Help me, Jebus!
I, for the life of me, can not understand how any atheist could possible accept the Jesus of the Bible as an actual person. I have heard in the past people state that he did exist but he was just a preacher or ordinary man. I guess that is acceptable, but then why would you make a religion around him?
There is an interesting video by David Fitzgerald that gives a short take of a book he wrote about the historicity of Jesus. It is a short talk and therefore has a lot of inconsistencies but I hope the book would clear a lot of that up. I intend on reading it as soon as I get the chance.
As stated by David in that video, a big problem is the lack of documentation by people who would have been very interested in writing about Jesus. There were authors that had a massive interest in everything to do about Jesus at the time of his “apparent” life time, yet other works of theirs survived but absolutely nothing to do with Jesus did. Why?
A claim made by many people, when stating to them that Jesus most likely did not exist, is that there is as much evidence for Alexander the Great (or other historical persons) existing as Jesus. That is simply not true. There might be similar amounts of documentation, but there is archaeological evidence from his lifetime that go much further to confirm his existence than anything to do with Jesus.
I also have a big problem with using the New Testament as evidence. There is no way an historian would use the Alexander romance as evidence except in minor ways. From my understanding there is not any other person, who is accepted as existing historically, that has as much supernatural happenings as surrounds the story of Jesus in the Bible. Would you believe Alexander the Great actually existed if the majority of stories and historical documents about him contained all sorts of supernatural occurrences? No? Then why believe that Jesus actually existed as a man?
I asked a Dr. Tim McGrew (this might be him) whether he knew of any other book with as many miracles and supernatural, as the New Testament contains, that is accepted as containing historical facts? His response was the Old Testament. I asked whether there was any other book that was not a one about the Abrahamic religions and his response was that he didn’t know of any. You can read through the comments yourself by clicking this link.
I also have a big problem with McGrew; in the fact that he holds strong Christian beliefs. For him to evaluate the evidence critically would be very difficult (as with many other historians with strong religious beliefs). Even in the discussion I had with him he said, “I think the public historical evidence for the resurrection is excellent, and I think that vindicates His claim to be the Son of God.” Even if there is public historical evidence for the resurrection of any man, why would you believe it? It is completely against reason; no person has or ever will rise from the dead after 3 days. Maybe in the future with modern medicine we might be able to achieve that feat but other than that it is complete nonsense.
There is also an interesting paragraph on the Wikipedia article for the Christ myth theory that fits with what I am saying:
Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies in the department of history at Queen’s University has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians of Yeshua have not followed sound historical practices. He has stated that there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus, for propositions, which should otherwise be based on primary sources, or rigorous interpretation. He also holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. He says that, the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars are employed in institutions whose roots are in religious beliefs. Because of this, more than any other group in present day academia, biblical historians are under immense pressure to theologize their historical work. It is only through considerable individual heroism, that many biblical historians have managed to maintain the scholarly integrity of their work.
I know this is an argument that can’t be won either way, unless they find Jesus’ diary. There is no way to say without a doubt that Jesus of the Bible never existed, but I will say that it is highly unlikely that he did. If he did exist, he definitely did not perform any miracles or rise from the dead.
11 Responses to “Help me, Jebus!”
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- - March 2, 2012
“As stated by David in that video, a big problem is the lack of documentation by people who would have been very interested in writing about Jesus. There were authors that had a massive interest in everything to do about Jesus at the time of his “apparent” life time, yet other works of theirs survived but absolutely nothing to do with Jesus did. Why?”
Two factors. 1) Very little has survived time. 2) You need to list who these people are individually and why it is a big problem they failed to mention Christ individually. For example, why do historians believe Gamiliel, Hanina ben Dosa, Shammai, Hillel, and Honi all lived when there is so little said about them from near-contemporary sources? Why doesn’t Philo mention all of them? If Plutarch is expected to mention Jesus, why not these guys too? This goes for all the writers anyone thinks should have mentioned Jesus. Why should we expect each one to mention Jesus? Where should each one have been expected to mention Jesus? This is your burden.
Responding that if Jesus were truly God, and truly working miracles, he would have been mentioned everywhere is nonsensical. The first objection would only fit if the NT demanded that Jesus’ miracles were meant to bring attention from Greece, Rome etc. They were not. Again, lots of people claimed to possess magical or God-given powers. The NT does not mention them because early Christians did not believe or care about them. So it was the same for Jesus from the perspective of non-Christians. The second also fails. Turning water into wine or multiplying bread wouldn’t have been that impressive to a lot of people beside the actual followers of Christ. Many would have simply denied he’d actually done these things, as you are doing right now. These events do not stack up with things historians and other writers cared about, like wars, and diseases, and politics.
