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

[Anonymous]

There's more evidence of Jesus than aliens. Really, it's the alien believers who are nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry. Just reread and saw you were talking about general believers, not researchers, etc.

The vast majority definitely do not research the historicity of Jesus.

As I said, you're not going to believe my answer, so why give it? You're not interested in hearing perspectives that don't share your biases, so the question isn't asked in good faith; it's just a chance for your to trumpet your assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry. Just reread and saw you were talking about general believers, not researchers, etc.

The vast majority definitely do not research the historicity of Jesus.

As I said, you're not going to believe my answer, so why give it? You're not interested in hearing perspectives that don't share your biases, so the question isn't asked in good faith; it's just a chance for your to trumpet your assumptions.

look who's talking!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry. Just reread and saw you were talking about general believers, not researchers, etc.

The vast majority definitely do not research the historicity of Jesus.

As I said, you're not going to believe my answer, so why give it? You're not interested in hearing perspectives that don't share your biases, so the question isn't asked in good faith; it's just a chance for your to trumpet your assumptions.

I’m interested in facts. So if you any actual facts, then please share.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We have contemporaneous witness written account, we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia. Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here

+1

I am glad this topic came up, though. It’s actually amazing, all the evidence there is.

I guess some people just blindly believe what they are told is “evidence”.

I don’t blindly believe anything in life. I have the ability to read and research and think. Why do you think everyone is blindly accepting and ignorant? You think every historian and scholar in the western world is blind, has the same wrong agenda, etc? Get over yourself. Where is your evidence they are all wrong? What are your qualifications to judge everyone wrong but you?

Many people just believe what they what to believe. Or, for most Christians, just what they are told to believe. How many actually go examine “evidence”? Not many.

What % of these people also believe that he rose from the dead?

At most - for people who aren’t blinded by faith - they believe it’s “very likely” he existed. That’s just how it is without unbiased, contemporaneous evidence.

People don’t like uncertainty. That part of why we have religion in the first place - to explain the unknown.

None of your comment applies to 99.9% of the scholars, historians, and academics in the entire western world.

Where do you pull the 99.9%?

Why just the western world?

He’s a religious studies guy. Not an unbiased historian.

Why just the western world? Does the evidence hold up to unbiased scrutiny?

There's no such thing as an "unbiased historian," and it's very hard to take seriously anyone who thinks there is.

Someone who has been extremely immersed in religion will of course have biases.

Much more so than a historian without that background.

Can’t really get more immersed than him.

No, historians with a religious background will have *different* biases than one without them. Historians without a strong background in religion very often get religious belief very wrong, because their own biases get in the way. This is far from universal, and it's more of a problem with pop history than academic historians, but it is the reality of it. You don't even have to get outside this thread to see it. The whole "people believe because they're told to believe" thing is BS for huge numbers of believers (all of all faiths), but it makes sense to atheists so it gets repeated ad nauseam.

What % of believers do you think actually research the historicity of Jesus and look at sources?

Relevance to the question?

Because if they haven’t researched for themselves then they are just “believing what they're told to believe“.

I'm the PP who originally got asked what percentage off believers research the historical Jesus and I haven't really been motivated to answer the question because I don't believe you'll listen to my answer, but in my experience, it's virtually all of them.

If just about every believer you know has researched the historical Jesus, that suggests just about every believer you know does not have enough faith to simply believe in Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry. Just reread and saw you were talking about general believers, not researchers, etc.

The vast majority definitely do not research the historicity of Jesus.

As I said, you're not going to believe my answer, so why give it? You're not interested in hearing perspectives that don't share your biases, so the question isn't asked in good faith; it's just a chance for your to trumpet your assumptions.

IOW, pp doesn't know.

[Anonymous]

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 256-257

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "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 very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

Robert M. Price, who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in The Historical Jesus: Five Views edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, 2009 InterVarsity, ISBN 0830838686 page 61

Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34

Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".


Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-06-061662-5. “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.”

[Anonymous]

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "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 very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

This touches on a point that I read elsewhere. That historians believe that it’s more likely than not that he existed. Somewhere between 51%-99% certainty depending how you interpret some of the “evidence”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have contemporaneous witness written account, we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia. Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here

Sorry, but I'm calling B.S. on this. Either name it or it doesn't exist.

The Book of John, written by Jesus's disciple John.

Theology, not history

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have contemporaneous witness written account, we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia. Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here

Sorry, but I'm calling B.S. on this. Either name it or it doesn't exist.

The Book of John, written by Jesus's disciple John.

unlikely. The author is of the Book of John unknown. You can look this up on Wikipedia "The apostle John, son of Zebedee – traditionally the author was identified as John the Apostle, but his authorship is almost universally rejected by modern scholars.[2][4] (I've omitted the cited references).

It was also written around 90-110 C.E. so it's unlikely this author was alive when Jesus was.

The gospels are not contemporaneous written eyewitness accounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "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 very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

This touches on a point that I read elsewhere. That historians believe that it’s more likely than not that he existed. Somewhere between 51%-99% certainty depending how you interpret some of the “evidence”.

GTFO with your 51%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have contemporaneous witness written account, we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia. Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here

Sorry, but I'm calling B.S. on this. Either name it or it doesn't exist.

The Book of John, written by Jesus's disciple John.

unlikely. The author is of the Book of John unknown. You can look this up on Wikipedia "The apostle John, son of Zebedee – traditionally the author was identified as John the Apostle, but his authorship is almost universally rejected by modern scholars.[2][4] (I've omitted the cited references).

It was also written around 90-110 C.E. so it's unlikely this author was alive when Jesus was.

The gospels are not contemporaneous written eyewitness accounts.

Right -- John was the last Gospel written -- and in Greek

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have contemporaneous witness written account, we have written account of a witness to worshippers only a few decades later, not even a lifetime later, and we still have the same ethnic group in Syria practicing Christianity since the founding of that church was documented in the Gospels, as well as the lineage of patriarchs of the Syrian church - its on Wikipedia. Not sure what the heck else would convince a devils advocate here

Sorry, but I'm calling B.S. on this. Either name it or it doesn't exist.

The Book of John, written by Jesus's disciple John.

unlikely. The author is of the Book of John unknown. You can look this up on Wikipedia "The apostle John, son of Zebedee – traditionally the author was identified as John the Apostle, but his authorship is almost universally rejected by modern scholars.[2][4] (I've omitted the cited references).

It was also written around 90-110 C.E. so it's unlikely this author was alive when Jesus was.

The gospels are not contemporaneous written eyewitness accounts.

Right -- John was the last Gospel written -- and in Greek

Don’t know enough to weigh in on John’s sources, but many in those days were illiterate and their stories were recorded by more educated scribes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "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 very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

This touches on a point that I read elsewhere. That historians believe that it’s more likely than not that he existed. Somewhere between 51%-99% certainty depending how you interpret some of the “evidence”.

GTFO with your 51%.

That’s just what “more likely than not” means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "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 very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

This touches on a point that I read elsewhere. That historians believe that it’s more likely than not that he existed. Somewhere between 51%-99% certainty depending how you interpret some of the “evidence”.

do you have a link to that information?