyone to have ever personally met a historical Jesus.

But -
there is a vast body of CLAIMS by later Christians - claims that are NOT supported by the earlier books, or by history.

So,
If Jesus wasn't historical, there is NO LIE, NO HOAX and NO CONSPIRACY requird at all - because there are NO actual claims to have met Jesus to be a hoax or a lie or a conspiracy in the first place.

Just later books, and claims, and claims about books.


Kapyong
 
Interesting. But, the Roman empire as we all know was insanely powerful and could kill any person (lose end) they needed to. They could have even burned the bible written by Jesus him self. keep in mind, most of the books were written after Jesus died. What about Pontius Pilate? He is claimed to be responsible by all four books of the Gospel to have killed Christ? So yea, conspiracy to trick the world. How could these 4 authors all claim the same thing without having the word of God?
 
So these prophets copied the Egyptian anti-christ to create Jesus? There is no telling were Jesus go his mythological start as he probably existed before he was Jesus, just as I claim Michael was whoever Seth was based off of in real life.
 
Gday,

Interesting. But, the Roman empire as we all know was insanely powerful and could kill any person (lose end) they needed to.

COULD have? What is your point?
Are you really claiming the Romans destroyed all evidence of Jesus?
Seriously? How? Why?


They could have even burned the bible written by Jesus him self.

There is no evidence of Jesus writing anything.


keep in mind, most of the books were written after Jesus died.

What? You think I didn't know that?
That's my point - NONE of them have any claims to have met Jesus - they are all religious stories from unknown writers who never met Jesus.

What about Pontius Pilate? He is claimed to be responsible by all four books of the Gospel to have killed Christ?

Why don't you ever say your point directly?
Are you claiming that because the story is found in 4 books, that it must be true?

What about Seth?
He is claimed to be responsible by all ancient Egyptian books to have killed Osiris.

What about Hercules?
He is claimed to be responsible by all ancient Greek books to have killed the great boar.

So what?
Stories repeated by others don't become true.


So yea, conspiracy to trick the world.

WHAT conspiracy?
My whole point is that NO conspiracy is required for Jesus to be NON-historical.

People believed in Adam and Eve but they didn't exist - was their a CONSPIRACY to fool people into beliving in Adam and Eve?
Of course not - how silly.

But that doesn't stop believers from calling the Jesus Myth a "conspiracy theory" - because that handy phrase automatically makes it wrong! Merely smearing the JM argument with the magic phrase "conspiracy" means they can AVOID dealing with the facts.


How could these 4 authors all claim the same thing without having the word of God?
Pardon?
Are you actually claiming that the ONLY possible way that 4 books can claim the same thing is if they "came from God" ?
Wow.

And why is it "came from God" instead of "historically true"?
Anyone can claim a story "came from God".
My belief in Jesus being a MYTH "came from God" !

How about the ancient Greek books then?
They all claim that Hercules slew the wild boar with magic powers - so according to YOUR theory, that has and is therefore true.

How about the ancient Egyptian books then?
They all claim that Seth killed his brother a coffin trick - so according to YOUR theory, that is therefore true.

How about the Harry Potter books ?
They all claim that Voldemort wounded Harry with magic powers - so according to YOUR theory, that is therefore true.

How ridiculous.
Stories get COPIED - so what?
That certainly doesn't prove they are true.


Kapyong
 
Gday,



COULD have? What is your point?
Are you really claiming the Romans destroyed all evidence of Jesus?
Seriously? How? Why?

Thats exactly what I am saying. Who can lead people better than a dictator? how about the messiah sent from the LORD.


There is no evidence of Jesus writing anything.

Yea, but he probably did, meaning that it is either hidden or destroyed.


What? You think I didn't know that?
That's my point - NONE of them have any claims to have met Jesus - they are all religious stories from unknown writers who never met Jesus.

Maybe they did maybe they did not

Why don't you ever say your point directly?
Are you claiming that because the story is found in 4 books, that it must be true?