If you have the inclination to relate all of these old canards, you could at least try to address people who have responded to them already:
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.html
The very simple answer is that these writers wrote about what they cared about. If someone asserts Valerius Flaccus should have mentioned Jesus, they need to explain why he should have done so in his work on Jason.
“A claim made by many people, when stating to them that Jesus most likely did not exist, is that there is as much evidence for Alexander the Great (or other historical persons) existing as Jesus. That is simply not true. There might be similar amounts of documentation, but there is archaeological evidence from his lifetime that go much further to confirm his existence than anything to do with Jesus.”
There is more archaeological evidence for the guy who conquered everything from Macedonia to the borders of India then there is for an itinerant Jewish preacher who had a public ministry that last probably three years!? No way!? The historical claims differ in terms of the level and quality of evidence required for each one. If it was being claimed that Jesus did what Alexander did, then there would be a disturbing lack of evidence for his life. Those are not the claims though. The evidence that Jesus lived, quantity and quality, is more than enough to prove he lived as a man in Palestine in the first century.
“I also have a big problem with using the New Testament as evidence. There is no way an historian would use the Alexander romance as evidence except in minor ways. From my understanding there is not any other person, who is accepted as existing historically, that has as much supernatural happenings as surrounds the story of Jesus in the Bible.”
Your understanding is incorrect. Badly incorrect. News flash: the vast majority of the people of the world for the vast majority of human history have not shared your small-minded, anti-supernatural/suprahuman/paranormal account of reality. Supernatural claims (though not always endorsed by the one recording them) are peppered in varying degrees throughout works from the ancient (to modern) Near East, Israel, Greece, Rome, India, etc. Even though many historians have operated under the unwarranted and un-argued assumption that all real historical events must be naturalistic ones, this has not caused them to condemn, as myth, any account which contains miracle/supernatural reports or even ones with many miracle/supernatural reports. Hanina, Honi, and Paul of Tarsus all have miracles associated with them from the ancient Palestinian context. Paul is known only from the NT. But historians have no problem with these guys existing. From our own modern context, Simon Kimbangu, William Wade Harris, and the mad monk Rasputin of Russia all had significant amounts of miracle stories associated with their lives. That does not mean they did not exist. Your requirement here does not make sense. The New Testament is more than useful for gleaning info about Jesus, even if you dogmatically, without any critical thought, reject (out of hand) miracle reports.
“Would you believe Alexander the Great actually existed if the majority of stories and historical documents about him contained all sorts of supernatural occurrences? No? Then why believe that Jesus actually existed as a man?””
I would if the evidence for his existence is the same as it is right now. Are you saying that you would reject his existence; despite the overwhelming amount that exists testifying that he did what history says he did, just because of your bias against the supernatural/miraculous? You’re just not critical enough to engage these arguments.
“I asked a Dr. Tim McGrew (this might be him) whether he knew of any other book with as many miracles and supernatural, as the New Testament contains, that is accepted as containing historical facts? His response was the Old Testament.”
And that is true. Historians find lots of confirmed historical events in the OT even if they hold to naturalistic presuppositions.
“I asked whether there was any other book that was not a one about the Abrahamic religions and his response was that he didn’t know of any. You can read through the comments yourself by clicking this link.”
I’m not sure why he said that, but any number of literary works from the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman contexts contains various levels of miracle/supernatural reports while also reporting information historians are confident in. Off the top of my head, Josephus is one very close to the time of the NT’s development. He repeats a lot of the OT miracle material and also reports on miracle-workers in and around the first century. This does nothing to cast doubt on the whole of his reporting though. You need to familiarize yourself with the relevant literature before you go shooting your mouth off next time.
“I also have a big problem with McGrew; in the fact that he holds strong Christian beliefs. For him to evaluate the evidence critically would be very difficult (as with many other historians with strong religious beliefs).”
We all have biases. Are you seriously denying you do not? No big wonder why you so easily shrug off the opinion of actual, trained historians. You effectively eliminate the other side of the debate, and then are amazed that no one agrees with you. The bias that does not allow for critical thought is clearly your own here.
“Even in the discussion I had with him he said, “I think the public historical evidence for the resurrection is excellent, and I think that vindicates His claim to be the Son of God.” Even if there is public historical evidence for the resurrection of any man, why would you believe it? It is completely against reason; no person has or ever will rise from the dead after 3 days. Maybe in the future with modern medicine we might be able to achieve that feat but other than that it is complete nonsense.”
