Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 KingCracker wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I saw this earlier. I can't think of any serious scholar that believes there was no historical Jesus. This guy seems to be the Religious version of that Ancient Aliens guy.

Don't hate on the Ancient Aliens guy!

Georgio McCrazyhair! I love that dude.

Yeah, he was pretty funny on Joe Rogens podcast.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
If Jesus isn't real, how come there are paintings of him?

Spoiler:

Nope, too white

He's half god, he could look like anything and there were white looking people in that part of the world such as the Phillistines, Romans, Greeks etc.

People have all sorts of ideas about Jesus though.

In other Christian news The Catholic Church Mispells Jesus' Name.

 LordofHats wrote:
The idea that there was a Galilean Jew who preached a reformist theology in 1st century Judea is extremely plausible. That were was one named Jesus is plausible as well. The idea that Christianity sprang forth from nothingness or a random amalgamation of ideas (some not even widely known in the 1st century) is about as far from plausible as it gets.

Yeah, absolutely this.

People overstate the direct evidence for Jesus, and the other side way overstates the idea that Jesus was a complete fiction. Somewhere in between is the idea that a person like Jesus, absent the miracles, is so plausible as to be utterly mundane, while the idea that such a story could be invented out of whole cloth is kind of bizarre.

Whether, over time, parts of other stories got folded in to the myth of Jesus, we'll never know.

cadbren wrote:
He's half god, he could look like anything and there were white looking people in that part of the world such as the Phillistines, Romans, Greeks etc.

That Romans, Greeks etc are considered 'white' says a lot about how social standing determine ethnicity, not skin colour.

Even though this guys evidence will turn out to be complete nonsense. It won't stop the sensationalist media from touting it as some new "evidence" that Jesus is myth.

This guy will make millions off of the talk show circuit, book sales, and National Geographic specials.

Much the same way as the gnostic gospels and Bart Ehrman were paraded around in the last decade.

GG

Bart Ehrman? What's wrong with him...

Lets just say that I don't appreciate his biased, I.E. Liberal, approach to textual criticism.

His book Misquoting Jesus was just wrong.


GG

 generalgrog wrote:
Lets just say that I don't appreciate his biased, I.E. Liberal, approach to textual criticism.

His book Misquoting Jesus was just wrong.


GG

I can understand that he is very inventive with his approach but his arguments are at the least sensible and plausible even if we choose to reject them, but honestly is liberal approach is a good thing for Academia. Theories that survive challenge are stronger than those that are never challenged and if they can't survive challenge they were either missing something or not very good in the first place.

He's also the only scholar to bother covering the historiography of Biblical criticism that I can find from my limited reading. Not to mention that along with Van Vroost he's probably the staunchest man to oppose Christ Myth non-sense.

 Orlanth wrote:
Not concerned by this.

The historicity of Jesus is very well established.

And yet, sadly there are people out there who will give credence to this guy...

At the same time, Why do we not have more people who are "serious scholars" coming out with new "evidence" that Mohammed was made up? Or Buddha? I mean, what is it specifically about Christianity in America/Europe that is just so bad?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

At the same time, Why do we not have more people who are "serious scholars" coming out with new "evidence" that Mohammed was made up? Or Buddha? I mean, what is it specifically about Christianity in America/Europe that is just so bad?

It's the dominant religion in both regions, and often at the center of certain political and social debates.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Not concerned by this.

The historicity of Jesus is very well established.

And yet, sadly there are people out there who will give credence to this guy...

At the same time, Why do we not have more people who are "serious scholars" coming out with new "evidence" that Mohammed was made up? Or Buddha? I mean, what is it specifically about Christianity in America/Europe that is just so bad?

Someone claiming Muhammad was made up? At least with Jesus, there's some ambiguity that a determined person could take advantage of...

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
At the same time, Why do we not have more people who are "serious scholars" coming out with new "evidence" that Mohammed was made up? Or Buddha? I mean, what is it specifically about Christianity in America/Europe that is just so bad?

I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in "our" culture and therefore attracts the most attention, good or bad.

 Peregrine wrote:


I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in "our" culture and therefore attracts the most attention, good or bad.

This is true, but at the same time, Islam and other religions are pretty well villified as being "evil" already... which I would have assumed would make them an easier target for such "scholarly debate"

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:


This is true, but at the same time, Islam and other religions are pretty well villified as being "evil" already... which I would have assumed would make them an easier target for such "scholarly debate"

It's probably that like Dogma said, Christianity is often involved in political and social debates, which makes it contentious for many people. And like Peregrine said it is the dominant religion. We don't argue Mohammed never existed (now granted there are people who say this but they don't get as much attention for these reasons) because the question to us is not only absurd to ask in the first place but contextually irrelevant. Christianity is very relevant in the western world so when someone says something crazy about it it gets a lot more attention from the media.

