Unraveling the Jesus myth

[The Duke of Vandals]

So, yeah... New to your site and didn't catch that a debate topic has to be explicitly specified. So here it is:

The gospel Jesus never existed. This is demonstrable by examining the evidene beyond the bible.


I. Josephus.

Apologists often like to point to Josephus as an "extra-biblical source" for the existence of Jesus. Setting aside the argument of how much of Josephus' testimony was his own and how much was entered in by the church aside, Josephus tells us of more than a half dozen Jews by the name of Jesus whose deeds and actions closely mirror the accounts of the gospel Jesus. Many of them predate the alleged time of the gospel Jesus. This is significant because it sets the stage for "Jesus cults" which existed before 1 ce.

Add to this early pagan cults and we have the beginnings for a formula that leads to Christianity.

II. Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria was a philosopher who associated with the early Essenes (individuals who would later be thought of as some of the first Christians). Philo was a hellenized Jew who was terribly interested in Jewish and Greek religion. He lived at the same time the gospel Jesus was alive and we know he visited Jerusalim at least once. That this writer would miss an incarnate Jewish godman is inconceivable. It would be like a civil rights movement writer living in Memphis during the 60's yet failing to speak a word about Martin Luther King... neither mentioning him directly ("I saw MLK / Jesus") or indirectly ("People keep talking about MLK / Jesus").

Understand that Jesus showed up in the equivalent of the blogger community of the era. With a written & read religion (Judaism) and Pax Romana ensuring safe travel, there was no conspiracy or campaign of persecution that could have stopped writers from chronicling the godman.

Yet history is utterly silent. Where we expect to see volumes we hear crickets.

III. The Gospels

Most apologists are convinced that the gospels existed as recently as two decades after Jesus' death. There's simply no evidence of this. The apologist claim is based on so-called "internal evidence"... meaning because so-and-so said such and such within the context of a specific date, they're guessing it happened then.

Thus, if an apologist were to read, "I'm eager to go to New York and climb to the top of both buildings of the World Trade Center", they'd have no choice but to conclude the statement was written before 9/11... which it wasn't. I wrote it just now, years after the fact.

The first gospel to be written was the gospel of Mark. We have no evidence of who actully wrote it or when, but the evidence we do have indicates it was written around 70 ce. Mark hsa nearly no miracles in it and depicts a nearly human Jesus. Mark, like Paul, when read alone is woefully ignorant of Key life events in Jesus alleged life... like the virgin birth.

The other gospels were collections of myths borrowed from earlier religions and invented outright by early church fathers. Each new gospel adding slightly to the tale, they don't come into Christian consciousness in any meaningful way until 180 ce where they're mentioned by a third party. We have no copies or originals of gospels from before the second century nor any writings which specifically mention them.

IV. The personhood of Jesus

In the early second century Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, writes an explanation of Christianity to the Alexandrian church. In his 37 chapter "A plea for the Christians" he makes no mention of Jesus as an actual person. The closest he comes is to imply that Jesus is the son of god, but in this same sentiment he also intertwines Jesus with the logos or word of god. Athenagoras later writes another essay on how a resurrection should be possible, but this makes no mention of Jesus nor of any key life events of Jesus. Reading between the lines, it makes it sound as though he's speaking metaphorically and doing little more than musing.

It establishes that the gospels and notions that Jesus was an actual person was NOT in all Christian consciousness in the second century.

V. The Disciples and the Sales Pitch

At the core of Christian argumentation is a VERY strong appeal to emotion (guilt). We are told of Jesus (a re-telling of Mithras who's more accessable) who's everyhing to everyone: king and pauper, righteous and meek, etc. We are told that he died for our... specifically our sins. We are given a story that's very obviously impossible that demands additional evidence. After all, people don't just come back from the dead nor does water spontaneously become wine, etc.

Instead of evidence, we are given the emotionally charged claim of the disciples; those brave martyrs who believed so strongly in the Jesus story that they died for it. This is the REAL argument that apologists use. As human beings, we're naturally inclined to be motivated by guilt. We're SUPPOSED to feel guilty for questioning the bravery of people who sacrificed their lives for what they believed.

The problem is the disciples are as fictional as their mythical creator.

Nearly all of them are attributed multiple different deaths in multiple places in multiple manners.

Peter, for example is beheaded by Nero according to Anicetus, given a 25 year pontificate as bishop of Rome in the Clementines (making it impossible for him to be murdered by Nero) and was crucified upside down by the imaginings of Origen. Bartholemew (Nathaniel) travels to India, Persia, Armenia and somewhere in Africa before being beheaded in Armenia... AND Persia. The list goes on and on.

It's an ingeneous argument: Unsupported claims (Jesus) being evidenced by more unsupported claims (the disciples) with a powerful guilt trip and an exaltation of those who believe WITHOUT evidence. It's the perfect way to get people to believe in something they'd normally scoff at.

