Egyptians, and the Origins of Christianity?
 

So...first I'd like to state that I am in no way trying to start some flame war...I'm hoping that we can all have an intelligent conversation/debate on the subject of religion without people going fanatical. Now I don't practice any particular religion, though I am Jewish by blood. I'm not saying one thing is fact, and another is fiction. I'm just hoping to get some unbiased information here.

I've done a little reading, and though I'm nowhere near an authority on the subject, it looks to me like the Egyptians had some sort of organized religion in place about 4,000 years before Christianity that was...well...damn near identical in almost every single way. Since I don't know much about all of this stuff, I'm wondering if anyone here has looked into the same thing, and if you wouldn't mind shedding some light on the subject.

Thanks in advance.

If you're referring to what I think you are, I believe that was a one-off pharoh and his wife (the smoking hot Nerfertiti (sp) ) who lost their rule because of it

I've researched it a lot and I still don't think the Egyptians were that close to what Christianity ended up being. A lot of the stuff out there that does compare the two are missing a lot of facts. I think there are better parallels between Greek Mythology and Dionysus to Jesus than Egyptians and Horus/Osiris.

A lot of christianity's stories can be found in religions that pre-dated it. The virgin birth story of jesus is similiar to these virgin birth stories: Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Zoroaster, Mithras, Agdistis, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Korybas, and Dionysus.

What RainMaker said... :)

I have read a few things that suggest it, especially about the Pharaoh who had 13 I guess slaves or something. Then the thing about the three Egyptian gods which relates to the Holy Trinity. I never dug deeper because I don't believe in that kind of stuff and really don't care enough to ever engage in a convo with someone about proving their belief wrong or whatever.

I would like to hear more about the smoking hot queen named Nerftitty.

When I was in collage I took a class on Western Religion.
Almost all modern religious beliefs can be traced back to earlier mid-eastern myths.

The exception was the teachings of Christ, which had a much more eastern flavor.
("Love thy neighbor" vs. "An eye for an eye")
The teacher speculated that as a young man, Christ may have visited India or China.

Yeah, most religions have similar stories and vibes. They all kind of evolved from one another. I remember reading a great piece about how Christianity got singled out because it was one of the few that had a resurrection story to it which people were drawn to.

The story of Gilgamesh is a good example as well. Written a couple of thousand years before jesus' time.

As I recall, there was a brief period where a pharaoh named Akhenaton decreed that he and the imperial family would pray to a single god. It wasn't quite monotheism, though, because I think that all the other Egyptians were still supposed to worship him. Plus, I don't think that the nature of Egyptian belief and practice changed all that much during that brief experiment.

Of course, it's still true that Judaism and by extension Christianity were very influenced by the Near Eastern religious environment.

Aten was the god he wanted his people to worship. After Akhenaten's reign, Epyptians pretty much tried to erase him (Akhenaten) from the 'history books'.

If nothing else, I'm impressed that you can just roll names off the top of your head like that.

yep! i remember doing a paper on him in 7th grade...lol

I think it's far more likely that Jesus would have been exposed to the work of Greek philosophers through local rabbis than taking a trip to India or China.

"Eye for an Eye" actually was more Eastern (Code of Hammurabi) than "love thy neighbor", which was a pretty common concept in Greek philosophy. Even Thales, who lived about 500 years before Jesus was born said "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."

A couple, yes. The rest I had to look up because I couldn't remember them exactly. ;)

Oh and Gilgamesh has a devestating flood story in it too if I remember correctly.

Is it not true that there is more evidence to show that Jesus never actually existed as a man, than that he did exist? I've read that from the date of his supposed birth to the date of his death, there are zero actual documents/writings that he was a real person. I've also read that the first writings showing about him didn't come until at least 4 generations after Jesus would have supposedely died, or been killed. Is this not like DeToxRox's great-great grandson writing my entire life story via a 4 generation game of "telephone"?

I'm just saying...:)

Saying that "Jesus this" or "Jesus that" to explain why christianity is the way that is, is like saying that "Ra must have spent some time in Bethlehem" is it not?

sun tzu,

well the original Gospel/sources were written around 60-100 AD, iirc...

Did they not keep good records in Israel in 16 AD? Surely archeologists have dug up something...a casier's check signed by Jesus or something.