There are many people willing to believe Christianity is a lie on the grounds Jesus never existed to accredit their own beliefs and there are people who will happily sell them that salami.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in "our" culture and therefore attracts the most attention, good or bad.

This is true, but at the same time, Islam and other religions are pretty well villified as being "evil" already... which I would have assumed would make them an easier target for such "scholarly debate"

I imagine actual academics who are really knowledgeable about this sort of thing know that Islam and other religions aren't much worse (if at all) than Christianity and aren't as influenced by the gross misrepresentation of Islam by the media.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
This is true, but at the same time, Islam and other religions are pretty well villified as being "evil" already... which I would have assumed would make them an easier target for such "scholarly debate"

But we're talking about legitimate academic research here (or at least people who pretend to be doing it), and a thinly veiled "Islam is evil" paper isn't going to get anywhere in that context. If you want any attention or credibility you have to deal with actual historical questions. And in that context the existence of the historical Muhammad isn't really in doubt since it is confirmed by secular sources from that time period. With Jesus, on the other hand, there are no explicit secular sources and there is legitimate academic debate over whether the myth of Christianity was inspired by a real person, a combination of people, or invented entirely. The goal is to answer historical questions, not prove that Christianity is wrong, something that is easily done without having to get into ancient history debates.

Well there are secular sources (ironically for this thread Josephus) but they're mostly a toss up. Only the reference in Josephus' section on James (generally believed to be James the Just) in Antiquities is widely argued/agreed to be authentic but even that one has a valid claim to interpolation.

Granted the obsession with secular sources in Jesus never makes much sense anyway. We don't generally question whether Julius Ceasar conquered Gaul on the grounds that the only direct source for his campaigns is... Julius Ceasar. That Christian texts are religious is an argument that they can't be relied on to be the unbiased truth, not an argument that they provide no evidence that a man named Jesus actually lived. Textually there's more evidence that Jesus was a real person than Herodetus, Alexander the Great, most of Ancient China prior to the Han Dynasty, etc. Jesus stands alone in the level of scrutiny leveled against his existence.

 LordofHats wrote:
Granted the obsession with secular sources in Jesus never makes much sense anyway. We don't generally question whether Julius Ceasar conquered Gaul on the grounds that the only direct source for his campaigns is... Julius Ceasar. That Christian texts are religious is an argument that they can't be relied on to be the unbiased truth, not an argument that they provide no evidence that a man named Jesus actually lived. Textually there's more evidence that Jesus was a real person than Herodetus, Alexander the Great, most of Ancient China prior to the Han Dynasty, etc. Jesus stands alone in the level of scrutiny leveled against his existence.

The big difference here is what those sources ask us to accept. Caesar's conquests aren't really controversial, other sources confirm that Caesar existed and that the boundaries of the Roman Empire include those areas, so there's no reason to question the first-hand accounts (at least in any broad "Caesar never existed" sense). With Jesus, on the other hand, we're talking about sources that include obviously absurd claims, contradict each other, and aren't backed up at all by any other sources. So we have at least three competing theories: Jesus the historical figure existed and the religious texts are at least somewhat based on his life, multiple historical figures with aspects of Jesus' life existed and were combined to create a single character, or Jesus is entirely a literary character who was at most roughly based on real people and themes from that time period. And there's no clear way of saying that any of the three is more likely than the others, so we have academic debate.

Poor James. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Jesus' brother?

 Peregrine wrote:

With Jesus, on the other hand, we're talking about sources that include obviously absurd claims, contradict each other, and aren't backed up at all by any other sources.

None of the texts of the Bible contradict that Jesus lived. There's plenty of textual evidence to debate who he really was, what he believed, and what he really did in his life but no contradiction that he lived. Like I said. It's evidence to argue that the texts about him are biased, not that he might not have existed. Even the Gnostics who wrote about a spirit man at most wrote about a figure that really appeared to people but wasn't physically real. To argue that Jesus wasn't a person who existed in an individually identifiable form is to assume a conclusion based on faulty logic with no evidentiary reason.

There is not an academic debate that he lived, just a pseudo-academic one from people outside academia and the only real scholar in that group is Robert Price and Robert Price is a... odd fellow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:
Poor James. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Jesus' brother?

