Others know more specific details than I, but I think the amount of evidence seems to be just right. There is enough there and enough lacking that it is a matter of faith. If there was unquestionable proof, there would be no point, everyone, with faith or not would believe.

The book is by Tom Harpur called "The Pagan Christ", Sun Tzu :

The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith ... - Google Book Search

The History Channel program has the same name.

In fact I've just watched another History Channel program called "Unmasking The Pagan Christ" - two theologians were asked to produce a reply.

I found the programs fascinating but neither program particularly convincing. Both seemed to me to set out to prove an pre-existing belief and make far too much of the evidence quoted. The book says that Jesus did not exist but is merely a rehash of the Egyptian myth of Horus. The reply essentially that the similarities are exaggerated and there are bound to be similarities when describing religious figures.

I've made my position clear and I won't trouble people any more. But in the second of the programs one commentator was Elaine Pagels, a Professor of Religion at Princeton and the author of the book The Gnostic Gospels (described by the Modern Library as one of the best 100 books ever written and by Christian conservatives as one of the worst 50 :) ) and a commentator I've found unusually rational in religious debates before. She comments thus:


Here's another interesting web site dealing with the evidence of Josephus. It gives both the copies of his writings (we do not have the original) from both Christian and Islamic sources. You can see what Christian clerics did to them :)

Josephus'Testimony to Jesus

You can argue that the Islamic quotation confirms Jesus' existence but even here there is a problem. This passage does not appear in the book Josephus wrote about the time of Jesus but in a much later book - 90 AD. Why? The implication is that Josephus is reacting to the growth of the Christian faith and repeating what is being said of Jesus rather than writing from his own knowledge. For me it adds to the idea that Jesus was a relative unknown in his own time and became well known through the efforts of his followers - he wasn't sufficiently important (or even known to Josephus) for Josephus to mention in his earlier more relevant book but became important and was added to the later one.

Excellent! I'll have to either pick it up from Amazon or look for those specials on the History channels upcoming programing. Thank you!

Another fun modern read is really anything by Karen Armstrong, History of God would be your best bet.

For a fun old school reading try Celsus "True Doctrine" 2nd century anti-Christian writer. one of the few works not burned by the church.

Celsus is great because his arguments are really no different than today and even this thread. Even in the 2nd century you can see the problem of legend. Here is some lines from wiki:

Christians have no standing in the Old Testament prophecies and their talk of a resurrection that was only revealed to some of their own adherents is foolishness

The idea of an incarnation of God is absurd; why should the human race think itself so superior to bees, ants and elephants as to be put in this unique relation to its maker? And why should God choose to come to men as a Jew? The Christian idea of a special providence is nonsense, an insult to the deity.

To Celsus, it was much more reasonable to believe that each part of the world has its own special deity; prophets and supernatural messengers had appeared in more places than one.

Besides being bad philosophy based on fictitious history, Christianity is not respectable. (H)e says the Christian teachers who are mainly weavers and cobblers have no power over men of education. The qualifications for conversion are ignorance and childish timidity.

Finally, "An interesting feature of Celsus' writing is that he refers to Jesus' father by name as Panthera. It is taken by Celsus as given that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a roman soldier of this name."

From your post, Celcus' writings look pretty biased. You want to talk about the bible being hearsay, the gospels were still written hundred and fifty or so years before Celcus' book and yet his hearsay about Jesus' father should be taken as true?

He tries to insult anyone who would become Christian.

Also, it makes perfect sense for God to reveal himself to humans over any other creature. Humans are the only creature we know of who would be aware of his presence.

\\

There was no NT when he was writing. Who knows what texts made up the Christian religion as he knew it.


Sure. What doesn't make sense is that if this world was created for us, why have we only inhabited this planet for a fraction of the time it has existed? Why the ebb and flow of dominant creatures that eventually led to us, for the time being, at least?

Well, Celsus' writings are biased, just like the gospels are biased. Even if you take the christian/jew hate out of his texts, he does make some good points about humans superior attitude and thinking that only god himself/herself would be revealed only to humans.

Which gospels specifically are you refering to though? Any gospels written before Celsus' book, would have been written about the time when Jesus was around 25ish (going by your 150 year reference), since the best guestamate is his book was written around 175 AD.

