If Jesus wasn’t a real historical figure, where did Christian theology come from?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

Personally I enjoyed finding various unbiased, scholarly sources that agree Jesus DID exist. And using Bart Ehrman as exhibit A.

No one linked to unbiased, independent sources. Link?

You must have missed the post on the previous page which gave these non-Christians, who have no reason to say Jesus existed, but who do say Jesus existed. If anything they’re all biased against:
- Bart Ehrman is an atheist and describes himself as a historian https://www.npr.org/2012/04/01/149462376/did-jesus...ist-a-historian-makes-his-case
- Amy Jill Levine is Jewish
- Paula Fredricksen is a Jewish historian

Multiple links to each of them on the Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Your turn. Explain why all of these people are not scholars, not independent, and instead are biased in favor of Jesus’ existence.

All theologists.

https://as.vanderbilt.edu/jewishstudies/people/emeriti/amy-jill-levine/
https://www.bu.edu/religion/faculty/paula-fredriksen/
https://religion.unc.edu/_people/full-time-faculty/ehrman/

At least two are also historians. As you know very well because you linked to them.

More crucially, none has made a career in Christian apologetics, in fact the opposite. All three have spent the past few decades trying to debunk other aspects of Christianity. As you also know.

Congrats, you get the prize for most dishonest troll on the thread.

Watching atheist pp trying to argue that Bart Ehrman is not a scholar and is biased in favor of Christianity is worth the price of admission.

I never said he wasn’t a scholar. Seems like you have trouble reading.

He certainly has a bias given his background.

You mean his background for the past three decades attacking fundamental Christian principles? You’re hilarious.

He only disputes the supernatural aspects. His work still assumes that the scriptures are legit sources.

Nope. As has been repeated here multiple times, Ehrman uses many sources, including linguistic analysis of Aramaic and Greek texts, to make the argument for Jesus’ existence. Ehrman also doesn’t take the scriptures as entirely legit—he’s written books on why he thinks there are problems with the transmission of various supernatural elements.

Ehrman and thousands of other scholars have found no reason to doubt Paul, who wrote just a few years after Jesus that he, Paul, had met Jesus’ brother James and Jesus’ disciple Peter.

If you have evidence that Paul was making it all up, you need to rush your evidence to Ehrman stat.

Nobody has evidence either way.

Nope, that’s not how it works. Find a scholar who agrees with you and link to them.

Right after that, you can link to scholars who say “I accept the evidence but still sort of doubt it” and “the evidence is compelling but not definitive.”

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

Remind us, what are your scholarly credentials again? Can you find a single scholar who agrees with you that it’s merely “pretty persuasive” and link to them?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

If they could reference some definitive evidence as proof, they would.

[Anonymous]

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Mark Allen Powell (NT professor at Trinity Lutheran, a founding editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus): “A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today – in the academic world at least – gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat.” [Jesus as a Figure in History (Westminster, 1998), 168.]

The best quote of the night. Thanks, whoever posted it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

ok, join the holocaust deniers, flat earthers, and climate change deniers. That’s who you are with such beliefs. Do you feel good about being in such company?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

ok, join the holocaust deniers, flat earthers, and climate change deniers. That’s who you are with such beliefs. Do you feel good about being in such company?

Ehrman (here he is again!) says "If that’s what you’re going to believe [that Jesus didn't exist], you just look foolish." https://www.str.org/w/bart-ehrman-on-the-existence-of-jesus

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

What is your degree in? Do you teach at a college or university? What books have you written or scholarly article have you published?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

Circumstantial evidence is evidence of facts that the court can draw conclusions from.

Why are you using a specific legal term inappropriately?

Circumstantial evidence is evidence of facts that the court can draw conclusions from. For example, if an assault happened on O'Connell Street at 6.15pm, you can give evidence that you saw the accused walking down O'Connell Street at 6pm. In that situation, you are giving the court circumstantial evidence. The court can draw conclusions from the fact that the accused was on O'Connell Street at 6pm, but you have not given evidence about whether the accused attacked a person.

