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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it's settled then:

- It is likely a man named Jesus existed
- There is zero evidence of his divinity

Now the thread is genuinely over, unless someone - explicitly and with evidence - disputes the above.

A man named Jesus existed. It's not likely. It's certain until someone can find contradictory evidence to prove otherwise.

You don’t know how evidence works. You don’t know about the burden of proof. You don’t know what likely means. And I’m guessing there’s a whole bunch of other stuff you don’t know.

But thanks for not disputing that there is absolutely zero evidence for his divinity and no reason to think that he was divine magical a God or any of that other stuff. None. Zero. That’s the point that matters.

The only thing PP knows how to do is to post off-topic quotes.

Atheist pp lost the historical Jesus argument and is desperately trying to derail into other topics.

You seem to struggle with facts. Shocker.

If I were an atheist I'd be embarrassed to have you on my side. Ad hominems much?

Should we go back and count the number of off-topic “flat earther” posts? Because we can.

You forgot the scholar who likened you Jesus-deniers to Holocaust deniers.

No one here is a denier.

Facts.

Several of you say "likely existed" and "probably existed" leaving room for doubt and denial. Language. And facts.

He most likely existed, but there isn’t direct evidence. Not surprising given the era.

So, you're still standing outside the "vast scholarly consensus" and aligning yourself with the Holocaust deniers. ("The holocaust most likely happened but we can't be sure."). Got it.

We have physical evidence and eye witnesses of the holocaust.

Not comparable. And off-topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's go back and recap again, shall we? Fun!

The arguments behind the vast scholarly consensus that Jesus certainly existed (2,000 to 3,000 scholars agree according to Ehrman) include but are not limited to the following. The parens cite posts on this thread that give more detail.

1. Applying historians' logic to the gospels (9:57 and 11:05). No, this doesn't mean that Bart Ehrman or anybody using this method is taking the gospels on faith (funny thought). Instead, Bart wrote, "But how can you make a convincing case 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.”

2. Contemporary and near-contemporary external sources at 10:31, 11:03 and 11:06. Tacitus and Josephus among others. Notably, no contemporary Jewish sources who opposed Christianity actually disputed Jesus' existence or even questioned it. Contemporary Jewish sources criticized what Jesus did, but not whether he existed.

3. Linguistic sources (10:57). Short version quoting Bart: "The fact that some gospel stories based on Aramaic are scattered throughout our sources suggests that they were in circulation relatively early in the tradition. Most of these are thought to go back to the early decade or two (probably the earliest decade) of transmission."

4. Paul (11:17 and elsewhere, and not part of the gospels, despite what some of you apparently think). Short version: Paul, who wrote starting in 33AD, knew Jesus' brother James and Jesus' disciples John and Peter. You'd think that if Jesus never existed, James would have said something. Ehrman writes that this is "the death knell" for mythicism.

4. Arguments from logic (11:03 and 10:51). Short version: why would Christians make up a hero who was humiliated and crucified?

The following scholars have made careers disputing parts of the gospels and Christian theology, and writing books like "Misquoting Jesus." You'd think they'd want to cap their careers and win international renown by finding Jesus didn't exist. And yet they are certain Jesus existed.
- Bart Ehrman, an atheist who also describes himself as a historian
- Amy Jill Levine, Jewish
- Paula Fredickson, a Jewish historian

And, of course these cites on Wikipedia think Jesus definitely existed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus.

And the many, many other scholars (e g., atheist Michael Martin and so many others) provided by a helpful poster here.

Good thing Bart Ehrman wrote a book to prove Jesus existed, and that old Bart is such a great self-promoter. He's contributed many quotable quotes to these arguments that you just don't get from academics hidden in their ivory towers.

***

Posters who claim Jesus' existence isn't certain (it's merely "likely" or "probable") brought to the table:
- No scholarly credentials.
- A few weeks ago on DCUM, posters with zero scholarly credentials or evidence agreed there's no 100% certainty Jesus existed. Because DCUM gets to decide.
- Atheist scholar Ehrman and Jewish scholars Levine and Fredricksen take the gospels as, well, gospel. Counterintuitively, they aren't trying to cap their careers (publishing books like "Misquoting Jesus") and win international reknown by proving Jesus never existed. (As pointed out above, instead they apply historical analyses to the gospels). This is actually hilarious.
- Semantic quibbling about how weasel words such as "likely" and "probably" are the same as "certainly," which, well....

