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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have you guys thought about comparing the length of your private parts and calling it a day?

Seriously though, I think the only actually interesting question brought up by this topic is how we got from Jesus, a dude who preached radical poverty and acceptance, to a mega religion infused with Paul's obsession with sex?[/quote]

I’m mostly in reactive mode myself. Atheist pp posts yet again about how it’s only “likely” and I do a cut and paste about the vast scholarly consensus and paste the evidence summary.

Otherwise atheist pp keeps trying declare a “DCUM concensus” that it’s just “likely.” As if the real world cares or something. I don’t even really care about a DCUM concensus, but it’s super-easy to keep pasting the reasons why atheist pp is wrong. [/quote]

Nothing you post is “hard evidence” - first-hand, contemporaneous reports or archaeological artifacts - so irrelevant. 
[/quote]

Who is requiring hard evidence?[/quote]

I would need some hard/primary evidence to say 100% certainty. For anything, really, not just this.

[i]"If you want certainty, go into mathematics. Don’t go into ancient history."[/i]
-Hershel Shanks[/quote]

Why do you keep repeating this? We get it. You're alone against the vast scholarly consensus that Jesus existed with certainty. You can stop repeating yourself now.[/quote]

I'm simply replying to questions other people have posed.

If you are concerned about people repeating themselves, why not rag on the PP who keeps copying and pasting the same (irrelevant) info? 
[/quote]

Nope. You keep bumping posts--most recently one from yesterday--to repeat the same line about how you're not sure. You still haven't identified your own scholarly credentials.

And nope. The cut-and-past is incredibly relevant because these are the arguments the vast majority of scholars, including Bart Ehrman and other atheist and Jewish scholars, use when they say they're certain Jesus existed. Since you mentioned it, here it is again.

***

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.

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