I think the best evidence one could use, to proove there was the jesus that people refer to in the bible actually existed, would be contemporary sources of the time that mentioned him. Kinda like if there was a Nazareth Gazette or something like that in the birth section announcing that "Mary gives birth to a son that she named Jesus, still looking for the father" or "Jesus turns water into wine, the meek sing", you get the idea.

Guesstamates are that it was 100 to 200 years after he was dead that the first writings started showing up, and indeed, you can not discount the telephone game. Also take into consideration that around the 4th century AD is when the christian church started gaining some steam. So you have that gap in time to contend with too.

As far as christianity borrowing from earlier creation stories and virgin birth stories, etc...my take on it is this: It's no different than what Lucas did with Kurosawas Hidden Fortress and came up with Star Wars. Lucas took Kurosawas movie, changed the names, places and certain events, gave it a space theme and viola! Star Wars.

I'm starting to like this JediKooter fellow.

Well, I am a nice person and I like Star Wars, what's not to like? ;)

Where's the kooter part come in?

Whenever I can get it...from my wife.

There is some mention of Jesus, son of Joseph by old historians during his time. However, the mentions are rather light and he wasn't a particularly signifigant person of the time.

I've read both sides of the coin and I sort of lean toward the fact that a man by that name existed during the time.

You can argue all you want about whether he actually existed or not. All I know is I'm not changing my name to Jss.

Ok, I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that.

I would bet heavily that a man named Jesus exists during the present time as well.

I'm not 100% sure, but if I went South of the border, I'd find at least one guy named Jesus.

You don't have to go south of the border at all.

What about Sr Wltr Rlgh?

This is an interesting read: http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

I saw a documentary recently that pointed out the similarities between Krishna and Jesus - he too was born of a virgin, a jealous ruler hearing of the birth of a messiah had new-borns killed, he walked on water, fed a multitude from virtually nothing (only 500 in Krishna's case) and so on. Note also the similarity between the names Krishna and Christ.

Judea was directly on the trade route between Egypt and the far east and traders would have carried and told stories of religious characters from both which it's believed have significantly influenced developments in Judaism (of which Christianity is one). Krishna had much the same "love your enemies" etc message as Jesus and, even without Jesus visiting the far east he would have been aware of Krishna's teachings. Religious historians argue there is a significant Buddhist influence on Christianity.

There are claims that Jesus fled to the far east and died there. I believe there is still a tomb there that claims to be that of Jesus.

There is very little evidence outside of Christian writings for the existence of Jesus. Josephus, a very well respected Roman/Jewish historian of the 1st century who wrote extensively on the times of Jesus, mentions him only twice in the very briefest of terms. However it's thought that these mentions, which are clearly not consistent with continuity in the text and refer to Jesus as "the Christ" which Josephus an orthodox Jew would never say, have been introduced by enthusiastic Christian authors in the first centuries (we don't have originals of Josephus' writings, only copies and almost all copies in subsequent centuries were made by Christian clerics).

But there are extensive Christian writings - far too many to suggest there is no reality behind them - not only accepted biblical writings but many others and also those of the the Egyptian Gnostics. That these have been declared heresy by western Christianity doesn't detract from their value as evidence of the reality of Jesus. Despite the differences of interpretation of the significance of the stories they are essentially the same (whether Judas was acting or not on Jesus' advice in giving him to the authorities doesn't alter the truth of the story itself).

There's no doubt, even in the mind of this incorrigible agnostic, that there is a reality behind the story even if the story itself has been somewhat embellished.

The Christianity we have today, certainly in the Catholic church, is the Jesus story worked over by Greek philosophers - essentially neo-Platonists. Protestantism is not only a reaction against the behaviour of the Catholic church but also against the theology up to the 16th century largely defined by the ideas of Plato and Aristotle (who both declared what we know today as 'empirical evidence" was worthless and that intellectual/spiritual investigation was the only worthwhile human activity - if it hadn't been for these two Jesus may well have been using a laptop and the internet now 2000 years old ;) ).

Mac Howard's points about the historical evidence for an actual Jesus and the followers of him launching the Christian movement are pretty well said.