That's a valid point. I think this can be explained based on your bias. It's easy for me to say that the world wasn't ready for humans until after all of that time. You could easily say what you just said. Even when I was a kid and I wasn't Christian, I've always found the idea that God could not be proved or disproved fascinating. I understand that it's tempting to only believe what evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt. For me, there is enough evidence to support my faith and what I believe inside to be true, but it makes sense that there is not enough evidence for those that don't belief a certain idea to be true deep down inside. I know some Christians try and say their religion has been proved and while there is evidence supporting it (and not), it's still a matter of faith. For me, that's the point in all of these discussion/arguments over religion because neither side can be proved.

I had the wrong year on his writings, about 100 years then.

That's cool Danny. Happens to the best of us. :)

We're wired differently, I think. :)

I personally find this idea an example of how flawed human thinking is. You can't prove something doesn't exist, and that extends well beyond just religion. I can't prove that cavemen didn't ride around in Fred Flintstone's car, and didn't ride on the backs of pterodactyls. There is no reason to think they did however, as nothing has pointed to that being true, outside of a cartoon that came some time after the facts. :)

I'll grant that there are (or, at least, certainly were) many reasons to believe in a god or gods however. Likely every single culture that has ever existed on the face of this planet has had their superstitions and religions, all rising out of ignorance, as an attempt to explain the world in a way that makes sense to them. They are all shaped to follow the flow of life and time as it is known to mankind with his birth and death, a beginning and an end, which shows exactly how human-centric they are, and doesn't square up with the actual infiniteness of time.

To be honest, I find the "can't prove it exists or doesn't exist" argument to be very frustrating, because if you can't prove it exists, well... doesn't that speak volumes? To me, it does. Anything else is at the very best a theory, and a tenuous one at that.


I'm happy for you, but doesn't it trouble you that the followers of every major religion now and in the past believed it with the exact same conviction as you? Especially knowing that the invention of religions is a natural and commonly occuring event, and if not for the Romans, who knows what kind of church you'd be going to right now.

Sure you can. something that is both red and green all over has never existed. there has never been a married bachelor. :)

Celsus is greatly biased. What's great about him is that his greek smugness is very similar to modern elitist atheists. (Minus the anti-Jew stuff)

I think the Christian movement took off because of its prolific writers. Not being married to a single language allowed each community to put the story into their worldview (or sacred canopy as Durkheim puts it). But more importantly it allowed for an exchange of ideas (much like FOF!). Not being bound to elders telling stories or a leader writing down their "conversation" with god freed the religion to grow organically and mature.

It also allowed the faith to be many different, even contradictory, things at once, ie Gnostic. however once rulers took over the movement they would only keep the letters/verses/books that legitimized their power and made their interpretation the one and only. that's why i love the first 3 centuries, Christianity was open-sourced

Prove it!


Yeah, he's biased because he doesn't like Christians. Still, he's as entitled to his opinion about the Christian movement of his time as anybody else is. For all I know, he was spot on. There isn't much else out there that describes it in a negative light and survived, not that I've read anyway. The only reason his still exists is because it was quoted at length in a later positive and equally biased work. I'm not saying he's right in his attacks either because it's impossible to say.

It's definitely interesting how many of his arguments carry on today. In fact, when I read Hitchen's 'The Portable Atheist', I was actually shocked by how it's been the exact same arguments being used for and against for centuries and centuries and centuries back in time, long before the wealth of scientific knowledge we have today.


And probably about as accurate as a wiki article.

Unlike other religions, Christianity isn't about philosophy; it isn't about improving yourself, achieving "balance," or making yourself "worthy" of heaven, it's about grace. Quite simply, the work of Christ allows us to renew a personal relationship with our creator, God.

For those who look at Christianity as simply an intellectual pursuit, or as a philosophical quandry, you will more than likely be disappointed or underwhelmed. Even the scripture offers, "the wisdom of God is foolishness to men, and the wisdom of men is foolishness to God."

But for those of us who have heard the gospel and have chosen to receive grace, for most of us it has been a life-changing event. Now you can think we're crazy, weak-willed, stupidsticious, sheep,...or whatever else floats your boat or makes you feel superior, but for us, we know it is the power of God to help us live a life that is pleasing to Him and to share the good news of reconciliation with God to a world that I don't think too many would argue seems to be sliding ever closer to the brink. Now, if that scares you..., well, BOO!

Not all branches of Christianity share this view.

This is your personal interpretation, many would disagree. Who is right?


Not meant as a personal slight against you, but to a nonbeliever, this paragraph is empty fluff of the kind found from each and every devout believer of each and every religion, complete with a threat of the impending end of days just about every religion seems to so eagerly await.