I've undoubtedly missed some things. Feel free to add!

Bumping. Already....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

Nobody's inferring from the Aramaic residuals in the gospels, Bart actually points them out in the link you didn't read. Nobody's inferring Paul's friendship with Peter, James and John. Nobody's inferring the lack of Jewish denials that Jesus existed--but if you have it, you should definitely show it to academia! It's simple logic to say there must have been hundreds of people talking about Jesus across the Mediterranean within a decade of his death. And so on.

What are your scholarly credentials again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

Nobody's inferring from the Aramaic residuals in the gospels, Bart actually points them out in the link you didn't read. Nobody's inferring Paul's friendship with Peter, James and John. Nobody's inferring the lack of Jewish denials that Jesus existed--but if you have it, you should definitely show it to academia! It's simple logic to say there must have been hundreds of people talking about Jesus across the Mediterranean within a decade of his death. And so on.

What are your scholarly credentials again?

“No one denied his existence” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

“People heard stories about him” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

It’s inferred, but it’s not direct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it's settled then:

- It is likely a man named Jesus existed
- There is zero evidence of his divinity

Now the thread is genuinely over, unless someone - explicitly and with evidence - disputes the above.

A man named Jesus existed. It's not likely. It's certain until someone can find contradictory evidence to prove otherwise.

You don’t know how evidence works. You don’t know about the burden of proof. You don’t know what likely means. And I’m guessing there’s a whole bunch of other stuff you don’t know.

But thanks for not disputing that there is absolutely zero evidence for his divinity and no reason to think that he was divine magical a God or any of that other stuff. None. Zero. That’s the point that matters.

The only thing PP knows how to do is to post off-topic quotes.

Atheist pp lost the historical Jesus argument and is desperately trying to derail into other topics.

You seem to struggle with facts. Shocker.

If I were an atheist I'd be embarrassed to have you on my side. Ad hominems much?

Should we go back and count the number of off-topic “flat earther” posts? Because we can.

You forgot the scholar who likened you Jesus-deniers to Holocaust deniers.

No one here is a denier.

Facts.

Several of you say "likely existed" and "probably existed" leaving room for doubt and denial. Language. And facts.

He most likely existed, but there isn’t direct evidence. Not surprising given the era.

So, you're still standing outside the "vast scholarly consensus" and aligning yourself with the Holocaust deniers. ("The holocaust most likely happened but we can't be sure."). Got it.

We have physical evidence and eye witnesses of the holocaust.

Not comparable. And off-topic.

We have Paul who knew Jesus' own brother and disciples John and Peter and wrote about it in the first decade after Jesus' death.

And totally on-topic--what are your scholarly credentials again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

Nobody's inferring from the Aramaic residuals in the gospels, Bart actually points them out in the link you didn't read. Nobody's inferring Paul's friendship with Peter, James and John. Nobody's inferring the lack of Jewish denials that Jesus existed--but if you have it, you should definitely show it to academia! It's simple logic to say there must have been hundreds of people talking about Jesus across the Mediterranean within a decade of his death. And so on.

What are your scholarly credentials again?

“No one denied his existence” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

“People heard stories about him” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

It’s inferred, but it’s not direct.

So, revered scholar, your inference is that some mastermind centuries later made up the Aramaic parts of the gospels and inserted them for versimilitude? Who was that, and what strong evidence do you have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

^^^ Exhibit A for deniers posting on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's go back and recap again, shall we? Fun!

The arguments behind the vast scholarly consensus that Jesus certainly existed (2,000 to 3,000 scholars agree according to Ehrman) include but are not limited to the following. The parens cite posts on this thread that give more detail.

1. Applying historians' logic to the gospels (9:57 and 11:05). No, this doesn't mean that Bart Ehrman or anybody using this method is taking the gospels on faith (funny thought). Instead, Bart wrote, "But how can you make a convincing case 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.”

2. Contemporary and near-contemporary external sources at 10:31, 11:03 and 11:06. Tacitus and Josephus among others. Notably, no contemporary Jewish sources who opposed Christianity actually disputed Jesus' existence or even questioned it. Contemporary Jewish sources criticized what Jesus did, but not whether he existed.