And if Christianity were merely an ancient religion with no basis in historical fact, then the pre-existence of its major themes would have significant relevance in discounting its validity as a unique faith. As a Christian, I fully admit that if Jesus were not an actual man of historical significance, I would quickly abandon the faith as just another myth in the long line of human religious baloney.

But if Jesus actually existed, actually died and was raised again to life, the pre-existence of such themes in other religions is irrelevant. Unless you'd like to argue that bodily resurrection from death is a common occurence in human history. Likewise with other themes: preexistence does not prove an event to be false or even "borrowed". Genocide, for example, existed long before the Holocaust, but the Holocaust is a historical fact denied only by people with their fingers in their ears. If the the details of Jesus' life are historical facts, then their precursors don't change that.

Now, we can get into a long debate on the subject of whether everything written of Jesus is true or not, whether embelished or "legendized", but Mac Howard is accurate to insist that the bulk of historical evidence through the writings from within the Christian tradition, as well as their insistence that eye witnesses could verify or debunk their claims, gives solid evidence that a Jewish man named Jesus existed and was believed by some to be the Messiah. Even academically, to deny the existence of an actual Jesus is bad scholarship and easily debunked. Some have tried, tried even desperately, and a careful examination of their methods shows clearly that desperation has overcome reason - that their fingers are in their ears.

For my part, I have looked at the history and come to believe the best and msot reasonable conclusion is that the details are also accurate, but that's a discussion for another time.

Ok...interesting opinions here.

revrew - Does this mean that the billions of people in the world who don't believe any of this or aren't of the christian faith are wrong?

My only strong opinion in any of this, is that I don't claim to know anything. I wasn't there, so who am I to say who has their fingers in their ears and who doesn't. When your day does eventually come, I think everybody is going to be equally unprepared for what happens after...if anything does happen at all. From the most "spiritually enlightened" person, to the homeless guy on the corner of Market and 5th.

All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

Well, duh. It's the Internet. I figure we've got a spirited abortion debate coming in June, August is booked for mocking the Creation Museum, and in September we'll go off the reservation for a look at whether the Holocaust really happened, with a little 9/11 inside job paranoia for flavor. We DO have a week and a half in July that's open, what with the Vermont and Iowa gay marriage news throwing off that timetable a bit, but right now there's a sweet gun control/Second Amendment defense flamewar that I think can slip into that slot nicely.

...or by "all of this" did you mean something other than endlessly cycling debates on controversial topics that inevitably degenerate after four pages into namecalling and hurt feelings?

Yeah, that is a nice summary of a lot of the stuff I've read. I think it's a coin flip to be honest. There are some accounts that could be talking about Jesus as the article mentions. Those also could mean completely different things. We aren't able to unravel all the historians accounts from that era so it's tough to say.

I was swayed toward believing that there was a guy named Jesus who had a father named Joseph and went around telling stories while high on opiates. There are a lot of independent, non-believer historians who believe this is true (in fact I'd say the majority).

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now because I don't really think it's a major issue. Even if there was a Jesus, it's fairly clear that he was rather unremarkable considering how few early documents spoke of him. I believe all the stories that people recite today is nothing more than fairy tales, so it doesn't matter if a regular guy named Jesus existed or not. I'm more interested in how the stories came to be and what their influences are.

For anyone really interested in religion and the mind, I recommend Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell. He's a fairly well known author who focuses on religion, evolution, and why it came to be. Kind of like a more cerebral look at the Selfish Gene.

Say Hello to one of the most quoted quotes on the internets! :)

Battlestar Galactica anyone? Peter Pan? Matrix?

The Bible is not a history book.

Religion isn't as simple as whether something is factually true or not. I think there's segments on both sides that don't quite understand that. There's obviously those who think that the bible is some kind of unquestionable factual and litteral truth. And then there's those who thing that religion or spirtuality has no redeeming value because you can't prove litteral words of a text created by man. Both sides are WAY off, IMO.

We don't know. Disproving the facts of a man-made bible isn't making a case for atheism, or even that Christanity is invalid.

There's a billion ideas other than the two that are usually debated (god v. no god).

I remember hearing that the man in the portrait of Jesus is Cesare Borgia the son of Pope Alexander VI. I know people like to say it's the message that matters but I thought that was interesting.

