Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Santa Claus never existed, how did we get Christmas? And the Easter Bunny? If the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist, how did the money get under my pillow? HMMM??? Explain THAT

The Tooth Fairy is not Christian. Come to think of it, neither are Santa and The Easter Bunny, but at least they recognize Christian holidays.

Hey..PP, you seemed to have missed the point. Being Christian doesn't validate any myth.

There's no contemporaneous evidence of the existence of Socrates. Perhaps law schools should quit using the Socratic method.

Anonymous wrote:So whoever told Tacitus and Josephus this story was convincing. Neither met him or saw him work “miracles”.

But that’s all you’ve got. A convincing story that people chose to believe. No way to actually know if it is true.

An eyewitness account was written by John - the Book of John. He actually wrote in there that he was the eyewitness, and it was his personal account.

Anonymous wrote:So whoever told Tacitus and Josephus this story was convincing. Neither met him or saw him work “miracles”.

But that’s all you’ve got. A convincing story that people chose to believe. No way to actually know if it is true.

You know what? You can go out on your own little limb and sit there all by yourself. If that makes you happy. As pp posted above, the vast majority of scholars with real qualifications disagree with you.

So whoever told Tacitus and Josephus this story was convincing. Neither met him or saw him work “miracles”.

But that’s all you’ve got. A convincing story that people chose to believe. No way to actually know if it is true.

All historians, too.

False.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scholars of scripture think he lived? Shocker.

Some historians may *believe* that he lived (and he certainly had a following), but they don’t *know* he existed.

The vast majority of scholars think he lived. You don’t look great when you repeat your talking points ad nauseum instead of addressing pp’s links.

None definitively say he existed.

But the prophet Joseph Smith definitely existed. Why don’t you follow his Book of Mormon?

How do you pick which prophet to believe? Which story do you like best?

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Anonymous wrote:Without wading through 37 pages of stuff, is there anyone (Christian, Jew, atheist or otherwise) who doesn't believe Jesus was a historical figure?

I don’t know if he - or if he didn’t.

No evidence.

Seems likely, but we don’t know definitively.

I think you're confusing "evidence" with "evidence that's totally convincing." The letters of Paul are evidence, the Gospels are evidence, the non-controversial reference to Jesus in Josephus is evidence, as are the references in Pliny and Tacitus. It's likely that none of them are first hand evidence, but "someone told me a Jewish teacher named Jesus existed and was crucified" suggests that it is likely that such a man did exist. Even in a court of law, hearsay IS evidence, it's just not generally admissible evidence. There's evidence, even if it's not conclusive evidence.

+1. It may not be eye-witness, but there’s evidence. In fact there’s more evidence for Jesus than for many other men of the time, including Socrates. We only know about Socrates because his student Plato wrote about him.

If Plato were the only evidence then the existence of Socrates would be dubious. But Aristophanes and Xenophon also wrote of Socrates.

That’s great then. And more people than that wrote about Jesus. Why the double standard?

Not quite the same thing. With the exception of Josephus, who never met Jesus and the accounts may well be Christian inserts, everyone who wrote about Jesus wanted people to believe that Jesus was God. Very different with Socrates. Plato was pro Socrates, Xenophon was neutral about Socrates, and Aristophanes thought that Socrates was an old fool.

Why are you ignoring pp’s post about the two Josephus quotes and how there’s widespread agreement one of them is authentic? Now you’re just being dishonest. Also, Josephus as a Jew hardly wanted people to believe in Jesus.

Josephus was indeed a Jew. So were all the other people who wrote about Jesus. Christianity was a Jewish sect in those days. It’s odd that there are no contemporaneous Roman sources.

Jesus was a jew too, as were all of his disciples

That’s the point. There are no contemporaneous Roman sources. The closest one, The Annals of Tacitus, did not come out until 116 A.D.

That's only 83 years later.

It's like saying anybody's report of stuff that happened in 1939 (WWII) isn't credible unless it was written in 1939. Not a very persuasive line of reasoning is it.

Anonymous wrote:Scholars of scripture think he lived? Shocker.

Some historians may *believe* that he lived (and he certainly had a following), but they don’t *know* he existed.

All historians, too.
So, all historians in the Western world are incorrect?

Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived the first part of his life in Palestine before AD 70, is quoted in his “Jewish Antiquities” as referring to Jesus. Josephus describes him as a miracle worker who appeared to his disciples after his death.

