Columbia PhD in Ancient History says Jesus never existed

[alwayson]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

[TheTruth101]

[alwayson wrote]..........How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

Well then, speaking for myself as a believer, (Who reject and ignore the views of the majority of atheists and some of the more ratbag professed christians, who deserve to be ignored) I respond to Richard Carrier in the same way that I respond to all the other priests of the godless religion of Atheism, and their poor deceived disciples, "With Abject Pity." The Poor Little Devils.

Coming from the word of "professed" Christian himself, I agree with him as to Atheists being simple minded people.

[lmbarre]

Jesus denial is eloquently and thoroughly dismissed by Gal 1:19 and 1 Cor 9:5. There is simply no viable alternative to rendering adelphos/adelphoi to mean other than a literal sibling. The straight forward and unequivocal interpretation of this word clearly shows that Paul knew James to be the brother of an actual Jesus. Nor should the brevity of this statement be construed that this evidence does carry great weight. Indeed, its brevity and unequivocal meaning only strengthens it. It thoroughly collapses the mythicists' house of cards and excuses their patent ideologically-driven position.

[East of Eden]

This is truly a fringe, crackpot position. What other ancient figures does Carrier think never existed? Muhammed maybe?

[alwayson]

What I'm interested in is why you are so thoroughly convinced, when it seems you don't actually know Carrier's views.

I said I'm convinced the gospels are 100% fiction.

And then you go ahead talking about Paul.

[alwayson]

This is truly a fringe, crackpot position. What other ancient figures does Carrier think never existed? Muhammed maybe?

You really put the historicity of Jesus in the same category as the historicity of Mohammed?

Come now.

[LiamOS]

Moderator Comment

yes but as Carrier points out, there are two types of mythicists. There is the bullshit kind. And then there is his kind, which are based on sound academic arguments going back centuries.

Profanity is not allowed on the forum.

Please review the Rules.


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[Nickman]

alwayson

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/dionysus.html

Thank you for this website. I needed a good laugh.

No different than a 4-year old giggling at a Tom and Jerry cartoon I'm sure. And just as academic a premise as well.

It will probably alarm you that they have been teaching Jesus / Savior parallels in college way before Freke and Gandy, whom I agree are bullshit mythicists.

You definately don't know me. I'm well aware of the Zero-Jesus Lemmings.

So don't get me in hysterics pal. My nose runs when I'm rolling on the floor cuzza funnies. The Jesus-Mythers are as laughabe as Obama's Birthers.

Mariln Manson gets more respect from me than the Zero-Jesus dudes do.

The thesis that Jesus never existed has hovered around the fringes of research into the New Testament for centuries but never been able to become an accepted theory. This is for good reason, as it is simply a bad hypothesis based on arguments from silence, special pleading and an awful lot of wishful thinking. It is ironic that atheists will buy into this idea and leave all their pretensions of critical thinking behind. I will adapt what has become popular usage and call people who deny Jesus' existence 'Jesus Mythologists'.

A huge amount has been written on the web and elsewhere which you can find in the further reading section below. Not all Jesus Mythologists are lunatics and one at least, Earl Doherty, is extremely erudite and worth reading. Nevertheless, he is still wrong and, as I have seen myself, he reacts badly to those who demonstrate it. It is not my intention to study the minutiae of the argument but instead focus on three central points which are often brought up on discussion boards. These are the lack of secular references, the alleged similarities to paganism and the silence of Paul. Finally I want to bring all these together to show how ideas similar to those that deny Jesus' existence can be used on practically any ancient historical figure. With this in mind I set out to prove that Hannibal never existed.

- http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm

Actually, Jesus-mythers have a really great point that makes the discussion almost moot. It goes like this:

The texts that you read (NT gospels and such) are all copies. We have not one original document, not one. Our earliest document dates into the second century and is dated as such with a 50 year variable. Even in the earliest (50 years earlier) we are still far removed and we still only have a copy. Now the dates we give for the originals, which we don't have, are earlier and still far removed dating earliest to around 50-70 AD. So what you read about Jesus is a copy and no one can say if that copy is a copy from the original. So the reliability of the NT texts is not there at all. It takes faith to assume that they are preserved and in agreement with the originals. Now, we also have copies of the first copies we have and they contain errors that are inconsistent with the the first copies. We have lots of copies of copies of copies, but not one original. With all of this said, stating that Jesus was a real person and that he did what is written and that these copies are accurate is a faith matter. The default position is to not believe them until this deity or anyone can provide something that is worthy of being reliable and accurate.

Personally, I am not a Jesus-Myther, the debate on this is not really important to me. I focus on the things that are inaccurate contained in the text to show that Jesus, if he was real, failed. I have done a pretty good job at this and plan to publish a paper one day for peer-review. Hopefully this site never goes down because I still have a big portion of those works on this site alone.

[TheTruth101]

alwayson

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/dionysus.html

Thank you for this website. I needed a good laugh.