3. Linguistic sources (10:57). Short version quoting Bart: "The fact that some gospel stories based on Aramaic are scattered throughout our sources suggests that they were in circulation relatively early in the tradition. Most of these are thought to go back to the early decade or two (probably the earliest decade) of transmission."

4. Paul (11:17 and elsewhere, and not part of the gospels, despite what some of you apparently think). Short version: Paul, who wrote starting in 33AD, knew Jesus' brother James and Jesus' disciples John and Peter. You'd think that if Jesus never existed, James would have said something. Ehrman writes that this is "the death knell" for mythicism.

4. Arguments from logic (11:03 and 10:51). Short version: why would Christians make up a hero who was humiliated and crucified?

The following scholars have made careers disputing parts of the gospels and Christian theology, and writing books like "Misquoting Jesus." You'd think they'd want to cap their careers and win international renown by finding Jesus didn't exist. And yet they are certain Jesus existed.
- Bart Ehrman, an atheist who also describes himself as a historian
- Amy Jill Levine, Jewish
- Paula Fredickson, a Jewish historian

And, of course these cites on Wikipedia think Jesus definitely existed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus.

And the many, many other scholars (e g., atheist Michael Martin and so many others) provided by a helpful poster here.

Good thing Bart Ehrman wrote a book to prove Jesus existed, and that old Bart is such a great self-promoter. He's contributed many quotable quotes to these arguments that you just don't get from academics hidden in their ivory towers.

***

Posters who claim Jesus' existence isn't certain (it's merely "likely" or "probable") brought to the table:
- No scholarly credentials.
- A few weeks ago on DCUM, posters with zero scholarly credentials or evidence agreed there's no 100% certainty Jesus existed. Because DCUM gets to decide.
- Atheist scholar Ehrman and Jewish scholars Levine and Fredricksen take the gospels as, well, gospel. Counterintuitively, they aren't trying to cap their careers (publishing books like "Misquoting Jesus") and win international reknown by proving Jesus never existed. (As pointed out above, instead they apply historical analyses to the gospels). This is actually hilarious.
- Semantic quibbling about how weasel words such as "likely" and "probably" are the same as "certainly," which, well....

I've undoubtedly missed some things. Feel free to add!

Bumping. Already....

Spoiler: You repeating the same (incorrect/irrelevant) things over and over again doesn’t make it any more convincing. If you had direct evidence no one would need to be “convinced”.

No one said that “likely" and "probably" are the same as "certainly”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

^^^ Exhibit A for deniers posting on DCUM.

Do we need definitions again? That’s not denying.

[Anonymous]

LOL at the continued insistence that Bart Ehrman is biased in favor of finding Jesus existed. Or that Jewish scholars are.

You people crack me up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

^^^ Exhibit A for deniers posting on DCUM.

Do we need definitions again? That’s not denying.

You're opening up room for deniers and denying. If you don't understand that, you need to blame your high school English teacher.

[Anonymous]

Deniers' positions going forward:

(1) Bart Ehrman and Jewish historians all have a vested interest in finding Jesus existed.
(2) Ignoring all the other evidence

[Anonymous]

To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has ‘again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars,’ In recent years ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus’—or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger -, indeed abundant, evidence on the contrary.” –Historian Michael Grant, Jesus, An Historians Review of the Gospels, pg 200

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's go back and recap again, shall we? Fun!

The arguments behind the vast scholarly consensus that Jesus certainly existed (2,000 to 3,000 scholars agree according to Ehrman) include but are not limited to the following. The parens cite posts on this thread that give more detail.

1. Applying historians' logic to the gospels (9:57 and 11:05). No, this doesn't mean that Bart Ehrman or anybody using this method is taking the gospels on faith (funny thought). Instead, Bart wrote, "But how can you make a convincing case 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.”

2. Contemporary and near-contemporary external sources at 10:31, 11:03 and 11:06. Tacitus and Josephus among others. Notably, no contemporary Jewish sources who opposed Christianity actually disputed Jesus' existence or even questioned it. Contemporary Jewish sources criticized what Jesus did, but not whether he existed.

3. Linguistic sources (10:57). Short version quoting Bart: "The fact that some gospel stories based on Aramaic are scattered throughout our sources suggests that they were in circulation relatively early in the tradition. Most of these are thought to go back to the early decade or two (probably the earliest decade) of transmission."