The text as it stands is so positive that scholars suggest that it may have been tampered with by a later Christian scribe. Yet many experts, including Jewish historians such as Shlomo Pines and Louis Feldman, judge that a simpler reference to Jesus by Josephus does lie behind the present text.

In the early 2nd Century, the pagan historian Tacitus mentions in his “Annals” that “Christ, the founder of the Christian movement,” was executed by Pontius Pilate in Judea.

Later rabbinical literature also contains a few scattered references to “Yeshu,” or “Yeshua"(Jesus)--though these texts were written centuries after the time of Jesus.

An important point to notice is that while Tacitus, the pagan satirist Lucian (2nd Century), and later rabbis are for the most part negative in their references to Jesus, none denies his existence.

Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure.

Stanton (2002, p. 145): Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.

Wells (2007, p. 446):"Today, most secular scholars accept Jesus as a historical, although unimpressive, figure.

Ehrman (2012b, pp. 4–5): "Serious historians of the early Christian movement—all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure.

Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that a historical human Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, "we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned."

Anonymous wrote:Scholars of scripture think he lived? Shocker.

Some historians may *believe* that he lived (and he certainly had a following), but they don’t *know* he existed.

The vast majority of scholars think he lived. You don’t look great when you repeat your talking points ad nauseum instead of addressing pp’s links.

Scholars of scripture think he lived? Shocker.

Some historians may *believe* that he lived (and he certainly had a following), but they don’t *know* he existed.

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Anonymous wrote:We do know some things about the historical Jesus — less than some Christians think, but more than some skeptics think,” said Marcus Borg, a preeminent Biblical scholar, author and retired professor of religion and culture at Oregon State University. “Though a few books have recently argued that Jesus never existed, the evidence that he did is persuasive to the vast majority of scholars, whether Christian or non-Christian.”

https://www.livescience.com/13711-jesus-christ-man-physical-evidence-hold.html

Wow -- it's looking more and more like Jesus actually existed, which must come as a great relief to people who worship him

It doesn’t look more that way no matter how many random articles PP posts.

Practically all historians and scholars of Scripture agree that someone named Jesus of Nazareth did live in the 1st Century AD, and that he left behind a group of disciples who came to be called Christians.

We know the prophet Joseph Smith was a real historical figure. Lots of evidence he existed. Why don’t all Christians believe his Book of Mormon?

Because they like their story better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do know some things about the historical Jesus — less than some Christians think, but more than some skeptics think,” said Marcus Borg, a preeminent Biblical scholar, author and retired professor of religion and culture at Oregon State University. “Though a few books have recently argued that Jesus never existed, the evidence that he did is persuasive to the vast majority of scholars, whether Christian or non-Christian.”

https://www.livescience.com/13711-jesus-christ-man-physical-evidence-hold.html

Wow -- it's looking more and more like Jesus actually existed, which must come as a great relief to people who worship him

It doesn’t look more that way no matter how many random articles PP posts.

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Anonymous wrote:Who wants to deal with atheist toddlers who won’t do any work outside their own little sandboxes? Not me. Outta here. Have fun.

Seems like you’re the one throwing a tantrum here.

That’s ok. We all know you can’t share indisputable evidence because it doesn’t exist. No need to beat yourself up over it.

Goalposts moved. You questioned the authenticity of the gospels and pp and I gave you several sources which you announced you won’t read.

If you weren’t so dishonest, we might have interesting discussions on this forum.

You are confusing posters.

It’s clear that you can’t provide indisputable evidence because it doesn’t exist.

No, the Bible/Gospels aren’t themselves indisputable evidence of the stories they contain. Any that reference supernatural events are automatically disqualified as unreliable.

That’s BS about the gospels not counting as evidence. Not direct evidence, but certainly evidence.

So there isn’t a NY Times interview with Jesus. There’s more evidence for Jesus than for almost anyone else at that time. That’s good enough for hundreds of millions of Christians. You can continue to screech about no CNN coverage of the Sermon on the Mount, but Christians aren’t bothered.

Do I have to type it in caps?

YOU CAN'T USE A BOOK TO PROVE WHAT IS IN THE BOOK IS TRUE. THIS IS A LOGICAL FALLACY AS NOTED ABOVE. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE IT.

By your standard of evidence, the Koran is true, because the book says so and hundred of millions believe it.

So do you believe the Koran is true?

Do you?

No?

Why a different standard then?

Things in the Bible line up with things non-Christian historians wrote.