Examples of circumstantial evidence
Common examples of circumstantial evidence include:

Evidence that establishes a motive
Evidence of an opportunity to commit the offence
Evidence of the accused’s state of mind when the offence was committed
Evidence of the accused preparing for the crime
Evidence of the accused having items that could be used to commit the offence
Evidence of identification, for example, the accused’s DNA, fingerprints or mobile phone records
Evidence that the accused committed similar crimes around the same time the alleged offence was committed
Evidence of the accused giving different versions of events

The historicity of Jesus Christ is not a legal issue being considered by a judge or jury in a court trial.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Atheists spending their day, day after day, as fringe deniers. Every historian and scholar in the western world accepts Jesus historically. Anyone who doesn’t is a fringe denier and conspiracy theorist.

No one denied.

You opened up the probability of denial by saying there was a 1-49% chance Jesus didn’t exist. Enough of the dumb semantic games.

No one said there was a 49% chance. I can see what the PP got frustrated with the blatant lying. Isn’t that a sin or something? Thou shall not troll?

“Most likely” exists is not denying. That *is* the most likely scenario. We just don’t have definitive evidence that he lived. We only have people who heard about him from other people and then some people wrote it down based on what they heard.

^ I said that above. The evidence is circumstantial, but the weight of it is pretty persuasive.

And here’s where you’re out of step with thousands of scholars, including the three above, who are convinced he definitely lived.

They think the circumstantial evidence is compelling. That doesn’t make it definitive.

Cite, please. Link to someone who calls the evidence “compelling but not definitive.”

I said that above, a couple of days ago. The evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty persuasive nonetheless.

Circumstantial evidence is evidence of facts that the court can draw conclusions from.

Why are you using a specific legal term inappropriately?

Atheist pp's have spent the day abusing the English language. Just a few examples.
probability
if only
scholar
likely
accept

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://ehrmanblog.org/gospel-evidence-that-jesus-existed/

Here’s Bart:

Jesus existed. In yesterday’s post, I began to show how Jesus is the best attested Palestinian Jew of the first century if we look only at external evidence.

But how can you make a convincing case [that someone made up Jesus] if we’re talking about thirty or so independent sources that know there was a man Jesus? These sources are not all living in the same village someplace so they are egging each other on. They didn’t compare notes. They are independent of one another and are scattered throughout the Mediterranean. They each have heard about the man Jesus from their own sources of information, which heard about him from their own sources of information.

That must mean that there were hundreds of people at the least who were talking about the man Jesus. One of them was the apostle Paul, who was talking about Jesus by at least the year 32 CE, that is, two years after the date of Jesus’ death.

Paul, as I will point out, actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother James and his closest disciples Peter and John. That’s [by itself] more or less a death knell for the Mythicist position, as some of them admit.

(Still Bart talking) Short story: we are not talking about a Bart Ehrman Jesus figure invented in the year 60. There was widespread information about Jesus from the years after his death. Otherwise, you can’t explain all the literary evidence (dozens of independent sources), some of it based on Aramaic traditions of Jesus’ homeland.

If we're taking scripture at its word, then are we drawing a line somewhere when historical evidence refutes it? Or are we just taking scripture as fact because enough people in scripture said it?

Bumping because, yeah... Are we just saying that if enough people said something, it's true? Even the antisemitic lie that the Jews killed Jesus? Because that's where this leads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://ehrmanblog.org/gospel-evidence-that-jesus-existed/

Here’s Bart:

Jesus existed. In yesterday’s post, I began to show how Jesus is the best attested Palestinian Jew of the first century if we look only at external evidence.

But how can you make a convincing case [that someone made up Jesus] if we’re talking about thirty or so independent sources that know there was a man Jesus? These sources are not all living in the same village someplace so they are egging each other on. They didn’t compare notes. They are independent of one another and are scattered throughout the Mediterranean. They each have heard about the man Jesus from their own sources of information, which heard about him from their own sources of information.

That must mean that there were hundreds of people at the least who were talking about the man Jesus. One of them was the apostle Paul, who was talking about Jesus by at least the year 32 CE, that is, two years after the date of Jesus’ death.

Paul, as I will point out, actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother James and his closest disciples Peter and John. That’s [by itself] more or less a death knell for the Mythicist position, as some of them admit.