Sportsdigs wrote about Jesus 2000 years ago.

You would think that there would be some reports from the Roman commanders of the day saying that they finally took care of that jesus person who was causing so many problems. It's just not there. All written accounts of jesus of the bible were made long after his supposed time period. The evidence may exist and just has not been found yet or is sitting in some basement of some university.

So based on actual emperical evidence that is currently available, it's not looking good that the jesus of the bible existed. Was there some dude named jesus, probably, just not the one everyone reads about in the bible.

And molson is absolutely correct about religion being factually true or not because religion is based on faith, not facts. However, he is wrong about the atheism statement. Atheism is nothing but the disbelief in a god or gods, nothing more than that and it isn't about disproving religion or whether they are valid or not.

Getting back to Sun Tzu's original question...I think christianity is an amalgam of older stories and fables that had been around for centuries before it was founded. Some stories borrowed from the Egyptians, Greeks, Mesopotamians, etc...

Religion is based on faith, but not faith of facts being accurate. I think that part's misunderstood, by both believers and non-believers. If someone conclusively proves that say, Jesus didn't exisit, the countering faith isn't "well, I believe Jesus existed anyway".

I'm not really responding to anyone here that said anything to the contrary, just shooting the breeze....

I totally understand what you are saying. I just think, in my opinion, letting go of one's faith/beliefs/bias/etc... is probably one of the hardest things for a person to do, even when presented with evidence that goes against their faith/beliefs/bias/etc...

I wish more people would shoot the breeze about this stuff. :)

There are missing records for lots of people from that era, especially records scribed in distant colonies about events that Caeser would care less about. I think the lack of evidence proves very little, since the significance of the actual Jesus was not realized for hundreds of years after his death.

The other side of it is that religion requires faith. You can't see God, so you need faith to believe in him. The same would hold true for his earthly son, especially for those religions that believe they are the same person.

An interesting take on the similarities of Jesus' story would be if God intentionally made his son's life and stories similar to old myths to make him easier to accept for the masses. We do know that God changes from vengeful to loving after the Jews were taken as slaves...maybe he hired a good marketing director during this period as well!

It has been 20+ years, so I don't remember most of it.
The actual lecture was about what happened to Jesus in his early adult life.
In the bible, after his early childhood, he disappears until he is 30ish.
One of the possibilities the teacher threw out, using his teaching as evidence, was he traveled to the far east.



I agree.
I think a lot of the problem with Christianity today comes from trying to interpret the Bible as the literal truth. It is meant to teach a philosophy, not facts.

I agree that lack of evidence doesn't prove or disprove anything, but, when the evidence that does exist points to a different picture/story, logic would dictate that you have to make your conclusions based on the available data/evidence.

So, taking the available data we have:
Jesus of the bible = No
Some guy named Jesus = Yes
Some guy named Jesus morphed into the Jesus of the bible a few hundred years later = Possibly

Yes, the Old Testament was full of vengence and destruction. Definitely some great marketing like you said. :)

Well if you consider even Santa Claus is based on an actual person, I find it hard to believe there wasn't a Christ behind the stories. Maybe there were several and the stories eventually ended up being attributed to one person.

How closely Christ the person resembles Christ son of God, I can't guess.

Santa Claus is a good example. He could possibly be based on an actual living person, however, do we really believe in flying reindeer or elves that work in the North Pole making toys or him being able to get to every house in time before the day is over? I can't speak for everyone, but, I think it would be safe to say, No.

After enough years or decades, he went from Santa the philanthropist to Santa the magic elf, thanks to the imaginative minds of people.

I was actually making a Battlestar Galactica reference, but I'm quite taken with your interpretation. :)

First of all, North African Early Christianity rocks, i spent most of grad school learning and writing about those guys and gals

As far as the similarities I would tend to go with a Jung/Campbell explanation. I think our collective unconscious organically evolves as our societies evolve. In other words, "how you understand the nature of the world shapes how you go about knowing it."

I love Karl Rahner. He argues that man has a notion of the Mystery before learning our cultures "special revelation" ie knowledge of the Christ event. I think that "notion" creates the framework of our collective unconscious. Because it is outside of experience, and thus language, how it manifests itself can only be within our own cultural context and thus highly relative

Yes, if I were a follower of Yesuah (i.e., one of the Apostles ... and there is historical evidence that they existed), I would gladly suffer persecution and have my life cut short just to support my story about a fabricated individual who I really knew never existed.