No different than a 4-year old giggling at a Tom and Jerry cartoon I'm sure. And just as academic a premise as well.

It will probably alarm you that they have been teaching Jesus / Savior parallels in college way before Freke and Gandy, whom I agree are bullshit mythicists.

You definately don't know me. I'm well aware of the Zero-Jesus Lemmings.

So don't get me in hysterics pal. My nose runs when I'm rolling on the floor cuzza funnies. The Jesus-Mythers are as laughabe as Obama's Birthers.

Mariln Manson gets more respect from me than the Zero-Jesus dudes do.

The thesis that Jesus never existed has hovered around the fringes of research into the New Testament for centuries but never been able to become an accepted theory. This is for good reason, as it is simply a bad hypothesis based on arguments from silence, special pleading and an awful lot of wishful thinking. It is ironic that atheists will buy into this idea and leave all their pretensions of critical thinking behind. I will adapt what has become popular usage and call people who deny Jesus' existence 'Jesus Mythologists'.

A huge amount has been written on the web and elsewhere which you can find in the further reading section below. Not all Jesus Mythologists are lunatics and one at least, Earl Doherty, is extremely erudite and worth reading. Nevertheless, he is still wrong and, as I have seen myself, he reacts badly to those who demonstrate it. It is not my intention to study the minutiae of the argument but instead focus on three central points which are often brought up on discussion boards. These are the lack of secular references, the alleged similarities to paganism and the silence of Paul. Finally I want to bring all these together to show how ideas similar to those that deny Jesus' existence can be used on practically any ancient historical figure. With this in mind I set out to prove that Hannibal never existed.

- http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm

Actually, Jesus-mythers have a really great point that makes the discussion almost moot. It goes like this:

The texts that you read (NT gospels and such) are all copies. We have not one original document, not one. Our earliest document dates into the second century and is dated as such with a 50 year variable. Even in the earliest (50 years earlier) we are still far removed and we still only have a copy. Now the dates we give for the originals, which we don't have, are earlier and still far removed dating earliest to around 50-70 AD. So what you read about Jesus is a copy and no one can say if that copy is a copy from the original. So the reliability of the NT texts is not there at all. It takes faith to assume that they are preserved and in agreement with the originals. Now, we also have copies of the first copies we have and they contain errors that are inconsistent with the the first copies. We have lots of copies of copies of copies, but not one original. With all of this said, stating that Jesus was a real person and that he did what is written and that these copies are accurate is a faith matter. The default position is to not believe them until this deity or anyone can provide something that is worthy of being reliable and accurate.

Personally, I am not a Jesus-Myther, the debate on this is not really important to me. I focus on the things that are inaccurate contained in the text to show that Jesus, if he was real, failed. I have done a pretty good job at this and plan to publish a paper one day for peer-review. Hopefully this site never goes down because I still have a big portion of those works on this site alone.

Original manuscript of Yeshua, or Jesus Christ, or The Son of Man, or the Light, exists.

Simply refer to the manuscript of Horus. The egyption Son. Or, Son of Man.

It was copied from there made onto NT. Places, dates, are falsely established, however the circumstances the "names" were under stayed true.

Constantine spread it and made it a Jewish character to fit its time. All were done by the government council.

Jesus is not Jesus under Asian countries, nor eastern countries. It's merely a name.

The Words and the Truth of the word stays true.

Take it in, its the fundamental teachings one should be inspired of, not a timeline nora name.

To make it more suitable of what I am saying to the members, look at The Tongue, he references and calls Jesus or God "Who you are" or "Who I AM" etc. It's just a name. That's all.

And as far as Jesus's image in mainstream Christians mind, that image is not real anyway.

So it basically goes down to the core, to only see the word. Hence, he's known as The Word.

This is the reason why you dont find conclusive "numbers" in NT, only in the OT.

[Nickman]

Original manuscript of Yeshua, or Jesus Christ, or The Son of Man, or the Light, exists.

This is a false claim. Please provide one original manuscript.

Simply refer to the manuscript of Hours. The egyption Son.

Do you mean Horus? Horus was not Jesus. Jesus may be a copy of some of the attributes of Horus but they are not the same character.

It was copied from there made onto NT. Places, dates, are falsely established, however the circumstances e dry "name" was under stayed true.

So to you Jesus is Horus?

Constantine spread it and made it a Jewish character to fit its time. All were done by the government council.

Evidence please, not assertion that is baseless.

Jesus is not Jesus under Asian countries, nor eastern countries. It's merely a name.

You lost me.

The Words and the truth of the word stays true to the fire.

Take it in, its the fundamental teachings one should be inspired of, not a timeline nor a name.

I have found many reasons why the "word" is not true to the fire. Please explain what you mean.

[TheTruth101]

I re-edited the post.

As far as "fire" it was mis worded. I switch from my cell phone to my personal computer to check the forum. I have the pre stated words option on in my cell phone, I cant figure out how to get it off lol. It was another word that got turned to "fire" for some reason.