(Still Bart talking) Short story: we are not talking about a Bart Ehrman Jesus figure invented in the year 60. There was widespread information about Jesus from the years after his death. Otherwise, you can’t explain all the literary evidence (dozens of independent sources), some of it based on Aramaic traditions of Jesus’ homeland.

If we're taking scripture at its word, then are we drawing a line somewhere when historical evidence refutes it? Or are we just taking scripture as fact because enough people in scripture said it?

Bumping because, yeah... Are we just saying that if enough people said something, it's true? Even the antisemitic lie that the Jews killed Jesus? Because that's where this leads.

Cutting and pasting because it obviously hasn’t sunk in for you.

As has been repeated here multiple times, Ehrman and thousands of other scholars who believe Jesus existed use many sources, including linguistic analysis of Aramaic and Greek texts, to make the argument for Jesus’ existence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://ehrmanblog.org/gospel-evidence-that-jesus-existed/

Here’s Bart:

Jesus existed. In yesterday’s post, I began to show how Jesus is the best attested Palestinian Jew of the first century if we look only at external evidence.

But how can you make a convincing case [that someone made up Jesus] if we’re talking about thirty or so independent sources that know there was a man Jesus? These sources are not all living in the same village someplace so they are egging each other on. They didn’t compare notes. They are independent of one another and are scattered throughout the Mediterranean. They each have heard about the man Jesus from their own sources of information, which heard about him from their own sources of information.

That must mean that there were hundreds of people at the least who were talking about the man Jesus. One of them was the apostle Paul, who was talking about Jesus by at least the year 32 CE, that is, two years after the date of Jesus’ death.

Paul, as I will point out, actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother James and his closest disciples Peter and John. That’s [by itself] more or less a death knell for the Mythicist position, as some of them admit.

(Still Bart talking) Short story: we are not talking about a Bart Ehrman Jesus figure invented in the year 60. There was widespread information about Jesus from the years after his death. Otherwise, you can’t explain all the literary evidence (dozens of independent sources), some of it based on Aramaic traditions of Jesus’ homeland.

If we're taking scripture at its word, then are we drawing a line somewhere when historical evidence refutes it? Or are we just taking scripture as fact because enough people in scripture said it?

Bumping because, yeah... Are we just saying that if enough people said something, it's true? Even the antisemitic lie that the Jews killed Jesus? Because that's where this leads.

Who is “we”? Are you a scholar, even a classicist or historian? Let us know your credentials.

Again, find one scholar who agrees with you and link to them. Otherwise you’re keeping company with skinhead holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and climate-change deniers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very, very people doubt Jesus as a historical figure (which is entirely separate from Christianity).

Virtually all non-Christians recognize that such a person existed, much in the way that Cleopatra, Napoleon, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gandhi, or any number of other historical figures existed. And then died as the 100% mortals they were.

This is me. I believe he was a historical figure, yes, perhaps even a high functioning person (for his times), but with highly exaggerated abilities and story. I believe it was done by those in power over the centuries to control the masses.

wtf (what the fudge) is a “high functioning person?”

m

A healer who could quickly figure out the right herbs to treat you? A good public speaker? Someone who could settle disputes well and peacefully? A natural born leader? Basically someone who rose to prominence because he was good at things. So people started worshiping him, the way modern day society revers celebrities, CEOs, presidents etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very, very people doubt Jesus as a historical figure (which is entirely separate from Christianity).

Virtually all non-Christians recognize that such a person existed, much in the way that Cleopatra, Napoleon, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gandhi, or any number of other historical figures existed. And then died as the 100% mortals they were.

This is me. I believe he was a historical figure, yes, perhaps even a high functioning person (for his times), but with highly exaggerated abilities and story. I believe it was done by those in power over the centuries to control the masses.

wtf (what the fudge) is a “high functioning person?”

m

A healer who could quickly figure out the right herbs to treat you? A good public speaker? Someone who could settle disputes well and peacefully? A natural born leader? Basically someone who rose to prominence because he was good at things. So people started worshiping him, the way modern day society revers celebrities, CEOs, presidents etc.

Nice derailment attempt. We’re discussing whether Jesus existed, not the nature of his teachings or miracles.

Seems you guys still don’t have a link to a scholar who agrees that Jesus “probably” or “likely” existed, in contrast to the vast scholarly consensus that he definitely existed.