The historical evidence for most people who lived more than a few centuries ago is often tenuous, inconsistent, and based on copies of copies of documents that may or may not be completely reliable. Still, the historical existence of Jesus is, well, as well-proven as anyone’s can be after all this time.
The whole “Son of God” thing, of course, is not really susceptible to historical analysis - a matter of personal faith, not provable fact. But I’m always slightly perplexed by the people who claim that the historical Jesus didn’t exist … that Jesus’ teachings were thought up by other people, and the details of His life were invented. After all, I’m (for example) neither a Buddhist nor a Muslim, but I don’t have any problem accepting the historical existence of Gautama or Mohammed … I’m just a bit skeptical about their divine inspiration.
I used “American university” as the standard because I figured we could find an internet “college of enlightened holy bliss” where we learn a “professor” has a webpage about how Jesus was a mushroom.
I, and I think the majority of the board, also understand American tenure & could be more certain of the writer’s credentials
I was trying to add some rigor to the GQ, rather than have (another) GD on the subject.
I know we would all accept something from any good University. No offense or snobbery was meant in phrasing the factor that way. Maybe it would have been better to stay “reputable university”? But that would have opened it a bit to interpretation – but better that than be the ugly American tho … sorry you guys were offended
Jesus might have existed and its suposed teachings tought up later for the most part by other people. It’s not contradictory. Even assuming that his teachings were more or less correctly reported, their current interpretation could be widely different from what he intended to teach (Paul’s interpretation in particular, on which is based most of the chriustian religion). No contradiction here, either.
Given the overwhelming and perfectly documented impact that Mohammed’s religion had in a very short time, I do not doubt the guy’s existence for an instant (though concerning this teachings, they were recorded in an “official” form (the Kuran) only later, so, they might have been twisted.
As for the Buddah, I don’t know if there’s any historical evidence of his existence, but I never crossed a reference to such evidences, so I tend to doubt there are any. I would be interested in knowing if there are such evidences, by the way. So, I tend to put him in the same category as Jesus : probably has existed, but there’s no compeling evidence that he does, surrounded by many tales and legends (miracles) , and who he really was and what he really did/teach is not known.
And by the way, it’s not because people don’t believe in the religions suposedly founded by Jesus, the Buddha, etc…that they will necessarily doubt these guy’s existences. But there’s no reason not to doubt them, either. Of course, this lead to more heated debates than the existence of other well-known but unproven historical characters like, say, Homere and Socrate, or even another religious figure like Zoroaster, because since they founded religions which are thriving, much more people feel concerned and have an opinion.
Yes lambchops. I think that is great find re the OP
Cites or titles of respected books on the subject : a guy with a Phd from Drew U is a reasonable source – right?
FOR ME: I would prefer not to have theologians or philosophy majors assess the evidence of historical Jesus and a guy posting a bunch of articles on an Atheist website (with no peer review I see) would be a bit suspect … That’s just me (not being sarcastic). I recognize very smart people can reasonably disagree & I’d love to see someone I knew was absolutely qualified (in Archeology and History) and reviewed as publication worthy by his peers assess the evidence and enlighten me – cause I’m a Dope! Definitely though it fits the OP Lambchops – I’m a highjack.
I stated above that the documentary evidence of Jesus’ life was as reliable or more reliable than the historical evidence of many other “historical facts.” This does not mean that one may not be skeptical. Also, its really a function of the fact that few documents 2,000 years old have survived to verify anyone’s existence. Still, the documentary evidence of the existence of Christ is something non-believers seize upon.
Here is a site with some discussion of the contemporary writings about the essence of Jesus’ life. http://www.christian--faith.com/
The site has an obvious agenda but its factual information that is presented so please feel free to point outs its inaccuracies.
"The earliest record of the Christian creed is presented by Paul and found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. . . . Biblical scholars, using the historical records of Paul and his early travels to Damascus and Jerusalem, place the above scripture at about 35 A.D., just 3 to 5 years after the death of Jesus Christ. This is dramatic, because those same scholars would hold that this basic creed for the Christian faith developed far too quickly for a myth to develop and distort the historical record of the resurrection. "
Fair enough, jimmmy. How bout this guy? Still haven’t been able to find a peer-reviewed journal, but he has qualifications in ancient history, ancient Greek etc.
Yea, it’s about the movie, but the “lack of archaeological evidence supporting the events described in the Gospels” is the key here. This is from: Hollywood Holy Land. By: Scham, Sandra. Archaeology, Mar/Apr2004, Vol. 57 Issue 2, p62, 4p, 1c; (AN 12178501). It’s actually accesible here: http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0403/etc/letter
I don’t know if Archaeology is a peer-reviewed journal, but it’s put out by the Archaeoligical Institute of America, so I’d assume it’s somewhat reliable. But if you think I’m digging through 2000 results anymore than I did, yer nuts.