I find it amusing that you can’t wrap your head around the simple assertion that a man existed in history (not a very controversial assertion), and yet feel so confident that your extremely limited, narrow-minded, personal experience in your particularly small part of this great world allows you to declare that one such and such has occurred whilst another such and such has not throughout the entirety of human history all around the world. To me, that is not only a bias, that’s an irrational superiority complex.
“There is also an interesting paragraph on the Wikipedia article for the Christ myth theory that fits with what I am saying:”
Wikipedia? Irish what? Again, its no wonder you can’t bring yourself to agree with real historians over and against Fitzgerald and…some dude on…wiki…
“I know this is an argument that can’t be won either way, unless they find Jesus’ diary. There is no way to say without a doubt that Jesus of the Bible never existed, but I will say that it is highly unlikely that he did. If he did exist, he definitely did not perform any miracles or rise from the dead.”
Until someone takes me back in time to the 1860’s, I suspend belief in Abraham Lincoln.
The burdon of proof lies with those who claim the veracity of the character of Jesus, not with those who deny his existence.
History already shows there was no Nazareth at the time the character Jesus is claimed to have been born, so ergo, there could not possibly have been a Jesus of Nazareth.
Thus, the gospels are spurious.
.
Yes, I know very little documentation has survived time. I posted a video with a basic rundown of why it is a problem anyone, at all, failed to mention Jesus. Yes, I understand these statements in the video have been answered by Historians/Theologians.
I do not know why historians believe any of those people exist. Is there archaeological evidence to support their existence? Is there any unbiased scholars who state those people existed? Is it only information from the Bible that points to their existence?
It is not in any way nonsensical to think Jesus would have been heavily written about if he were performing miracles in front of large crowds. A small amount of people running around saying they saw some miracles might be ignored but when a large sum of people are telling the same story, it makes it hard to ignore.
The reason that any person claiming to possess magic or God-given powers would have been ignored is because it would have been reported by a small amount of people and those things are IMPOSSIBLE. I deny miracles and the like because they are completely moronic. I deny the existence of faith healers, psychics, clairvoyants and any of that idiocy.
Yeah, Authors at the time would have been way more interested in politics than a guy performing crazy awesome magic tricks.
You may argue for the existence of Jesus as a man to me. You may not argue the existence of Jesus as a miracle working son of God because that is just plain stupid.
Good! You are arguing from the point of view that Jesus was just a man. This is acceptable and a valid point. It definitely makes sense to why a man preaching and doing nothing more would have less evidence than a mad conquering the world. Just make sure you tell all your friends that, so I can stop having to hear the moronic statement that there is as much evidence for <insert historic person> as Jesus.
Really!? The vast majority of people have had a lack of understanding and been willing to accept things they don’t understand as fact? Calling me small minded is also incorrect. This video will show you why: http://youtu.be/T69TOuqaqXI
And that is a huge problem with historians. They should be completing ignoring anything to do with the supernatural but use the text surrounding it as possible evidence. Not to disregard the complete text because of that, but to ignore the bits that do contain miracles. It is a failure of critical thinking to believe any person can perform miracles.
The New Testament contains too much paranormal/supernatural events for it to be taken seriously. Although, there may be some moderately truthful information in there, too much of it is contains miracles. I’m not saying that it should be completely disregarded; I am saying it should be taken with a very very large grain of salt.
I would be less likely to accept the history of Alexander the Great if stories surrounding him contained continuous statements of him being the son of God and performing miracles. I would have to accept that the evidence for his existence was too strong to deny though. I am not able to do the same with Jesus. The evidence is very weak and the stories of his miracles muddy the water.
I know I have biases but I reiterate, miracles are nonsense. It’s fine for you to have faith in them. That is all you can do; have faith. Miracles do not occur, supernatural is a stupid idea except for great fictional storytelling, and paranormal is the same.
I can and I have said previously: Jesus may have existed as an ordinary man but I find it highly unlikely. At no point to I completely deny his existence. I just find it very hard to accept that he did exist.
Do you have a problem with Wikipedia as a source? You do realise that is a very very stupid thing to do. It is pretty rare for people to ignore Wikipedia now as a source. It is a good source of information and it’s quality is no less than any other Encyclopedia, as has been shown by studies: As accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica and accurate but poorly written.
There are photos of Lincoln… genius.
>>>Do you have a problem with Wikipedia as a source? You do realise that is a very very stupid thing to do. It is pretty rare for people to ignore Wikipedia now as a source. It is a good source of information and it’s quality is no less than any other Encyclopedia, as has been shown by studies: As accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica and accurate but poorly written.
HA HA! What a crock of bovine excrement!
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/02/community_and_h.php
http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf
You are a Class A moron.
