An honest, but complete research, would prove otherwise. His historical existence is not questioned. Even Roman historians wrote about him.
His historical existence is most surely questioned. Around here we demand cites for our claims. Care to pony up some?
The only documents I’m aware of supporting the resurrection of Jesus is the New Testament itself. I should note that the only people who hold the New Testament to be proof of anything are Christians. Those who are not Christian would require further proof to believe the tale.
No.
I’ve read the Bible. Doing so did not magically make me a Christian.
In addition, MY religion finds proselytizing highly offensive. Can you truthfully say that the purpose of such a discussion on your part is NOT to convert me?
Hang on — did you already have all of the info that you’re alluding to in that later post back when you asked that first question in the original post?
You start mentioning “earlier writings” — “As far as the gospels being written 40 years after Jesus lived on Earth, there were earlier writings by witnesses that predated the four gospel books. That is part of the evidence.” Were you already ready to write out that comment, there, when you came in to ask whether there were any?
Nope. As I said, you don’t get to treat a “miracle” the same as other more typical historical events, at least not in a discussion with me.
Then, forgive me, but I suspect you’re a somewhat gullible person. Or more kindly, someone who has a strong sense of faith who is making the mistake of trying to legalistically or scientifically prove a “miracle”. You’re welcome to believe what you want. You can be a Flat Earther and nobody will arrest you. But people are going to challenge you if you attempt to prove that rigorously, and possibly point and laugh.
The closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever seen was the final inning of game 6 of the 1986 World Series. But there were many witnesses and it was recorded and documented carefully. I suspect that’s more evidence than you have for any other “miracles”.
Google Josephus on Jesus in Wikipedia. Josephus was a Roman.Second paragraph states (in part)
*Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”[12] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity
*
We’ve got just as much ‘evidence’ for the existence of Gandalf and his battle (and subsequent resurection post) with a Balrog.
Hell - we even have that on FILM.
Now - go 2000 years to the future - would that same ‘evidence’ prove that either was a historical event?
Apparently we have one very close to being contemporary to Christ … c.f. Wikipedia’s “Tacitus on Christ” …
I’m concerned that we should have 100’s of eye-witness testimonies from a largely illiterate population … other than scribes and nobility not many could write well enough to be credible …
Besides … that a man BORN OF A VIRGIN should resurrect three days after he died is not that big of a step as to need a court’s permission to be so … in context, proof and evidence is not needed for faith …
I seem to offended several people in this discussion. That was not my intent. I was seeking an interesting discussion based on an interesting book that entirely proves (to me) that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event. I thought that would be interesting to a lot of others as well. The book even mentions that one of the most prominent atheists of our time saying he cannot argue against the resurrection strictly based on historical documents. I may not add any more to this discussion so that I will not offend anyone further.
Forget Google. Didn’t you check the Straight Dope link above? It contains a reference to Josephus but also repeats what’s been mentioned in this thread - that what we do have is often from decades after the fact and without a lot of specificity.
But isn’t this straying a bit from the topic?
Even granting that a historical Jesus existed, that’s still a rather far cry from the existence of evidence of a physical resurrection. That doesn’t exist at all.
Yes, but that doesn’t logically say anything either. I cannot argue against a time traveling Elvis Presley being the biological father of Jesus strictly based on historical documents, either, because those documents don’t exist. Arguing strictly on the basis of nonexistent documents is rather silly. It doesn’t matter if it’s a prominent atheist or a Yogi claiming it. The faith (or lack thereof) of the researcher is rather irrelevant.
I think the question of the historicity of Jesus is not just a question of evidence, it’s a question of exactly what it means to say that a specific person existed.
Consider the historicity of Steve from Wolverhampton. According to legend, Steve lived in Wolverhampton in the 1950s, he liked to drink beer and play darts, he supported Wolverhampton Wanderers football team, he was abducted by aliens for 3 days, and he could read people’s minds. Suppose it turns out that there is no evidence of alien abduction or mind-reading at that time in Wolverhampton. But I can find records of someone called Steve who lived there at the time, who was a member of a 1953 pub darts team, and a member of the Wolves supporters’ club. Have I proved the historicity of Steve?
So I think you need to be clear exactly what constitutes “existence” for Jesus. The most remarkable thing about the Jesus of legend is surely his supernatural activity. I doubt that we are going to find evidence of that. So what else, exactly? There were almost certainly populist leaders of religious cults around at the time who did many of the non-supernatural things that Jesus did. People were certainly crucified. What, exactly, is the minimal set of historical events that we would have to show took place in the life of one uniquely identifiable person in order to say “this was the Jesus”? It’s not like he was the identifiable author of any great work of literature, or the painter of a great work of art. His essential defining characteristic was supernatural activity. Is it really meaningful at all to claim that Jesus existed if there is no evidence that any person did anything supernatural?
“an interesting book”… “the book”… why keep being coy?
Damn right. And do you that the first thing Lazarus said was “I want brains!”
I have hundreds of documents to back up that statement. Though I might be too busy to list them.
Sorry, I do not have the book handy. I will add the title later.
In point of fact, the Jesus cult was not very successful in Jerusalem after the death of Jesus. It became far more successful when they talked to those not close to the supposed events, but whom might have believed tales of them.
Jerusalem was a small place by current standards. If there were 100s of witnesses to the resurrected Jesus everyone would know that this supposed Messiah was reborn. (Not that this was a requirement of the Messianic prophecies.) So why didn’t those close to the events care?
The historical Christian response was that Jews were evil and killed Christ and then refused to accept the plain evidence. A lot of anti-Semitism started that way. I trust that this isn’t your explanation.
Back then it was accepted practice to inflate the achievements of historical figures, and historians look closely at the source of documents to assess their validity. There are many miracles attributed to Alexander the Great which we reject also.
For instance, since I assume you have been too busy to check out the Cecil link given to you, it is well accepted that most of the supposed evidence for Jesus in Josephus was added later by Christians to increase the credibility of the story.
I myself accept that Jesus existed, since Messiahs were a shekel a dozen back then. He wasn’t a particularly successful one during his life. And there are some sayings of Jesus that look like they might be authentic. But I believe the miracles about as much as I believe those related by Parson Weems, which as I said was closer to the time and thus more believable.
Care to share this magic book?
Have you ever tried to find if people have written to refute your book, or have you taken it at face value?
You found this book compelling, but you can’t remember its name or author, or even enough about it to Google it?
Sorry, I was about to come around to believing, but you have failed. I think I’m going with Hinduism, Shiva and Vishnu are just way cooler than Jehovah and Jeebus, and they even have an elephant.
So where can one find this eyewitness testimony of the death and resurrection of Jesus? Christians have been desperate to have something like this for almost 2000 years, and you’re just sitting on it?
Apu: Please, do not offer my god a peanut.
So - in three posts you go from
a) asking if anything exists
b) talking about an ‘interesting book’ that proved it to you (so you already had your answer for (a) )
c) not even remembering, or having handy, the book you allude to in (b)
and you’re already pulling the “sorry if I offended you, I’m leaving” shtick.
You’re not very good at this whole witnessing/debate thing, are you?