There's other evidence we can get into later, such as the non-existence of Nazareth in the first century, but that's enough for now.

By the by, I'm The Duke of Vandals and I look forward to your responses.

--------------------------------------------------

Sources:

http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_textual_evidence

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

http://www.bibleorigins.net/

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/JewishJesus/

http://www.christianorigins.com/

http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/jesus/

http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/testhist.htm

http://jesusneverexisted.com/

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... chap5.html

[Lotan]

You mean like the rationalist belief that a whole universe suddenly "appeared" out of nothing?

Who believes that? Not me.

[The Duke of Vandals]

No foundation for the "impossible" descriptive.

Are you TRYING to troll or do you actually believe that walking on unfrozen water, reviving the dead and curing blindness magically are all best described as "reasonable" / "possible" / "commonplace"?

[Metacrock]

you can't dismiss eye witness evdience by saying "that can' happen because it never does." that's what Hume said but it's widely known to be circular reasoning.


can't you see that?

That's your emotional attachment / meme arguing there.

false consruct of meme canot be used to give you a failsafe to anaswer any argument. No one accepts that bs as anything more than Than Dawings no the toilet.

If I state "Invisible Flying Monkeys are real" you're under no burden to believe this assertion because it contradicts existing supported claims. Monkeys don't fly, nor are they invisible, thus the claim they exists defaults to "false until proven true".

grow up an dlearn how to use logc. The witness account are the evidence. you can't overturn it by trying to lay down an automatic dictim that it has to be wrong. You are merely gainsaying the evidence. you are jsut saying 'I don't like the fac that evdience agsmist my view exist, so I want to see more evidence to prove that that evdience is evidence." But it is evidence and you cannot dismiss it merely becasue you don't like it.

Stating "An IFM landed on my shoulder and then flew away". Is a step towards providing evidence, but there's still a LONG way to go. We need to know how IFM's are possible before we can give them legitimacy

.

multiplying examles of beging the quetion wont help. It's just this simple.if several peolpe came and said "we saw X, we all saw it we all know it's true." You can't say "x can't happen, you need a bunch more people to say that you are right becasue you can be evidence fo rX." No they are evidence for x because they calim to see x. you have to show why we should not believe them.


Circular reasoning is not an argument.


you never answered the fac that this has nothign to do with Jesus existing. those tw seperate questions!

Similarly, when people say, "I saw someone rise from the dead" we don't automatically believe them. We both know that if someone came up to you on the street and told you this, you'd be skeptical. You'd ask questions. You'd want further details. If none were given to you and all you had to go on was the man's veracity, then at best you'd conclude he saw something and at worst call him a crack-pot.

I met the guy.His story is coroborated by my professor who also knows him and by INS and by other on NDE websites. I met him,I know he's credible I can tell he's not a con man.

The last thing you'd do is start a religion on it.

right so there must hvae been something really believeable about it.

You say it doesn't ever happen but then there are examples of it, and your only arguement against them is that they can't because it doesn't happen. Well obviously it does!

I don't think you comprehend the corner you've painted ourself into with this assertion.

your loigc is circular. you are begging the question cut it out! obey logic, learn what logic and stop absuing it!

The gospel Jesus didn't just "get better". He was magically & miraculously brought back to life.

right, so?

You've given several examples of natural instances where people who have thought to have been dead have woken up. So, you're giving some compelling evidence for people reviving, but that's NOT the Christian claim, is it?

that's not what I've done.Iv'e given examples of modern miracles. All of thsoe people had lots of people praying for them.George was missing to his family during those three days. so they were praying all the time to bring him back and keep him safe and protect hmi. So we can assume god was invovled.

notice he's dorpped all my evidental arguments and back traced on the issue of dating the Gosples.He's dropped the argument about community as author.

Of course I have. The cart goes BEHIND the horse.

your arguement was that Jesus didn't exist. I kicked your bum on that one good and saw it and switched to the resurrection argument because you think begging the question is a good argument. you think your circualr reasoning will bail you out sicne you cant' go toe to toe on the textual claims. so you shifted the argument to the resurrection.

Alleged eyewitness accounts of impossible events are false until proven true. You're still struggling to establish the eyewitnesses even EXISTED. You haven't even BEGUN to explain how what they allegedly saw is possible.

you cannot discredit eye witness calims on the bs assumption that "thsi can't happen." the witnesses prove it did happen and they coroborating by 500 people and a whole town that saw it.

the proof is no body was ever produced.

you can't overcome the logic of the guards on the tomb

the oppents thought enough ot Jesus as a denger to them to crucify him but they could never produce a body or show that the tomb wasn't empty.

the religion grew so no contradictions to the witnesses were ever found.

[Easyrider]

Josephus.