Cause he's the red headed step child who was either thrown of the battlements or stoned to death (depends on who you ask)

 LordofHats wrote:
None of the texts of the Bible contradict that Jesus lived. There's plenty of textual evidence to debate who he really was, what he believed, and what he really did in his life but no contradiction that he lived.

The point is that when two sources (which are supposedly divinely inspired and perfect) of equal "value" disagree it raises the question of whether either of them is right. And when those sources make obviously absurd claims about supernatural events it raises even more questions about whether they're even historical sources at all. What you're doing is the equivalent of saying that the (40k) Emperor must exist because even though all the sources that mention him are inconsistent and full of obviously false claims they all agree that he existed.

Like I said. It's evidence to argue that the texts about him are biased, not that he might not have existed.

But at some point the level of bias in a text gets to be so severe that you have to question whether they're just making the whole thing up.

To argue that Jesus wasn't a person who existed in an individually identifiable form is to assume a conclusion based on faulty logic with no evidentiary reason.

The reason is the poor quality of the only sources which mention Jesus. There is insufficient evidence to confidently say "Jesus was a single real person" when the alternatives (purely a literary character, combined several people/myths into one) also explain the content of the texts. In fact, when those sources are clearly making stuff up and/or getting it wrong (all of the accounts of miracles, for example) the theory that Jesus is more of a literary character than a historical figure becomes a pretty compelling interpretation.

 Peregrine wrote:
And when those sources make obviously absurd claims about supernatural events it raises even more questions about whether they're even historical sources at all.

Historical sources regularly mention fantastical elements. Ceaser's own memoirs mention the gods numerous times and praise them. Generally, we don't assume the whole to be false due to the part. Nearly all Egyptian texts attribute major events in part to the gods. Mesopotamian warfare revolved around calls from a god to go to war.

What you're doing is the equivalent of saying that the (40k) Emperor must exist because even though all the sources that mention him are inconsistent and full of obviously false claims they all agree that he existed.

The comparison is facetious. There are some ancient texts that claim, in the broadest sense that there was a Jew named Jesus in the first century who did some stuff. They don't all agree on what exactly he did, and they attribute to him fantastical elements to him, but none of that is a valid ground on which to assume he never existed. To jump to such a conclusion is to commit argumentum ad absurduml; that to accept Christian sources as historically valid is to embrace them as inerrant. We can accept that the sources are historically true in certain respects and untrue in others. Its not an all or nothing deal. That they don't agree isn't shocking. Disciples of a teacher rarely agree in whole with his/her beliefs. All the religious denominations and schools thought on politics economics and society do come from somewhere.

The only arguments that can be leveled against Jesus' existence all stem from such fallacies. Namely argumentum ad absurdum and argument from silence. To assume such arguments have validity in Academia is erroneous. They assume a conclusion and then seek out evidence to support it, ultimately finding none and instead resorting on logical absurdity.

 LordofHats wrote:
Historical sources regularly mention fantastical elements. Ceaser's own memoirs mention the gods numerous times and praise them. Generally, we don't assume the whole to be false due to the part. Nearly all Egyptian texts attribute major events in part to the gods. Mesopotamian warfare revolved around calls from a god to go to war.

There's a difference between a historical figure who is well-confirmed in other sources praising the gods and a story where the main character performs supernatural feats. All Caesar's praise says is that Caesar praised the gods, just like someone in a modern news story might say "thank god" without casting any doubt on the rest of the story. Even attributing events to the gods doesn't really matter, because all you're dealing with is how the historical figures interpreted those events, not whether the events themselves are possible. With Jesus you have claims of events that are simply not possible or believable, and those events are a central part of the story.

There are some ancient texts that claim, in the broadest sense that there was a Jew named Jesus in the first century who did some stuff. They don't all agree on what exactly he did, and they attribute to him fantastical elements to him, but none of that is a valid ground on which to assume he never existed.

You're missing the point here. Nobody is assuming that they know for sure that Jesus the historical figure never existed. What people are actually claiming is that the existence of historical Jesus is uncertain, and Jesus the literary character could be based on a single historical figure, based on multiple historical and mythological figures, or invented entirely by the authors. All they're saying is that there's a legitimate debate, and we need to do more research to see which of the possibilities is the most likely truth.

The only arguments that can be leveled against Jesus' existence all stem from such fallacies.