You are welcome to comment here all you like but I will not respond to you, besides this comment. Your arguments are of no value and easy to ignore when your method seems to be attack someone personally and call all their arguments stupid.
“Yes, I know very little documentation has survived time. I posted a video with a basic rundown of why it is a problem anyone, at all, failed to mention Jesus. Yes, I understand these statements in the video have been answered by Historians/Theologians.”
Mostly historians. If you understand that they have been answered, why are you still throwing that objection around? Probably because you don’t really care what the evidence is. Tacitus absolutely mentioned Jesus. So your claim that “anyone, at all” failed to mention him is false. The Josephus larger citation is debated, but the majority of NT and scholars of Josephus believe it’s core is good.
“I do not know why historians believe any of those people exist. Is there archaeological evidence to support their existence? Is there any unbiased scholars who state those people existed? Is it only information from the Bible that points to their existence?”
These comments further show why you should not be commenting on these issues. You simply do not have enough familiarity with the relevant literature/arguments. You are barely aware of the most superficial literature/arguments. And you have not even evaluated those very critically!
No, there is no archeological evidence these guys existed. Why should there be? They were not conquerors. They were not kings. They existed in a very similar social-historical context to Jesus, only their own followers cared enough to preserve the information about them. If archeological evidence is required, many, many, many, many, many people that historians have no reason to deny existed, also need to be questioned. Yes, there are Jewish, Christian, and secular scholars who affirm their existences. And finally, no, they are not in the Bible. I am surprised that you did not know this given your extensive training in Sunday school and your years of studying the Bible closely enough to lend your opinion to the historical Jesus debate.
“It is not in any way nonsensical to think Jesus would have been heavily written about if he were performing miracles in front of large crowds. A small amount of people running around saying they saw some miracles might be ignored but when a large sum of people are telling the same story, it makes it hard to ignore.”
No. It doesn’t. The examples I have cited above show that. Are you aware how rare and expensive writing materials were in antiquity? Even if that were not a factor, why would, say, Jacob (a hypothetical first century observer of one of Jesus’ miracles, even assuming they were tricks or over-exaggerated) report very much about Jesus. He could easily have said what you say. “It was a trick.” Or, “he’s powered by demons.” Only people who cared about Jesus and his ministry would have preserved accounts about him. And, once again, many that may have been preserved would have been lost. As the vast majority of ancient literature has been. But you have already admitted that historians know why that argument is bad. You’d just prefer to continue believing it. Your delusion surfaces once again.
“The reason that any person claiming to possess magic or God-given powers would have been ignored is because it would have been reported by a small amount of people and those things are IMPOSSIBLE. I deny miracles and the like because they are completely moronic. I deny the existence of faith healers, psychics, clairvoyants and any of that idiocy.”
You do realize you just demolished your own argument right? Not to mention contradicted yourself? If the only people who cared about or witnessed Jesus’ miracles would have been a small amount of Jews in rural Palestine, why do you think we should even find one reference to Jesus in the works of Greek and Roman writers? Many historians have remarked that the fact Tacitus mentions him is amazing in and of itself. It is a fact of history that various people have been believed to be miracle workers. That is not up for debate. There are people who even today claim such. I do not care what you deny. Your original claim was that the amount (or even presence?) of miracle-material in historical Jesus traditions count against his overall historicity. I have demonstrated that that assertion is absolutely, completely, totally ridiculous. Even if I grant your metaphysical presuppositions, that argument is a bad one.
“Yeah, Authors at the time would have been way more interested in politics than a guy performing crazy awesome magic tricks.”
You have once again shown your own argument is junk.
“You may argue for the existence of Jesus as a man to me. You may not argue the existence of Jesus as a miracle working son of God because that is just plain stupid.”
I can do whatever I want dude. You can cram it with walnuts. I have NOT even once defended the historicity of Jesus’ miracles. Not once. I have shown, conclusively, that your argument that the presence of those stories does nothing, one way or another, to hinder Jesus’ historicity.
“Good! You are arguing from the point of view that Jesus was just a man. This is acceptable and a valid point. It definitely makes sense to why a man preaching and doing nothing more would have less evidence than a mad conquering the world. Just make sure you tell all your friends that, so I can stop having to hear the moronic statement that there is as much evidence for as Jesus.”
Sigh. You are so very thick. Again, historical claims for individuals differ in the level and quality of what is being asserted for each one. If I was asserting that Jesus conquered the world, or built a bridge to North America, or was a Jewish preacher who was crucified, my claim is only valid insofar as the evidence for it is stronger than possible evidences (or lack thereof) against it. There is as much evidence that Jesus existed, given what is claimed of him (even granting naturalism), as there is that Alexander the Great existed given what is claimed of him.