Apologists often like to point to Josephus as an "extra-biblical source" for the existence of Jesus. Setting aside the argument of how much of Josephus' testimony was his own and how much was entered in by the church aside, Josephus tells us of more than a half dozen Jews by the name of Jesus whose deeds and actions closely mirror the accounts of the gospel Jesus. Many of them predate the alleged time of the gospel Jesus. This is significant because it sets the stage for "Jesus cults" which existed before 1 ce.

Add to this early pagan cults and we have the beginnings for a formula that leads to Christianity.

Pick your best Josephus / Jesus-like candidate and show us all the simularities to the Biblical Jesus. And if you want to be really fair-minded, show us all the dissimularities as well, along with their eyewitness confirmations.

Also, even if there were SOME simularities, it still doesn't eliminate Christ as the real thing.

Regarding supposed simularities to pagan cult gods, I think you need to review the following:

Refuting Jesus-like pagan god claims:

http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/JCMyth_1.html

[Metacrock]

man you are really confussed about logic. you are the one with the burden fo proof because you asserted a posative argument. he who asserts an arument must prove it.

...Yet, you contradict yourself in the next sentence:

the presumption of hsiory tells us Jesus existed. My atheist committee chiar in grad school accepted Jesus as a historical figure. Almsot all histoirans do. It's presuption. You have to overturn that presumption.

you must prove your argument that he didn't exist.

Setting aside your fallacious appeal to popular opinion and appeal to authority, the claim of Christians that Jesus existed is the positive claim.

It is not a claim it is historical fact. history has accepte it as a fact for 2000 years. that's what presumption means.

know what my atheist chaiman said when I told him I argue with Jesus mythers on the net? He said 'why do you waste your time arguing with idiots when you have a disseration to finnish?" I am not attacking you and not trying to call you names or impune your intelligence. but my point is hisirans do not accept this stuff, they accept that Jesus was a fact, even the atheist ones.

the marginally christian historian I TAed for said "if we dismissed histoircal figures for the reasons the Jesus myth people dismiss Jesus we shoudl know almsot nothing about the firstt century and we would have to dimsiss almost everyone we know of fromt that century."


History says Jesus is a fact. Look it up in any dictionry or encycolopida, the ones' that even methion the mythers say "thsi is a small ingoared band of cranks" or something of that nature. Most don't even mention them.


you do not call hisorcal fact "a claim>" that is the status quoe that is the establshed authroity.

Now let me put you iwse on appeal to authority you are missing the whole point. IT is never a fallacy to appeal to an expert opinon. hitiorical fact is tended by historians. Historians are the gurdians of history. when hsitorans all agree upon a fac it's a fact until it's disproven , it has prsumptions.

appeal to authority only means the atuhority applared to is not an expert and is appealed to only because he/she has authroity in some general way. an examle would be asking my highschool principle to prnounce upon problems in phsyics. my high school principal says "xi is true in physics" that is the fallacy which is really called "unncessary appeal to authroity." But if I asked alen Sandage some question in phsyics that is not appeal to authroity but expert witness.


historians are expet witnesses about history.

[Easyrider]

No foundation for the "impossible" descriptive.

Are you TRYING to troll or do you actually believe that walking on unfrozen water, reviving the dead and curing blindness magically are all best described as "reasonable" / "possible" / "commonplace"?

You might be the troll yourself unless you show us scientifically that a supernatural God cannot exist. So far, there's been zero credible proof of that.

[Metacrock]

No foundation for the "impossible" descriptive.

Are you TRYING to troll or do you actually believe that walking on unfrozen water, reviving the dead and curing blindness magically are all best described as "reasonable" / "possible" / "commonplace"?

Look, your logic is faulty we are trying to show you why/ that is merely argument form incredultiy. you cannot simpley dismiss believe on the noting "I dont' believe it." fine don't believe, that doesn't disprove it.

ideological sloganizing does not trump eye witness testimony. Maybe there is a bigfoot, maybe UFO's do exist, stop begging the question. just saying "I don't accpt this" is not n argument.


argument from incredultiy is a logical fallacy.

[Metacrock]

You mean like the rationalist belief that a whole universe suddenly "appeared" out of nothing?

Who believes that? Not me.

so? what does that prove. We believe it? why are you right and we are wrong? you are arguing in a circle.

[bernee51]

No body was ever found

perhaps no body ever existed.

you can't overcome the logic of the guards on the tomb

Depending which gospel vesion you want to believe, there were guards, women, angels at the tomb

the oppents thought enough ot Jesus as a denger to them to crucify him but they could never produce a body or show that the tomb wasn't empty.

We only have the gospels telling us of the crucifixion. It is a pity none of the contemporary historians recorded the event. Especially given the supposed collateral effects of this occurence.

[Metacrock]

so evidence and reason is useless. It all just once again comes down to the same old peudo scientific brain washing vs personal experience. I experince the power of God in my life so I believe. You get some personal satisfaction out of an anti-religious ideology that falsely tires to monopolize science, so you don't believe it.

there's no point in discussion.