No, but it does gain some credibility, especially because we can't prove that any collaboration took place.

What about Seth?
He is claimed to be responsible by all ancient Egyptian books to have killed Osiris.

Osiris who is killed in the bible in the 10 plagues of Egypt, along with godhood of his first son, Horus. A reminder, Seth is the god of foreign lands, meaning he probably was a traveler who arrived in Upper Egypt and became their god of war and chaos. He was the personal protector of the sun god Ra, and killed the Egyptian god of evil.

People believed in Adam and Eve but they didn't exist - was their a CONSPIRACY to fool people into beliving in Adam and Eve?
Of course not - how silly.

They probably did, as there had to be a first man and woman.


And why is it "came from God" instead of "historically true"?
Anyone can claim a story "came from God".
My belief in Jesus being a MYTH "came from God" !

All true. God made it your right to question his authority when he created Lucifer.

How about the ancient Greek books then?
They all claim that Hercules slew the wild boar with magic powers - so according to YOUR theory, that has and is therefore true.

Who knows what magic powers were to ancient Greeks.

How about the ancient Egyptian books then?
They all claim that Seth killed his brother a coffin trick - so according to YOUR theory, that is therefore true.

My theory doesn't mean that all mythological stories are non-fiction, but some of them inevitably are like Jesus, and Seth.
 
@Knowledge --

Even high school level knowledge of evolution would have informed you that the entire "first man and woman" concept is a bunch of bull.
 
They probably did, as there had to be a first man and woman.

There was indeed a most recent common ancestor for both women (who have a separate DNA line encoded in their mitochondria) and for men (who have a unique Y-chromosome.) They, of course, did not occur anywhere near the same time.

However, I am surprised you would bring that up, since both are strong evidence of evolution in action - and refute Genesis pretty authoritatively.
 
@Knowledge --

Even high school level knowledge of evolution would have informed you that the entire "first man and woman" concept is a bunch of bull.

Not at all. The theory is that there couldn't have been a first man and first woman because civilization spouted up all over the world at the same time.. nope. I can assure you that there was a first man, and a first woman. I can also assure you that aside from Genesis and the word of God there is no proof of these two.
 
There was indeed a most recent common ancestor for both women (who have a separate DNA line encoded in their mitochondria) and for men (who have a unique Y-chromosome.) They, of course, did not occur anywhere near the same time.

However, I am surprised you would bring that up, since both are strong evidence of evolution in action - and refute Genesis pretty authoritatively.

By the will of God man and woman were born on the same day in the same township, and on top of that they were like.
 
The theory is that there couldn't have been a first man and first woman because civilization spouted up all over the world at the same time.. nope.

Absolute gibberish. You know absolutely nothing about evolutionary theory.
 
@Knowledge --

Yeah, you don't want to even start down that road. Not on a science site and not with me, you just have absolutely no idea how ignorant that statement is.
 
@Knowledge --

Yeah, you don't want to even start down that road. Not on a science site and not with me, you just have absolutely no idea how ignorant that statement is.

Not ignorant at all, it is a theory.
 
@Knowledge --

Oh dear.

You're actually serious about this. Do you accept that H2O is water?
 
@Knowledge --

Well that little bit of fact comes to you straight from the atomic theory of matter. You see how it's called a theory? Do you think that scientists might have a specific definition of the word "theory" that differs from the common usage? I mean, that would make sense given the level of specificity they require in their profession.

Have I made my point clear yet?
 
@Knowledge --

Well that little bit of fact comes to you straight from the atomic theory of matter. You see how it's called a theory? Do you think that scientists might have a specific definition of the word "theory" that differs from the common usage? I mean, that would make sense given the level of specificity they require in their profession.

Have I made my point clear yet?

Somewhat, but you can continue. So evolution if its not a theory then it must be fact. Well fact is more people believe in Jesus that evolution, and when it is no longer a theory and it is solid fact it will only further prove Jesus.

Really, go on.
 
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