“Really!? The vast majority of people have had a lack of understanding and been willing to accept things they don’t understand as fact? Calling me small minded is also incorrect. This video will show you why: http://youtu.be/T69TOuqaqXI”
First, you are nothing more than a small-minded ethnocentrist. Second, no time for youtube. But the quality of your sources speaks volumes. Youtube, wiki, guys not trained in the areas they write whole books upon. Once again, you’ve a lot in common with holocaust-hoaxers.
“And that is a huge problem with historians. They should be completing ignoring anything to do with the supernatural but use the text surrounding it as possible evidence.”
Bias. Unproven assertions masquerading as fact. Small-minded drivel. But it’s nice to see what your real problem finally is. “Historians need to consult me and my worldview before they go about working in their field.” Yeah, you have a serious complex. Now the argument isn’t about Jesus. It’s about the standards of historiography. All you want to do is change the rules because you don’t like how the game is going against you.
“Not to disregard the complete text because of that, but to ignore the bits that do contain miracles. It is a failure of critical thinking to believe any person can perform miracles. The New Testament contains too much paranormal/supernatural events for it to be taken seriously. Although, there may be some moderately truthful information in there, too much of it is contains miracles. I’m not saying that it should be completely disregarded; I am saying it should be taken with a very very large grain of salt.”
I don’t care what you think. The professors at my school, who are experts in classical and ancient near eastern history, do not care what you think. Indeed, from the late 18th century to the late 20th century many historians assumed that only naturalistic narratives could pass the test as to what was and was not historical. This did not hinder them in seeing Jesus as a historical man or the NT as a valuable source of ancient information in the slightest. You make grand, sweeping claims about things that you know nothing about. Not a sign of critical thinking ability.
“I would be less likely to accept the history of Alexander the Great if stories surrounding him contained continuous statements of him being the son of God and performing miracles. I would have to accept that the evidence for his existence was too strong to deny though. I am not able to do the same with Jesus. The evidence is very weak and the stories of his miracles muddy the water.”
No. Just more unproven drivel. It is noble that you admit your bias so colors your opinion that you would deny Alexander even now if some (what, 25%, 50%) of the information related about him contained elements that you do not accept based on your worldview (which is pretty young). You do know that there are lots of elements of his life that are related in supernatural/incredible terms right? What about extending the skepticism to events that are related in naturalistic terms but just seem imporbable? “I can’t see how this happened, so I don’t believe it did.” Your paranoia is staggering .
“I know I have biases but I reiterate, miracles are nonsense. It’s fine for you to have faith in them. That is all you can do; have faith. Miracles do not occur, supernatural is a stupid idea except for great fictional storytelling, and paranormal is the same.”
You are a small-minded, ethnocentric, raving child.
“I can and I have said previously: Jesus may have existed as an ordinary man but I find it highly unlikely.”
In the face of all the evidence, and critical scholarship, holocaust-hoaxers do
the same thing…
“At no point to I completely deny his existence. I just find it very hard to accept that he did exist.”
What I said above.
“Do you have a problem with Wikipedia as a source? You do realise that is a very very stupid thing to do. It is pretty rare for people to ignore Wikipedia now as a source. It is a good source of information and it’s quality is no less than any other Encyclopedia, as has been shown by studies: As accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica and accurate but poorly written.”
Wikipedia is great for quick access to information. But not for critical evaluation of information. You quoted someone, with no credentials himself to comment on anything to do with Jesus, who was quoted on wiki. So yes. I do have a problem with it as a source. That’s why they don’t let you quote it as an authority in papers and journals, dude.
“There are photos of Lincoln… genius.”
So, now there needs to be photos of the person in question? How do you know those are really photos of Lincoln? People lie (especially for political and religious motivations) all the time. My point was that your standard of evidence, with regard to Jesus, is as ridiculous as a person now declaring he will not believe in Lincoln unless someone takes him back in time. But I know its hard for you to draw elementary connections like that.
I am going to go bottom to top on this one.
No, there is just a shit tonne of evidence that Abraham Lincoln existed. It is not even close to comparable to the existence of Jesus. Stop with the ridiculous comparisons, you and your friends seem to love outrageous analogies.
Yes, Donald Akenson, the historian, has no credentials to comment on how historians, looking into evidence for Jesus, don’t follow sound historical practices. This is also coming from someone who states continuously that “scholars agree”. Who are these scholars?
Guess what? Wikipedia has this whole thing about having to cite sources.
Yay! Another push for an outrageous analogy to be taken seriously.