WRT to the “four different accounts of Jesus’ life:”
Most mainline biblical scholars believe that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark. In fact almost 80% of Mk appears in Mt & Lk word for word. The implied argument that ‘they’re so different, they must be unreliable’ is a bit funny considering how much alike they truly are.
Considering that there were no transcribers of Jesus’ teachings and life as they occured, then one would expect that after a generation of playing telephone, there would be differences in the oral tradition that finally get codified.
It’s also funny that those who doubt the historicity of Jesus make these two contradictory statements:
[ul][li]Christians altered Josephus and other historical documents in order to prove Jesus’ existence.[/li][li]Christians failed to alter the four gospels in order to synchronize them better, and so, their differences disprove the existence of Jesus.[/ul] [/li]
Peace.
Over the years there have been quite a few folks who have argued that Jesus didn’t exist. There are quite a few books on the topic. The only ones I hasve are by G.A. ells. I think he’s a professor of German in Britain. Two of his books are provactively titled The Historical Evidence for Jesus and Did Jesus Exist?. As you might expect, his answer is “no”.
Even if you don’t agree with him, his books are worth the reading. He makes some interesting arguments. But I can’t help thinking that, even if every detail of the life of Christ is fabricated or “drived” from other places, somebody came up with all those quotes in the Gospel of Thomas.
I would have said that the three synoptic gospels were all drawing from the, albeit hypothetical, Q document. Hence their similarity. I’m not christian but I don’t doubt Jesus’ historical existence.
I get an historical kick out of the objection to the time of the gospel’s commitment to paper, though. I just finished a book by Stephen Ambrose about the building of the transcontinental railroad. I guess I better throw all of that information out 'cause he wrote it 150 years after the fact.
[QUOTE=moriah]
It’s also funny that those who doubt the historicity of Jesus make these two contradictory statements:
[ul][li]Christians altered Josephus and other historical documents in order to prove Jesus’ existence.[/li][li]Christians failed to alter the four gospels in order to synchronize them better, and so, their differences disprove the existence of Jesus.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I don’t know anything about this topic per se, but I do know that stuff gets done and other stuff doesn’t. If there is evidence that someone altered Josephus (and Clairobscur suggests there is, and in my experience she knows what she’s talking about) then so be it. The world’s full of contradictions and you can’t just rule out a piece of evidence simply because it isn’t entirely consistent with something else.
There’s no comparison. We have daily newspapers, reciepts, company and banking records, deeds, etc from 150 years ago. I could look at a newspaper and tell you which horse won the 3.15 race at frickin’ Flemington racecourse 150 years ago.
We have so close to zip about what happened 2004 years ago as to make no odds.
Contradictory only if you posit that it was the same “Christians” involved in both. Since early Christianity was hardly monolithic, there’s no compelling reason to think that everyone was working hand-in-glove to produce the same vision of the tenets and history of the religion.
Forgetting Josephus for the moment, it is easy to think that each gospel writer thought that his/her (was “Luke” female?) work would supersede and utterly replace earlier writings. Who’d a thunk that they would all get collected together a few centuries later?
The reigning Synoptic theory is that Mark’s Gospel and another source of collected sayings of Jesus, nicknamed ‘Q,’ were the two documentary sources of Mt and Lk. Both Mt and Lk contain almost word for word quotes of sayings of Jesus that are not found in Mk.
From what I understand, while we’re pretty sure there was a guy named Jesus (Well, “Yeshua bar Joseph,” really.) who founded a religion (or a cult) in the early 1st century A.D., many elements of the stories of his life seem highly suspect…especially the parts that bear a suspicious resemblence to elements of Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, which predate Christianity by hundreds of years. One of the prophecies of Zarathustra even involves a messianic figure, born of a virgin, who’s birth is signalled by a star falling from the sky.
So, even if Jesus did exist, even if he was a great man and a religious leader, it seems pretty likely that the legends about himwere “gussied up” a bit, over the years.
Actually, the earliest documents call him “Yeschu ha Notzri”, I think – translated as “Jesus the Nazorean”. Some folks claim that there is no early evidence for the existence of a town called “Nazareth”, and that “Jesus of Nazareth” was “derived” from this name. All sorts of ideas as to what “nazorean” might mean have been proposed, including that it was the name of a political party or religious group.
Jesus is also called “the son of Mary”, but not “bar Joseph”. Those in favor of the Biblical accounts say that this is in recognition of his being the Son of God. Others point to scurrilous rumors that Jesus was illegitimate, fathered by a Roman soldier named Panthera. This is definitely one of those things they didn’t teach me about in Catholic school. I first learned of it in a footnote to T.H. White’s translation The Bestiary. For fuller details, see Morton Smith’s Jesus the Magician. But read Smith with a critical eye, and more than a grain of salt. In fact, that’s preetty good advice for reading anyone suggested in this thread.
Rancoth, that site you referred to should be taken with a grain of salt. I find it hard to beleive that all the ancient gods cited were born on Dec 25th of a virgin