I would say that's why most formal denominations of Christianity are on the wane in the Western world "they assume the form and rituals of godliness, but deny the true Power."

As it should. We are commissioned in the New Testament only to preach the gospel with the accompanying signs. It is the Spirt of God that woos mens' hearts and brings them to repentence and salvation, not the preacher or evangelists' clever words.

I figured out a long time ago that there is nothing I can do to change a person's heart. All I can do is share the gospel when/if the opportunity presents itself, and pray for that person to receive God's grace.

How does that viewpoint settle with Matthew 7:1?

The measure we use to judge others, is the measure that will be used to judge us.

Specifically, someone who judges another for an act he himself also commits, will be judged all the more harshly by God.

And that goes to the heart of all the schisms and various reformations of Christianity over the years, and is why there isn't a 'monolithic' set of beliefs for Christianity, other than Jesus was the son of God. All of the branches and sects have their ways of how to interpret the Bible and progress down the path. Any attempt to say that a specific sets of beliefs represents Christianity as a whole just doesn't reflect the varied landscape.

Well, the Jesus is the son of God and he died for our sins and was ressurected thing, IS pretty much THE Christian faith...everything else is more or less pissing contests between various denominations.

Now if you want to get into heresies like Gnosticism, that was presented as such by the original founders of the various churches in the ancient world, many of whom were original disciples of Christ.

Agreed, I was just pointing out that what you put here:


isn't a universal view among Christians. That falls under the "pissing contest" as you put it.

Not so...the "grace" part is the fundamental element of the Christ is God's son, died on the cross for our sins and was ressurected thing.

I would welcome you to explain how it falls under the "pissing contest" category.

The very concept of Grace is what led to Luther's 95 Thesis. He had a very different view than what Rome had, and took his views to split off and found Lutheranism. Then if you go to Calvinism, predestination was introduced, so no matter what you did, or chose to do, God had already decided your fate, and if you received grace or not. In the Church of Christ, they for the most part do not side with any of the reformation ideas, and prefer to keep things tied directly to their interpretation of the New Testament. Salvation is key to them, and grace is something more not to fall out of than it is to strive for.

Those are just a few examples off the top of my head, but definitely the views on grace were a major reason for the formation of the various Protestant groups of Christianity.

I'm guessing far more preachers at your average suburban church do more preaching of John 4:8 than Luke 19:27.

I think belief via the promise/threat of impending doom might be older than virgin birth stories;)

Well... if we can agree what bachelor means and married means I have a chance.

If we can't I'm going to deny Australia exists. Or better yet, I say Australia is just the name of my cat, who is licking himself right now.;)

And hopefully just as false, given the Hebrew word that was translated into "virgin" in Greek in fact simply meant "young woman" - usually the same thing ideally, but no doubt not so much in practice... Yet how often do we still hear about the virgin birth...

I'm sure I could be stubborn and come up with all sorts of definitions of bachelor and marriage... The gay marriage thread on this board is a good example of how even the meaning of that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different folks.


Ahhh... but see, I *can* prove Australia exists, because I'm standing on her right now. The country, that is. You're cat is probably still OK. ;)

March Hare: Have some wine.
(Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.)
Alice: I don't see any wine.
March Hare: There isn't any.
Alice: Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it.
March Hare: It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited

I just can't believe I used "you're" instead of "your" when I'm always getting on other folks for doing the same. :(

That isn't really true, but I know what you are trying to say ("You can't prove a negative"). You can not prove something doesn't exist (or any kind of negative claim), unless you can prove a positive claim that negates the possibility of the negative claim being false. IOW, you can prove A doesn't exist by proving a positive claim that makes it impossible for A to exist.

In AE's example, you can prove that a married bachelor doesn't exists (negative claim) by proving that "married" and "bachelor" are mutually exclusive (positive claim). Just like someone can not be an atheistic theist; they are mutually exclusive (a provable positive claim that would negate the possibility of an atheistic theist existing).

But as far as this thread goes, you are right in that you can not prove Jesus did not exist. At least, AFAIK, there's no positive claim, or set of positive claims, that you could prove that would negate the possibility of Jesus existing.

(It's 3am and I'm very tired. I hope I didn't screw up the wording and hope this post made sense. :) )

Yes, good point, I was trying to be difficult, turns out I was being difficult as well as wrong. ;)


FWIW, considering I've been so negative this entire thread, I just thought I'd make clear that I have few doubts that there was a Jesus. I find it difficult to believe that something like Christianity can rise from nothing. To be more accurate, what I should have said is that I don't believe in a historical Jesus, or in other words, a Jesus that we can know anything about with any real certainty.