I was unimpressed with the article that seems now to dominate the discussion. It was typical of an atheist supporting his position with an argument that only supports agnosticism - flawed logic and excessive certainty.

Let's set this straight - there is no lack of evidence. It's that the evidence is hearsay. We may not be prepared to put a man in jail on hearsay evidence but that doesn't mean that it's worthless. I suspect we act on hearsay evidence every day of our lives - hell, we would know nothing if we only accepted eye witness evidence.

And the more hearsay evidence the more probable that it's based on truth. And there's a lot of hearsay evidence about Jesus - about 30 gospels to begin with.

And I may be wrong here but isn't there one piece of eye witness evidence? Paul! Didn't Paul claim to communicate with Jesus on his Road to Damascus conversion?

Sure, you may consider him a nut, maybe wondering what he's been smoking, but you have an eye witness claiming to have spoken/seen Jesus (I'm not well up on the story so someone will probably put me right if I'm wrong here).

But, to begin with, the logic that something doesn't exist because there is no evidence is flawed. It simply doesn't follow. If you didn't live in a country that records births and deaths there would be no evidence that your great grandfather existed except "hearsay" evidence - your existence. You will find no eye witness evidence for his existence but he sure as hell existed.

I've considered this argument for some time and come to the conclusion that the reason for the lack of any contemporary written evidence is because Jesus was not the colossus of today but just a minor preacher in his own time. There was no reason for historians to write about him. He was just one of many radical preachers in Judea at the time. The story of Pilate's washing his hands of the case would support this. Judea was a hotbed of insurgency and Pilate had greater concerns than to trouble himself about a nonentity of a preacher from the sticks (Galilee) who preached "love your enemy". There were dozens of these preachers from Galilee (called the "mesmerics"). Jesus was just one of a crowd with a small collection of followers - not worth writing into the history books.

Yes I know that his followers claimed that thousands listened to him but, hey, if you're trying to convince others of the importance of your messiah you don't tell them that he preached a wonderful sermon to a crowd of thirty. A supporter never exaggerated before? There are people still think the 49ers are a football team ;)

My speculation, and I wouldn't claim it to be any higher than that but I think it fits the facts as we know them the best, is that Jesus was a minor preacher at the time and of no concern to authorities or historians. After his death the story was embellished - maybe ideas from other religions to build up the superhero image were borrowed (no shortage of them from Greek, Egyptian and far eastern travellers) - and followers, Paul in particular, transformed Jesus' reputation and consequently ministry from minor to major to massive.

It's a simple explanation but I think it best fits the facts - a minor religious figure (far from a legend in his own time) superbly supported by his followers. The question it leaves, of course, is how much of the stories are true and how much embellished/exaggerated/created? But I don't think there's any real reason to believe there's no basis behind the stories.

Arguing that just because there are many written accounts of someone doesn't mean they actually existed. The author of that article used the example of Hecules. He was written about by the greeks as if he actually existed. By your standards, he did.

Mac that was very well written, and I can see your point/s. However I also have to agree with bignej (unfortunately) in that with the logic that you're using, 1,000 years from now people will think The Easter Bunny was real.

Or Alexander the Great.

I fully agree with Mac Howard explanation. I think Jesus existed and was just another preacher. For any reason his story grew up more than others and Christianity expanded worldwide to what we know today. But from that to believe that he was the son of a god... there are a lot of holes in that theory that make it impossible for those of us without faith to believe it based just on writings possible manipulated by his followers.

I have not studied it but i wonder what was for example the starting point of sects/religions like Scientology (did a guy invent all that and it was it later exaggerated or made up by it's followers?) and what will be said about it in centuries from now or what about if it expands to become a major religion. Of course that won't happen as we live in the information age so it's was harder to make up stories, but just think on all the followers that sect and similar ones have that fully believe what they are told by their leaders.

Dutch actually makes a very good point.

A study of how ancient history is known at all is important. The Easter Bunny example doesn't hold, because it's not ancient history. We have historians, photographs, legal records, etc ... all methods of recording history now that didn't exist in the majority of the ancient world.