That's not at all true. For example, the theory that Jesus the literary character is a combination of multiple historical figures is an answer to the contradictions in the texts. If text A says one thing and B says something different one possible explanation is that the events in both A and B happened, but with different people, and the two accounts were combined into a single character when the texts were finally written down long after everyone involved was dead.

 LordofHats wrote:

Cause he's the red headed step child who was either thrown of the battlements or stoned to death (depends on who you ask)

And thus forever more gingers were shunned.

 Peregrine wrote:
There's a difference between a historical figure who is well-confirmed in other sources praising the gods and a story where the main character performs supernatural feats.

No source is existent that mentioned Alexander the Great until Cicero (and only Cicero's word that there are others). That the Punic War's happened ultimately hinges on work of one man. Numerous figures throughout history go unmentioned for centuries but their existence is rarely doubted without reason. Jesus even has the benefit of dozens if not hundreds of texts being written about him withing decades of his life that continue to exist today.

What you describe is similar to the Socratic Problem (well its the same thing really) but no one jumps to the conclusion Socrates is made up simply because his students can't agree on him and Plato made stuff up all the time.

With Jesus you have claims of events that are simply not possible or believable.

Then you do the logical and doubt the events. Jesus wasn't the first person in history to claim descent from divinity or that he could perform miracles and hes not the first person miracles are attributed to (sure wasn't the last either).

All they're saying is that there's a legitimate debate, and we need to do more research to see which of the possibilities is the most likely truth.

I understand what you mean. Rather I'm arguing the debate is illegitimate because one side ultimately is falling back of fallicious arguments (and mainly that side doesn't exist in academia and largely lacks academic credentials). No one can know with absolute certainty within the bounds of history everything about Jesus, but that some by that name preached a theology that ultimately morphed into Christianity in 1st century Judea existed is probably the only thing that really is knowable simply on the grounds that there is no valid reason to doubt it except to fall back to fallacy.

 Peregrine wrote:
All they're saying is that there's a legitimate debate, and we need to do more research to see which of the possibilities is the most likely truth.

If I were a still a doctoral candidate, that is the sort of argument I would make if I was looking to get my first journal publication. I would pick some obscure topic, argue that it was pertinent to some larger debate, and suggest that more research was needed given that pertinence. Such a paper wouldn't be published in a significant journal, but it would get published somewhere (assuming it was any good).

The problem is that the existence of Jesus is not an obscure topic, it has been investigated for at least 150 years. At this point there isn't a whole lot of ground left to cover, but there are still sides that can easily be played to; and publishers willing to accommodate such behavior.

 sebster wrote:

That Romans, Greeks etc are considered 'white' says a lot about how social standing determine ethnicity, not skin colour.

What else would they be? All the Italians and Greeks I've met look white or do you only consider scandanavians to be white or something?

cadbren wrote:

 sebster wrote:

That Romans, Greeks etc are considered 'white' says a lot about how social standing determine ethnicity, not skin colour.

What else would they be? All the Italians and Greeks I've met look white or do you only consider scandanavians to be white or something?

In the 1800's Europeans would often base race off nationality like Italians, French, Russians, Irish, English,etc were consider different races but at some point in time Europeans got all lumped together as "white people" (and yes I know with stuff like immigration that not all Europeans are white). Even today the term "Indian" is based on just as much nationality as it is skin colour as I've found many Arabic, North African and some Mediterranean people to be quite similar in appearance to Indian people and could probably pass as one.

What I want to know about about the old Jesus Fella is at what point in history did the race change happen? I mean the guy would have looked like a native palestinian or Israeli (not later migrants to the area), when did he become a northern European who looks like he fronted a band I would go to see in the 90s?

Not a religious fella my self its all hokie pre science nonsense to me, but really interesting non the less. The whole magic cloud man god getting a child pregnant to give birth to a son who is also him and the holy ghost, man Its crazy thats lasted into the 21st century.

Jesus did exist he was not a fantasy, there is too much historical and archaeological evidence. Just a few years after his death there is a power struggle between Jewish sects who either see him as a son of god or a profit. Well guess who won

 cpt_fishcakes wrote:
What I want to know about about the old Jesus Fella is at what point in history did the race change happen? I mean the guy would have looked like a native palestinian or Israeli (not later migrants to the area), when did he become a northern European who looks like he fronted a band I would go to see in the 90s?

It natural people would depict him as looking like themselves. Here's Ethiopian Jesus;



Fun fact, long hair was a social taboo among men in Jesus' time, but most later depictions of him in the arts feature him sporting long hair.