Unraveling the Jesus myth

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The Duke of Vandals
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Unraveling the Jesus myth

Post #1

Post by 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
Last edited by The Duke of Vandals on Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Lotan
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Post #61

Post by Lotan »

Hey Duke!
Can I get a clarification?

Is your position that the mighty son o' god depicted in the gospels doesn't exist, or does it go further, that there was no wandering preacher type Jesus of Nazareth underlying those stories?

(PS - Love your stuff.)
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto His people. Exodus 32:14

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Post #62

Post by Metacrock »

bernee51 wrote:
Metacrock wrote:
No body was ever found
perhaps no body ever existed.



now stop begging the question. Do we have a reason to supposse that? well 500 people in a whole town said no we don't. we saw him the body did exist. so why should we supposse that?



Metacrock wrote: 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

guards on the tomb are coroborated by Gospel of Peter as an idepdentent account. NO Gsopels say there were no gaurds, they jsut dont' metnion them. the reason for this is that the Jews weren't making a big deal of it at that time. Mat included them because he had in his community the witnesses who saw thema perhaps the guards themselves.



Metacrock wrote: 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.

wrong! Jospehus and Talmud, Paul, Clement, Papias, Polycarp, Ignatious all attest to it, Gosepl of Peter Egerton 2 gosepl of the savir. a bunch of sources.

Easyrider

Post #63

Post by Easyrider »

bernee51 wrote: Depending which gospel vesion you want to believe, there were guards, women, angels at the tomb
This, without foundation, supposes the Gospels cannot be complimentary.

Harmony Resurrection

http://www.new-life.net/resurrct.htm

Harmony Resurrection

http://answering-islam.org/Andy/Resurre ... rmony.html

Harmony Resurrection

http://thebereans.net/arm-resurr2.shtml
bernee51 wrote:We only have the gospels telling us of the crucifixion.
Actually, the crucifixion is alluded to in other New Testament works, i.e., Acts 2:36, 4:10, I Cor. 1:23, 2:8, and in a host of other verses.

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Post #64

Post by Metacrock »

Lotan wrote:Hey Duke!
Can I get a clarification?

Is your position that the mighty son o' god depicted in the gospels doesn't exist, or does it go further, that there was no wandering preacher type Jesus of Nazareth underlying those stories?

(PS - Love your stuff.)

that's good. I'm gald you asked that. that would be a useful distinction to know.

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Post #65

Post by Goat »

Easyrider wrote:
The Duke of Vandals wrote:You're still assuming that eyewitness accounts of impossible events are valid and you're still assuming the disciples existed as written about. Let me assure you that both of these assumptions are completely invalid.
A lot of previous skeptics thought like that too.
The Duke of Vandals wrote:The problem is (in the case of Jesus) the eyewitnesses were contrived by a handful of mythmakers and are as mythical as their teacher (and UFO's).
That's mere conjecture; no foundation / credible evidence there was any contrivence.
The Duke of Vandals wrote:It's about here that apologists put non-theists in a VERY difficult position. The dishonesty involved in such assertions as "how do you know it's impossible" or "can you prove it didn't happen?" is undenyable and blaring. This is where Christians' memetic attachment to Christianity can block rational debate. I implore the apologists debating here to not only argue honestly, but CONSISTANTLY.
When you provide some compelling evidence to back up your conjectures you will have more credibility.
If that is conjecture, you will be able to find an eyewitness account that was written by an eyewittness then. Otherwise, your claim there were eyewitnesses is merely conjecture also.

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Post #66

Post by bernee51 »

Metacrock wrote: now stop begging the question. Do we have a reason to supposse that? well 500 people in a whole town said no we don't. we saw him the body did exist. so why should we supposse that?
Five hundred people did not see the body in the tomb and then the empty tomb did they?
Metacrock wrote: they jsut dont' metnion them.
Ain't that convenient.
Metacrock wrote: Mat included them because he had in his community the witnesses who saw thema perhaps the guards themselves.
You can be sure when you see the word perhaps that hermeneutic gymnasts are at play
Metacrock wrote: wrong! Jospehus and Talmud, Paul, Clement, Papias, Polycarp, Ignatious all attest to it, Gosepl of Peter Egerton 2 gosepl of the savir. a bunch of sources.
All of which have been discussed at lenght, here and elswhere, and are, by many, chistians and others alike, found wanting.
"Whatever you are totally ignorant of, assert to be the explanation of everything else"

William James quoting Dr. Hodgson

"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Post #67

Post by Metacrock »

bernee51 wrote:
Metacrock wrote: now stop begging the question. Do we have a reason to supposse that? well 500 people in a whole town said no we don't. we saw him the body did exist. so why should we supposse that?
Five hundred people did not see the body in the tomb and then the empty tomb did they?
Metacrock wrote: they jsut dont' metnion them.
Ain't that convenient.

they are coroborated by an indepdent source. why must they be mentionedd by every source?

Metacrock wrote: Mat included them because he had in his community the witnesses who saw thema perhaps the guards themselves.
You can be sure when you see the word perhaps that hermeneutic gymnasts are at play
Metacrock wrote: wrong! Jospehus and Talmud, Paul, Clement, Papias, Polycarp, Ignatious all attest to it, Gosepl of Peter Egerton 2 gosepl of the savir. a bunch of sources.
All of which have been discussed at lenght, here and elswhere, and are, by many, chistians and others alike, found wanting.

you think just spoiting an opinion prove something? I've proven over and over again the validity of these sources. you just take the fact that your views are disproven by history. you are gainsaying the evidence becasue you don't like the evdience.

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Post #68

Post by bernee51 »

Metacrock wrote: you think just spoiting an opinion prove something?
I have no idea what 'spoiting' means.
Metacrock wrote: I've proven over and over again the validity of these sources.
Really? I hadn't noticed.

Does Tacitus even mention Jesus?
Metacrock wrote: you just take the fact that your views are disproven by history. you are gainsaying the evidence becasue you don't like the evdience.
My views are no more 'disproven' as your's are 'proven'

The only reason Jesus of the gospels exists is because the gospels exist.
Last edited by bernee51 on Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Whatever you are totally ignorant of, assert to be the explanation of everything else"

William James quoting Dr. Hodgson

"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Post #69

Post by Goat »

Metacrock wrote:
they are coroborated by an indepdent source. why must they be mentionedd by every source?
Then, you were be able to tell us what this 'independant' source is, and be able to demonstrate it is an independant source. Could you please point me to the independant source about these 500 witnesses?

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Post #70

Post by The Duke of Vandals »

I'll attempt to re-create the post that this CENSORED site just ate in a little while. I need to go calm down.

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