Fellows like Josephus, who actually recorded history for history's sake, were the very rare exception in the ancient world, not the rule - as we have now.

For that purpose, the Gospel writer Luke is as legitimate of a historian as any that existed during the day. Just because he believed in the cause of the history he recorded is not a disqualifier, as anyone recording history at all (outside of Greece/Rome, perhaps) recorded it to reflect their cause. Even Josephus, for his part, was only recording history to tell the Jewish story. Luke is no different.

Now, we do have certain archaelogical evidences of the time period, such as minted coins bearing the image of a Caesar or pottery and buildings depicting events in artistic form. But these, in the study of ancient history, are often sparsely found and just as likely to be artistic fabrications (i.e. Hercules).

So, outside of confirmational clues in the archeological record, how do ancient historians know anything about anyone from the few centuries surrounding Jesus alleged life? The PRIMARY way of establishing the facts of early Western/MidEastern Civilization is through the writings that have survived, the literary history. This changed centuries later, as Western Civilization spread and map-makers and recorders and historians began becoming more prevalent, until eventually the scientific mind became the norm as it has today. But this was not the case yet in Jesus day. And you cannot apply the same principles of today's scientific mind - "show me the proof and the legal record or it doesn't exist" - in the analysis of that time period. Not even Julius Caesar had a birth certificate, so you know there's no official record of a carpenter's son from the boondocks who was killed like a common criminal.

Instead, historians look to the literary record to determine the history of the time. Do we have writings that indicate this person existed? Are there multiple authors/confirmations? How many do we have? Were they read widely and affirmed, or localized? If enough literary evidence can be put together, there's an assumption that the event happened. How do we know, for example, that Rome burned under Nero? Not because of the insurance records. Not because of pots with Rome burning and Nero's face on it. Not because the official historians filing the Chronicles of Rome. We know because we have writings from all over the place talking about the burning and about the cruelty of Nero. Add that to what archeological evidence we do have, and we can assume the event happened. Same with Alex the Great, Julius Ceasar, the Assyrian and Babylonian kings, etc etc.

When the same standards are applied to Jesus, the evidence is overwhelming. There are far MORE transcripts, accounts, diverse authors, copies, widespread literary evidence of the existence (and, I'd argue, resurrection) of Jesus than there are a host of other, even significant political, historical figures. This is all quite stunning, considering he was a nobody from nowhere who did absolutely nothing politically but be killed. Will you find a birth certificate? No. Dead record? No. TV reel or any other documentation? No. But neither will you find it for any of the millions of Jews who lived and died during the centuries surrounding Jesus. That kind of historical record keeping didn't exist.

But if we use the same standards we apply to the rest of the ancient world, the evidence that Jesus lived stacks up with any of them.

I didn't argue that. My point was a lack of evidence does not prove non-existence and that the hearsay evidence we have allows for the possibility of his existence (not that it proves it). There are millions of people for whom there is no evidence that have existed. The lack of evidence comes from reasons other than non-existence - usually because there is little reason in most people's lives to record them.

But in this case there IS evidence - albeit hearsay evidence which, while not having the credibility of eye witness evidence, is not without some value particularly with the amount we have and the range of sources. So the argument is doubly false - no evidence does not prove non-existence and what's more there is evidence..

Note that I began by saying the article was guilty of excessive certainty. I finished by saying that my explanation was speculation. That is my whole point - we cannot be certain. The evidence adds up to an agnostic position but not an atheistic (or for that matter a believer's) one. We simply cannot be certain either way.

My "unknown-at-the-time preacher bolstered by supporters exaggerated stories" I think is more probable than his "created idea imposed on a fictitious human presented as fact" because it involves behaviour that is very common in human beings (exaggeration of the object of our commitment) whereas his is an artificial construct to justify a pre-existing belief (Jesus didn't exist). Certainly both explanations are possible and neither can be proved wrong so it is flawed for either to argue theirs is certain and the other's definitively wrong.

Where I disagree with the article is that he claims that an existing Jesus is speculation (correct) but his non-existent Jesus is fact (wrong). If you think about it, his allowing that an existing Jesus is a possibility destroys the possibility of the non-existence being fact. That is a common atheistic flaw - you cannot simultaneously allow the possibility something (such as God) and then claim that there definitely isn't one. That flaw is precisely why agnosticism and atheism are often confused.

