Why do we have no writings from Jesus?

[Jagella]

I think almost all of us can agree that the writer of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul, existed. Obviously a person needs to exist to write an epistle. So if we understand "Paul" to be the person who wrote Romans, then Paul's historicity is assured. (There are historical problems regarding the details of Paul's life, but that's another issue.)

Unfortunately, we have no such luxury with Jesus because we have nothing he may have written. Real-Jesus apologists explain away this lack of evidence telling us that Jesus, like many other people, could have existed without writing anything. And neither should we expect Jesus to have written anything because he was an illiterate country bumpkin, after all. Besides, Jesus believed the world would soon end, so who needs anything written down for posterity?

I disagree with this reasoning. For starters, explaining why we have nothing written by Jesus isn't evidence. It's just an attempted explanation for why we have no such evidence.

Another objection I might raise is that the Jesus as he is portrayed in the gospel tale is no dummy. He was very erudite and a first-class communicator. He could have been literate and able to write, and if he was illiterate, then he could have recruited a literate disciple to write down what he said.

Finally, Jesus believing that the world would end soon is not necessarily a good reason for his not having anything written down. It wouldn't take that long to commit his ideas to written form. And soon after the time Jesus presumably lived, Paul got busy writing about Jesus. A few decades later more Christians wrote of Jesus in the many gospels. So if these Christians saw the necessity for writing about Jesus even though they believed the apocalypse was near, then it's a mystery that Jesus didn't bother to commit anything to writing.

Question for Debate: Why do we have no writings from Jesus?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 39 by tam]

Did you not ask for a citation, Rikuamero?

It seems that I misspoke, or that you misunderstand me.

The author, colloquially known as John of Patmos, attributed the source of his writings to a mystical creature, an angel, who passed on the words that are supposedly from a Jesus Christ...a Jesus Christ who was long dead by the time of the writing of the document.
If this were a court of law, the Book of Revelation would be dismissed immediately as pure hearsay. It's a document written by one person, at the behest of a supposed angel, passing on the words from yet another party. We have NOTHING to show us that any or all of the book is not entirely John of Patmos's own invention. Heck, we don't even have John of Patmos himself...that name is basically a placeholder name since no-one knows who really wrote the book.

It was not presented as evidence for those things.

Then Hitchen's Razor is and ought to be used.

But Jagella is the one who is saying that he would prefer something written by Christ (and I think I recall earlier that he also said that he would accept something if Christ directed someone to write down his words, such as a scribe). So this example was for him.

And Jagella (and I) would like it if the claim that these words ARE from Christ be substantiated. As I said in my previous reply. It's quite easy for a person to write down that they are merely being dictated to by a mysterious angel or a dead god man...it's another thing entirely to show that that is actually true.
Or do you go around believing EVERYONE who says they hear Christ, they hear God, or when they write it down? (prediction: you'll say in response to this that you would test their claims against what Christ says)

[1213]

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Question for Debate: Why do we have no writings from Jesus?

Because Jews destroyed them so that people would not follow Jesus?

[rikuoamero]

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Question for Debate: Why do we have no writings from Jesus?

Because Jews destroyed them so that people would not follow Jesus?

But they oh so conveniently left the documents that eventually became the Bible and thus kickstarted the world's largest religion?

Try thinking about your claims for more than a micro-second please, actually try to think about them taking place in the real world and the logical implications of them. If the Jews were able to get any and ALL documents that were directly written by Jesus, plus any and ALL copies made of them, even to the extent that no-one afterward even mentions them as existing (like the times the early church fathers talk about all the other books of the Bible)...wouldn't this mean that the reach, power and influence of the Jews would have to have been far greater than it actually was?
How could the Jews erase even the memory of the supposed directly written documents of Jesus from history?

[postroad]

[Replying to post 42 by 1213]

So much for the word enduring forever.

[Filthy Tugboat]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

Because Jesus was illiterate

[Jagella]

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Question for Debate: Why do we have no writings from Jesus?

Because Jews destroyed them so that people would not follow Jesus?

Then it's odd that the Jews didn't destroy all the other writings about Jesus.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

Because Jesus was illiterate

Jesus may have been illiterate, but he still could have dictated his thoughts to a literate disciple as I explained in the OP. So assuming Jesus existed, it is strange that we have nothing authored by him.

[1213]

But they oh so conveniently left the documents that eventually became the Bible and thus kickstarted the world's largest religion?

But allegedly all surviving scriptures are from later times not from Jesus era. And many of those seem to be from outside Israel.

… If the Jews were able to get any and ALL documents that were directly written by Jesus, plus any and ALL copies made of them, even to the extent that no-one afterward even mentions them as existing (like the times the early church fathers talk about all the other books of the Bible)...wouldn't this mean that the reach, power and influence of the Jews would have to have been far greater than it actually was?

Do you really expect that Jesus wrote like modern copy machine? If Jesus wrote things, he probably didn’t write so much that Jews could not destroy the texts.

How could the Jews erase even the memory of the supposed directly written documents of Jesus from history?

It is really interesting if you don’t see it possible. But ok, I don’t have any reason to claim it happened. I just think it can be possible. However, I believe it is possible that Jesus didn’t write anything and the writing begin after the congregation became so large that apostles could not go to every place to teach and instead begun to write things downs so that people in distant places could also get the message. And actually I think the spoken word would have been better, because it can be adjusted to listeners better so that it is easier to understand correctly.

[1213]

So much for the word enduring forever.

His word still exists in the Bible.

[1213]

Then it's odd that the Jews didn't destroy all the other writings about Jesus.

Even they are not all-powerful.

But, if we take for example the Dead Sea Scrolls, they have been hidden. What would be reason for people to hide scriptures? Wouldn’t that be evidence for that some tried and probably destroyed scriptures?