4. Paul (11:17 and elsewhere, and not part of the gospels, despite what some of you apparently think). Short version: Paul, who wrote starting in 33AD, knew Jesus' brother James and Jesus' disciples John and Peter. You'd think that if Jesus never existed, James would have said something. Ehrman writes that this is "the death knell" for mythicism.

4. Arguments from logic (11:03 and 10:51). Short version: why would Christians make up a hero who was humiliated and crucified?

The following scholars have made careers disputing parts of the gospels and Christian theology, and writing books like "Misquoting Jesus." You'd think they'd want to cap their careers and win international renown by finding Jesus didn't exist. And yet they are certain Jesus existed.
- Bart Ehrman, an atheist who also describes himself as a historian
- Amy Jill Levine, Jewish
- Paula Fredickson, a Jewish historian

And, of course these cites on Wikipedia think Jesus definitely existed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus.

And the many, many other scholars (e g., atheist Michael Martin and so many others) provided by a helpful poster here.

Good thing Bart Ehrman wrote a book to prove Jesus existed, and that old Bart is such a great self-promoter. He's contributed many quotable quotes to these arguments that you just don't get from academics hidden in their ivory towers.

***

Posters who claim Jesus' existence isn't certain (it's merely "likely" or "probable") brought to the table:
- No scholarly credentials.
- A few weeks ago on DCUM, posters with zero scholarly credentials or evidence agreed there's no 100% certainty Jesus existed. Because DCUM gets to decide.
- Atheist scholar Ehrman and Jewish scholars Levine and Fredricksen take the gospels as, well, gospel. Counterintuitively, they aren't trying to cap their careers (publishing books like "Misquoting Jesus") and win international reknown by proving Jesus never existed. (As pointed out above, instead they apply historical analyses to the gospels). This is actually hilarious.
- Semantic quibbling about how weasel words such as "likely" and "probably" are the same as "certainly," which, well....

I've undoubtedly missed some things. Feel free to add!

Bumping. Already....

Spoiler: You repeating the same (incorrect/irrelevant) things over and over again doesn’t make it any more convincing. If you had direct evidence no one would need to be “convinced”.

No one said that “likely" and "probably" are the same as "certainly”.

Well gee.

You're calling evidence provided by eminent scholars "incorrect" and "irrelevant." What are your own scholarly credentials again?

Help us out with your own scholarly proof it was all made up. Find that evil mastermind in the 1-3rd century CE who invented Jesus. Because that's the only possible "inference" from your posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ PS. I made this to be eminently bumpable. The next time somebody whines, "but the evidence is all based on the gospels" or "likely and certainly mean the same thing," feel free to bump away!

Also, I forgot to include insults in what atheists have brought to the table.

Again, the best “evidence” is Tacitus and Josephus. They were almost contemporary. But again they only had indirect knowledge. And there is question about the authenticity of the translations.

The other points are irrelevant towards definitive proof.

Likely and certainly don’t mean the same thing. Do we need to recap the definitions again?

"The best evidence...." So you just want to ignore the historical/internal, logical and linguistic evidence and call them "irrelevant."

Remind us about your scholarly credentials again....

If you need to “infer” anything then you don’t have direct evidence.

The other sources aren’t independent/unbiased.

Nobody's inferring from the Aramaic residuals in the gospels, Bart actually points them out in the link you didn't read. Nobody's inferring Paul's friendship with Peter, James and John. Nobody's inferring the lack of Jewish denials that Jesus existed--but if you have it, you should definitely show it to academia! It's simple logic to say there must have been hundreds of people talking about Jesus across the Mediterranean within a decade of his death. And so on.

What are your scholarly credentials again?

“No one denied his existence” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

“People heard stories about him” isn’t direct evidence of his existence.

It’s inferred, but it’s not direct.

So, revered scholar, your inference is that some mastermind centuries later made up the Aramaic parts of the gospels and inserted them for versimilitude? Who was that, and what strong evidence do you have?

No, I’m not saying they were made up. Just that it’s not direct evidence of his existence. That does prove that someone who authored portions of the gospel spoke Aramaic.

He most likely existed, we just don’t have direct evidence. Not surprising given the time & location.