As for Hercules - there may well be a human at the centre of the myth, not with all the characteristics of Hercules the myth but perhaps a particularly fierce warrior or some such individual, again we cannot know for certain.

As for the Easter Bunny - I'm not aware than anyone is saying it's real - are they? :eek:

The reason was Paul. He was the great communicator, the superb publicist (and it helped that he was an educated Roman citizen and allowed to speak his mind without being crucified). Even before Jesus, Judaism was gaining some sort of foothold in Greece but Paul recognised that the Jewish dietary laws and circumcision had all the appeal for potential converts of rampant herpes and stripped them away from the demands made by Peter and the desciples. In Paul's Christianity you only had to accept Jesus to become a believer. For Peter (and possibly Jesus) you had to become a Jew.

Paul was therefore able to claim Christianity was for all people - gentiles as well as Jews- which expanded his audience somewhat.

It has been argued that Paul was more important than Jesus. If it hadn't been for Paul, Christianity would, at best have remained a minority religion, at worst have faded from view. Christians may argue that was precisely why Jesus selected Paul to spread the message.

I've just read my post two up - it was written at two in the morning after watching another inept display by Man Utd. Sorry for that ;) I'll be more succinct:

The absence of eye witness evidence does not prove non-existence unless you can show all other explanations invalid.

Hearsay evidence may be less credible than eye witness evidence but you cannot proceed to "prove" non-existence by ignoring it all together.

You cannot claim to have proven your case when accepting the possibility of a contradictory case. Your own acceptance is an admission you've proved nothing. Claiming the alternative is "speculation" doesn't help particularly when your own is the same.

Those are the flaws in the article that I criticise above.

There are three possibilities

1) The whole story is true. To accept this you must accept the reality of supernatural events that are essentially unproven.

2) The whole story is a fiction. To accept this you must accept a proof that is flawed.

3) The story has a kernal of truth which has been exaggerated by followers. To accept this you need not accept unproven supernatural events or dubious proofs of non-existence merely an acceptance of very common human behaviour..

On a probability basis the third is probably the most likely ;)

Modern archeology is showing this to be true of many biblical stories - a kernal of truth with exaggerated descriptions and/or supernatural explanations from a people limited in their understanding of nature. The walls of Jericho have fallen (several times from earthquakes), societies destroyed by floods, there was a Semitic population in Egypt prior to the exodus (though not necessarily slaves), Israelites were captured and taken to Babylon and then released, a great temple was built and destroyed in Jerusalem twice (Solomon's and Herod's). And so on. Actual events often given supernatural and religious significance. The only archeological finds that might support the Jesus story would be written records but in 66 AD the Romans put Palestine to the sword, burnt Jerusalem and other Jewish cities to the ground - and what the temple could not withstand certainly papyrus would not . If there were records they would stand small chance of surviving - unless perhaps buried in a cave in the Judean wilderness (the Dead Sea Scrolls) or Egypt (the Gnostic Gospels). The second of these does support the Jesus story. This destruction might, indeed, be why the gospels date from after 70 AD - earlier writings being destroyed.

Isn't the hearsay evidence a bit sketchy too? Few, if any of those published accounts from that time really mention his full name. I don't believe any mention any of the miracles her performed. It's basically "hey there was this Cristos guy who was a teacher". Not, there was a guy named Jesus who walked on water, rose from the dead, etc.

The article stated that there was a possibility he existed. I think the author was pointing out that christians accept it as truth that this man not only lived but performed all of these miracles, yet noone cared to document his existence at all until 70 years after his death. Seriously if someone actually did some of those things, there should have been something somewhere. Jesus and whether he actually existed means nothing without the miracles. Like St. Nick in the Santa Claus example, he becomes simply some dude. The author is an obvious atheist but that doesn't negate his point. We wouldnt accept that someone existed and performed supernatural acts without some shred of evidence. Jesus (and Hercules) have no eyewitness account of their existence except for passed down info.

Shit, I feel like an idiot for worshipping the Easter Bunny all these years.