This one is funny. Insulting me and calling me ethnocentric at the same time, like it isn’t massively hypocritical. Yes, I have laughed off your beliefs as nonsense (because they are) but I have at no stage insulted your person. This seems to be a common thread with your group.
Actually, it would be more like, “This doesn’t make sense, there should be a natural explanation, or it didn’t happen.” My paranoia is only staggering and stuttering when I have consumed cannabis.
If I was making a grand, sweeping claim about the historical accuracy of the bible, I would have said, “The whole Bible should not be taken seriously, AT ALL.” I just said it should be taken with a grain of salt, a swig of whiskey and some LSD.
I read this as, “Derpdy derp, derping derpenating derpy. Derp.” All I said was that there is a huge problem with historians that allow themselves to accept the miracles and son of God bit of the historical evidence. Although it is wrong to say that them accepting this complete nonsense nullifies all of their claims, it is still hard to accept a lot of their claims as rational.
Oh… so you will continue to call me small-minded without watching the 10 minute YouTube video that makes an excellent argument as to why it is wrong to call me small-minded…dot..
To continue on the, “no-one would have noticed Jesus because he was a minor/’insert other excuse’ figure.” Your Jesus of the Gospels was connected to Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate and he was also tried on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, yet he someone avoided being recorded in non-biblical documents? Cool. He must have been exceptionally unremarkable.
Lastly, if the evidence is as strong as you claim, wouldn’t all academic historians be Christian?
No, there is just a shit tonne of evidence that Abraham Lincoln existed. It is not even close to comparable to the existence of Jesus. Stop with the ridiculous comparisons, you and your friends seem to love outrageous analogies.”
You don’t get it. The level of evidence you are demanding to not be “unsure” that Jesus existed is like someone, today, saying they need more evidence to not be unsure that Lincoln existed. There is as much evidence that Lincoln existed in his social-historical context as there is Napoleon existed in his as there is William Wallace existed in his as there is Caesar Augustus existed in his as there is Socrates in his as there is Akhenaten existed in his. Someone could argue that your evidence (that Lincoln existed) is really no evidence at all. How do you know those are photos of Lincoln? How do you know it’s not one big lie? Why do you blindly trust that scholars of American history are right about him existing? You are not consistent in your methodology. You demand more for Jesus. Again, revealing just how much your anti-Christian bias colors your perception of the world.
“Yes, Donald Akenson, the historian, has no credentials to comment on how historians, looking into evidence for Jesus, don’t follow sound historical practices.”
Akenson is a scholar of Irish history. If he made a comment about how scholars of Akhenaten or scholars of the Renaissance do not follow sound historical principles, I’d similarly ignore him. Just like I would ignore Gerd Lüdemann if he declared that scholars of Irish history do not follow sound historical principles.
“This is also coming from someone who states continuously that “scholars agree”. Who are these scholars?”
It is not my job to hold your hand through every step of the process. You are a big boy. Start with the material McGrew recommended. However, I will note that the vast majority of scholars who are Christian (Craig Keener was an atheist, NT Wright), Jewish (Geza Vermes), secular (Gerd Lüdemann, Bart Erhman), or something entirely their own (Maurice Casey, J.D. Crossan) affirm the historical Jesus.
“Guess what? Wikipedia has this whole thing about having to cite sources.”
You never addressed JP’s response (the links he posted) to your “Wikipedia is like EB” assertion. You said you would not respond to him. Cowardice? If they let you use wiki as a source in schools down in your corner of the globe, it’s easy to see why your critical thinking skills are so poor. Wikipedia is great for fast distribution of large amounts of information (whether good or bad), but it is NOT acceptable as a source, at least for serious students of…anything.
“Yay! Another push for an outrageous analogy to be taken seriously.”
Not an outrageous analogy, an appropriate one. This is how scholars of ancient history view the Jesus myth. Not my problem you can’t seem to get that.
“This one is funny. Insulting me and calling me ethnocentric at the same time, like it isn’t massively hypocritical. Yes, I have laughed off your beliefs as nonsense (because they are) but I have at no stage insulted your person. This seems to be a common thread with your group.”
Insulting my beliefs is not insulting my person? I see. So I can beat you bloody, but at least I’m not insulting your beliefs. Seeing them as two separate things is another example of your ethnocentrism. You provide far more entertainment than any clown. A two year old understands historiography better than you do.
“Actually, it would be more like, “This doesn’t make sense, there should be a natural explanation, or it didn’t happen.””
Paraphrasing what I said, basically. Good job.
“My paranoia is only staggering and stuttering when I have consumed cannabis.”