It would be hypocritical for me to say he DID exist for certain though. I just think it's most likely that he did.


Well, you made more sense than me, by making the point I intended to make. I'll blame mine on my 6 day long weekend of non-stop boozing that has unfortunately come to an end today with my first day back at work. :)

At the time, the Bible was in limited supply and even then, a good portion of the population couldn't read or write. Christian doctrine was pretty much decided by the whims of Rome, whether it was scriptural or not -- thus we had indulgences, self-flagellation, Christ in large part being supplanted by worship of the Madonna and the saints, etc., etc. Luther went back to original NT scripture, looked at the message of the gospels, and saw how it had been distorted and amended by the Roman church over the years. So you could say that the Reformation was Luther's attempt to move the Church back to its roots in the writings of the NT -- quite simply, we are saved by God's grace through Jesus Christ.


While I don't agree with a majority of Calvinist thought, you can't say that grace isn't a fundamental element of their belief system...it is perhaps moreso. To a Calvinist, God's grace is ABSOLUTE. He alone decides who will receive His grace (unmerited favor) and who will not, and the individual soul plays no part in that process.


I'll admit I'm not very familiar with the dogma of the Church of Christ, but again...what you describe is the basic tenant of the Christian faith...salvation comes through God's grace through Jesus Christ.

I would agree...you could add to that a fatalistic world view, "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

What makes the "Think Green/Global Warming" movement such a success?

Well said, SFL Cat. As the Celsus example illustrated earlier, and as the Gnostics and other controversies described by Paul also illustrate, Christians have banged their heads against the same walls for many generations, trying to explain truth to generations of people that don't define truth by the same standards. It can be discouraging, especially on Internet boards, but be encouraged that you are not alone, and beware getting angry or bitter. You have spoken well.

My problem is, where is the physical evidence for Jesus? There is none and if anybody says the shroud of turin...

There's plenty of physical evidence for Julius Ceasar, Napoleon, George Washington, King Tut, etc...

I have serious doubts that the jesus of the bible existed, but, conceed that there may have been your average joe named jesus that did exist at the time. There's thousands of people named jesus even now in 2009.

Heck, the christians had to use Mithras for designating what day christmas was going to be. Other than making up the stories about jesus in the NT, christians haven't done much on the side of original ideas.

If people want to have faith, that's fine with me. I highly encourage people to not confuse faith and fact as being the same thing though.

Problem is that those with faith believe it as fact with no need for the type of evidence you seek.

Well, to be fair, I don't think everyone who has faith can be painted with that brush.

Unfortunately, there are plenty that can be painted with that brush though.

Touche!

I'm coming late to this, but are some people claiming here that there's a similar availability of credible historical evidence for the existence of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great as there is for Jesus?

You go ahead and blame it on your 6-day weekend of nonstop boozing and I'll just sit here and be jealous. :)

Well, seeing as how this Jesus fellow is the only person out of those three that supposedly was ressurected from the dead, and walked on water, and performed a whole host of other miracles, I think asking for some kind...well any kind of evidence that he actually existed (let alone did any of these things) is warranted.

Great example, totally the same thing, reverent fear.

Socrates had it right(of course) when he said:

For if anyone stands in reverence and awe of something, does he not at the same time fear and dread the imputation of wickedness?

Which fits nicely with:

Hebrews 12:28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,

Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

Yes, we believe there is enough evidence to suggest that Julius Ceasar and Alexander the Great did indeed exist.

Yup. And to bring in modern faith-based "gospel"...environmentalism.

No. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how historical research is conducted.

Literary accounts of historical events (or figures), regardless of their objectivity, are but one part of the historical record. Other primary sources include records of state (which exist for the Greek and Roman empires, as well as a number of empires conquered by the Greeks and Romans), evidence from architecture, and archaeological finds, such as coins and whatnot.

The literary primary sources that establish the existence of figures such as Julius and Augustus Caesar and Alexander the Great are corroborated by other primary sources such as those listed above. No such corroboration exists for Jesus.

Further, the literary primary sources for the Caesars and Alexander the Great can, in many cases, be established as contemporary (a key requirement for "primary source" status) considerably more readily than those purporting to be primary source evidence for Jesus.


This is not to say that Jesus didn't exist. It's just not correct to say that as much historical evidence exists for Jesus as it does for other major figures of the ancient world.