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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If Jesus did not rise from the dead, where did the body wind up? Wouldn't the Romans have wanted to locate it to dispel any beliefs that people had about him being supernatural?[/quote]

There was a lot of instability in Judea at the time and recurring rebellions. Keep in mind we have no contemporaneous Roman records of the crucifixion--the earliest is probably Tacitus, who does write about it, but around 70 years later, and a few decades after the Jewish rebellion recorded by Josephus (around AD 67 I think). Christians like to treat the story of Jesus as if the Scriptures are the equivalent of CNN, the daily newspaper, and official court and death records.

There's a theory I have read about (ran across a book about it in my university bookstore) that Jesus took off to India and returned in his 80s after learning about Buddhism. [/quote]

This. There is no record of Jesus during his time living or dying or rising from the dead. [/quote]

What do you mean by “during his time”? The earliest gospel account was written ~33 years after His death. That would be like saying that if a friend of Conway Twitty’s or Thurgood Marshall’s wrote a book about either one of them tomorrow, it wouldn’t be from their time. [/quote]

No, the records describe events 20-30 years after the alleged execution, but they were written later. Josephus wrote about 60 years later, but while there is likely some basis of truth in the surviving records, historians widely agree that later Christians tampered with the references to Jesus.

Tacitus is really the first surviving, likely original record of Jesus. That was written around 116AD.

That is a long time for inaccuracies to spread, particularly given that the written records of the time regularly demonstrated personal bias. Annals is considered a credible source, in part, because of the contempt it demonstrated towards early Christians.[/quote]

Let's also not forget that Jesus was a very common name at that time. It would be like spreading stories around a person named John or James today. [/quote]

The early records also reference the Christ name.

It's a pretty narrow time period, in a fairly specific region. While a lot of the surviving sources are tainted, legitimately questioning many of the details in those stories, the totality of surviving evidence fairly strongly supports the idea that there existed an individual named Jesus, who also went by Christ, that led a religious sect prior to being executed.[/quote]

The evidence is weak. Excluding Christian sources (which are highly suspect), the earliest non-Christian source is around 93-94 CE in Josephus. That was most likely hearsay to the 10th degree (sarcasm). [/quote]

Why would a Christian *contemporary* source be suspect? I agree that a much later Christian source could be, but if you’re debating whether a proposition is true, the notion that contemporaries believed it tends to corroborate—not refute—the strength of the case in much the same way that a person who takes up CrossFit on the logic that CrossFit is healthy provides some evidence that CrossFit actually is healthy. [/quote]

Christians had a self serving interest in perpetuating their myth. Also, what did those contemporary Christians believe exactly? The story of Jesus that you think of today is not how many early Christians thought of it. In fact, there wasn't one cohesive narrative among all the sects. And in many ways, there never has been (witness Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, etc).

But, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Cite your Christian sources and their validity. [/quote]

I say this good-naturedly, but this is quite jumbled. To refute my assertion about contemporaries of Christ, you’ve suggested that there were differing views among the “sects,” which you seem to think include Catholics, the Orthodox, and Protestants. The Protestant Reformation would not occur for another millennium and a half.

As for your claim that “Christians had a self serving interest in perpetuating their myth,” this is kind of circular reasoning. You’re no doubt right that Christians (like all people) have an interest in having their claims believed. But it doesn’t follow that they’re lying, and the fact that they are making the claims at all provide some reason to think that some people thought those claims were true. There’s a great line on an old episode of the Simpson where the police chief says something like “how ironic, the cat burglar was caught by the very person who was trying to catch him.” This reminds me of that. When people have an intent to do something (e.g., promote a religion), there’s nothing necessarily weird about them succeeding. Sure, Christians had a pro-Christianity agenda. But that’s what you’d expect if the religion is true![/quote]

The reference to the current sects of Christianity was an example, not to make a claim that is has existed since the beginning of the myth system. Most of the other sects that existed at the beginning of Christianity that were not in accord with what was settled in later centuries were either directly purged from history, or allowed to wither away.

Secondly, if you want to make a claim of something, then you best evidence would be non-biased sources. But, again, I'll give you the benefit of doubt. [b]Your own Christian sources don't even agree with each other. The gospels can't agree on some of the basics of the story of Jesus. Same can be said of the epistles. Acts has been shown over and over to all be made up. [/b][/quote]

I’ve read the New Testament several times and do not know what you’re referring to. [/quote]

https://ehrmanblog.org/contradictions-in-the-gospels/

https://www.bartehrman.com/contradictions-in-the-bible/

https://sites.google.com/site/errorsinthebible/shredding-the-gospels-contradictions-errors-mistakes-fictions

-DP[/quote]

I’m not sure which resonates with you, but it’s a challenge to respond to this. These websites contain a range of critiques extending to stuff like that the author of Mark “does not like Peter.” Others strike me as underwhelming to the point of corroborating the core Christian thesis; for example, one of the more tangible examples is that both Matthew and Mark recount the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus but differ as to whether the girl died just before or just after Jesus’s help was requested. Apparently undisputed is the notion that Jesus raised her from the dead. If you had a court case where two claimed eye witnesses both claimed to have seen the same shooting and both identified the same shooter, most people probably wouldn’t disregard their testimony because they differed on the make of the gun. As a matter of fact, if their testimony were verbatim the same, *that* might be reason to suspect they coordinated on it. [/quote]

Thanks for agreeing to the PP's point, which was that the accounts were different.  No one disregarded any specific testimony.  Appreciate your explicit validation.[/quote]

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