Makes sense. At least it’s not 100% your fault that you aren’t able to string one coherent thought together with respect to history.
“If I was making a grand, sweeping claim about the historical accuracy of the bible, I would have said, “The whole Bible should not be taken seriously, AT ALL.” I just said it should be taken with a grain of salt, a swig of whiskey and some LSD.”
Take the LSD, whiskey and mary jane out of the picture and you might actually be able to see why your belief with regard to the historical Jesus is such a joke. BTW, isn’t that what you did here:
“And that is a huge problem with historians. They should be completing ignoring anything to do with the supernatural but use the text surrounding it as possible evidence.”
I realize that your knowledge of ancient history is bad. Really bad. Really, really, really, bad. But by making a statement like this you are making such a grand, sweeping, dramatic, over-simplification that you are essentially taking 99% of history and committing it to flames, just because of your own methodological presuppositions. I’ll let your readers (whoever they may be) decide which one of us has the bias here.
“I read this as, “Derpdy derp, derping derpenating derpy. Derp.””
Given the variety and amount of substances you apparently consume on a regular basis, I’m not surprised that’s how painful reading is for you. But hey, at least now I understand why you shy away from libraries in favor of wiki.
“All I said was that there is a huge problem with historians that allow themselves to accept the miracles and son of God bit of the historical evidence. Although it is wrong to say that them accepting this complete nonsense nullifies all of their claims, it is still hard to accept a lot of their claims as rational.”
That is your problem. I have shown, to a painful extent that, even granting your small-minded presuppositions about reality, you cannot use the miracle material as evidence against Jesus’ historicity. BTW, historians can believe Jesus claimed to be God’s son, and still believe he existed. Those two beliefs are not mutually exclusive. On the philosophical matter, no matter how much you cry and whine the vast majority of the world is going to continue rejecting your dogmatic naturalism. You will grow old, die, and your corpse will drift on the wind as dust for thousands of years and the vast majority of the world will still reject your dogmatic naturalism.
“Oh… so you will continue to call me small-minded without watching the 10 minute YouTube video that makes an excellent argument as to why it is wrong to call me small-minded…dot..”
You got it sportsfan. When I am not taking arrogant chumps online to task for their incoherent beliefs, I read books and journals on historiography and philosophy from credentialed scholars of those fields (whether they be Christian, Jewish, atheist, whatever). Youtube I watch with friends when I want to see some dumb guy get a football or hockey puck to the groin.
“To continue on the, “no-one would have noticed Jesus because he was a minor/’insert other excuse’ figure.” Your Jesus of the Gospels was connected to Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate and he was also tried on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, yet he someone avoided being recorded in non-biblical documents? Cool. He must have been exceptionally unremarkable.”
Lots of people did lots of things those days that we have no documentation for. Are you in possession of first century Palestinian court documents? Are you aware of a massive collection of such documents? I am not. Because the vast majority of them are gone. A century and a half ago guys who questioned Jesus’ existence also questioned Pilate’s. Why? “Because the only place he done appear is in the New Testament and Josephus and Tacitus and those sources ain’t good enough son! Hyuck!” Your argument has changed again btw. At most it would be a strike against Jesus as the Son of God. That is, it would be, “gosh, this Jesus fellow was exceptionally unremarkable, so he can’t have been the Son of God like he said. The Son of God would have been more remarkable!” But that conclusion doesn’t follow. The other fellows I have already mentioned were significant first century religious figures, yet they are not mentioned in any documents outside of the ones we’d expect them to be mentioned in. Lots of historical individuals are only mentioned in one place at one time. This argument is stupid. Lastly, I’ll say this again, there is no disputing that Jesus was mentioned by Tacitus, the most trusted of first-early second century Roman historians. So your “non-biblical documents” assertion is false.
“Lastly, if the evidence is as strong as you claim, wouldn’t all academic historians be Christian?”
Ha! You really are just that stupid aren’t you? I have, again, not once argued for the historicity of Jesus’ miracles or his claim to be God’s Son. Not once. I showed why the vast majority of historians, who are qualified (not sniveling, internet whiner-geeks) and who are not all Christians accept Jesus’ historicity as virtually certain but reject his supernatural status: the two are not mutually exclusive. The one (assertion in the NT that Jesus performed miracles) does not cast doubt on the other (his existence).
Being a Christian involves more than recognizing that Jesus existed though. But I could also turn this right around back at you:
“Lastly, if the evidence that Jesus’ existence is a weak as you claim, wouldn’t all academic historians (especially Jews and atheists) be Christ-mythers (or, “I just think his existence is unlikely…ers”)?
I’m going to go J.P. Holding style on you because I don’t want to hear more regurgitated stupidity from you.
I don’t get the level of evidence I am demanding? Really? Actually, I don’t think you understand how to weigh evidence. If you continue with this complete fucking stupid argument, that you hear from all deluded religionist nutjobs, you aren’t going to get very far convincing me of anything. Bring up Lincoln, Napoleon or any other historical figure that didn’t have a fantasy novel written about them (like jesus) again and I will disregard everything you say from now on. It’s a fucking massive logical fallacy.
“Akenson is a scholar of Irish history.”
Stop it. You know why your argument here is stupid. His comment is about historical practices.
Oh wow, secular historians affirm the historical Jesus. You mean they accept that there was probably a man that the Bible was written about that didn’t perform any miracles, wasn’t born of a virgin and didn’t rise from the dead? I accept this. I accept that there may have been this man, Jesus. You now need to accept that there is a possibility there was no man Jesus and you must accept that there is ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING WAY that Zombie Jesus was a historical figure.
Yep, me ignoring JP is cowardice. Not the fact that he is a complete and utter fuckwit. If you deny Wikipedia, you are a moron. That’s it. nothing more. Especially science based articles. Oh… and here is a response to Nature’s findings about Wikipedia from Brittanica. Oh… yeah, I’m going to take that seriously. It would be like if Wikipedia were the ones that released those findings.
“Insulting my beliefs is not insulting my person? I see. So I can beat you bloody, but at least I’m not insulting your beliefs. Seeing them as two separate things is another example of your ethnocentrism. You provide far more entertainment than any clown. A two year old understands historiography better than you do.”
My response to this is… a herka derka, jerka jerka. My daughter is two years old. I’ll just check with her. She said “I want a banana.”
“Makes sense. At least it’s not 100% your fault that you aren’t able to string one coherent thought together with respect to history.”
Cool, now I know how you don’t think critically about much at all. That was what I was trying to find out.
It’s not a joke to weigh the evidence for Jesus and then disregard the majority of it. The majority of it comes from a fictional book called The Bible.
What have we here…. a Christian using the word presuppositions against a sceptic in an argument. I don’t presupppose anything, motherfucker. You presuppose that Christianity is valid and then your look for evidence to prove it. Even when you don’t find any evidence you continue to accept it.
I presuppose nothing. People give me “evidence” to support their religion, I find the evidence moronically pathetic and continue on my way.
I will start making BIG-minded presuppositions then. I presuppose that there is such a thing as a rainbow breathing dragon… not I am going to go find evidence for it’s existence. I won’t ever stop believing it exists until I find evidence that proves it doesn’t exist. OH WAIT, you can’t fucking prove that something doesn’t exist.
Yep, historians can believe that Jesus claimed that he is the song of God. They can’t believe that he actually is the son of God because that would, again, be completely fucking retarded.
Here, I will finish off on a happy note for you. I accept that there was probably a Jesus that existed as an ordinary man. A large majority of the things written about him are fabrications and mostly nonsense. If you are not arguing for the miracles and whole son of God bit, then what is the purpose of you being religious?
(This response is to the blogger, not the angry Christians. I’m offering it only to help him argue.)
As with most supposed dichotomies, the solution is in realizing that there are other explanations. Here are eight.
1) The existence of Jesus is irrelevant; only the message matters. Just as I, who don’t believe in slavery or genocide, am morally superior to God, the ideas attributed to Jesus must stand or fall on their own.
2) Jesus could easily be a composite. The mention of John the Baptist already implies that there were others contesting the established religious leaders.
3) The official image we have of Jesus is itself a composite. If you restrict yourself only to the supernatural parts that all four Gospels share, you’re going to have little to talk about.
4) Not one detail of the supernatural parts of Jesus is original. When you argue for the legitimacy of those aspects of the story, you argue the same for Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus and many others.
5) There are a lot more than four Gospels. Those four were selected for what they have in common and for what they didn’t share with the excluded Gospels. The picture of Jesus changes dramatically if you include the others.
6) It’s commonly assumed by lay people that those four guys were disciples, but the Gospels were written long after they died and they don’t really have any idea who wrote them.
7) The Bible has been extensively edited, both accidentally and deliberately. For more on this, I highly recommend “Misquoting Jesus” by Bart Ehrman. When you quote Jesus, you may actually be quoting some monk.
8) Most entertaining of all, is the fact that Jesus’s message was about direct access to enlightenment. It can easily be argued that he would not approve of his message being sold alongside the Old Testament, let alone by wealthy showmen. Quite simply, if you call yourself a Christian, that in itself means that you don’t get it.