And, in doing so, undermined his own "proof". You cannot simultaneously say "maybe he existed" and "he definitely didn't". It has to be "maybe he existed and maybe he didn't". By allowing the possibility of Jesus' existence he shows little faith in his argument that he didn't.


Not if he did nothing that was deemed worthy of recording at the time or if the Romans destroyed such records when they destroyed the Jewish cities in the Jewish wars or 66-74 AD or if the newly formed Roman church destroyed them when they burnt all books that didn't directly support their particular interpretation of the stories in the 4th and 5th centuries. Today we know from discoveries in the Dead Sea and Nag Hammadi that monks hid documents from the orthodox priests/Romans in the first century and from the Roman church in the 4th in caves in the wilderness and desert precisely to ensure their survival from destruction. Who knows what else might still be hidden?

I didnt read anywhere in the article where he said that Jesus "definitely didnt exist". All that he is doing is pointing out the silliness of believing something based on hearsay.

Regardless of whether he was an actual person or not, it's safe to assume his life was rather uneventful. Accounts from that time mention him in passing and hardly give him the status of someone who walked on water and rose from the dead.

Josephus was know for his embelishments as well. So, I would take what he has written with a pillar of salt.

Also, if I remember correctly, Paul was not born until after Jesus had died and only had 'visions' of Jesus. Not quite what I'd call an eyewitness. :)

Josephus says nothing of note about Jesus and so his embellishments are meaningless. In fact Josephus' omission on Jesus is precisely why some say he didn't exist.

Paul claims to have seen and spoken to Jesus and describes the meeting. That is eye witness evidence. What it's worth is debatable but it remains eye witness evidence (which is often debatable).

There is ample 'evidence" for Jesus in written documents and not just the bible - it just isn't definitive proof. But to say there is no evidence is nonsense - it just isn't as convincing as we should like to justify belief in the whole story.

He claims to have met the resurrected Jesus.

Yes, and if my memory serves me well (and it may not) he said something to the effect "Why are you persecuting me?".

Just saying that I don't exactly count the vision of a resurrected person as an "eyewitness account". More like a guy who is probably fucking crazy.

So...
Everyone who is Christian is crazy?
It is the core of the religion.

Paul's visions of Jesus do not count in my opinion, simply because now we are in the supernatural world. No different than Edgar Cayce saying that he had visions of Jesus. They would be no more or less credible than Paul's, yet, I am sure we would cast a doubtful eye towards Cayce.

Just look at George Washington.

I don't think most people would dispute he existed.
But look at the myths that are built around him: throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac, chopping down the cherry tree, etc.
If he lived 2000 years ago, just going by the stories, it would be hard to accept he was a real person.

I cast a doubtful eye on the whole supernatural thing, JediKooper, and certainly put down Paul's eye witness evidence as being dubious in the extreme. But I'm pointing to the argument that there is no evidence. There is plenty of evidence and even one example (or as you point out possibly other occasions we may not be aware of) of an eye witness account.

The first problem with that article is that he immediately dismisses any evidence which might upset his case. He doesn't just call it questionable - he dismisses it outright. He does so, I think, because he's trying to prove a pre-determined position - Jesus doesn't exist - coming from his atheism and evidence of any sort gets in the way.

There simply is no evidence that Jesus did not exist and plenty that he did. In fact it's difficult to know what evidence you could have to prove his non-existence outside of suddenly a document coming up that credibly states "I made it all up". So, in the absence of any worthwhile proof of his belief he stretches the argument.

The lack of any definitive evidence is certainly a concern but to say it is a definitive factor is to assume:

a) Jesus was important enough at that time to justify a record of his actions

b) any records have not been destroyed - either by time, reuse or deliberate destruction by antagonistic authority.

I don't think anything in Jesus' story, once you put aside the supernatural, justifies any real national importance in his lifetime and I'm aware of the destruction of all that is Jewish by the Romans in 66-74 AD and all that is not in exact lockstep with the Pauline church in the 4th of 5th centuries. So it's feasible that nothing was ever written and, if it was, has been destroyed one way or another.

Well it would if you rejected the idea that beneath all the hype there was a human being that, while not necessarily justifying it, triggered it. But you're correct in what you suggest - there are billions of people for whom there is no evidence whatsoever, let alone the level of hearsay evidence we have for Jesus, that have existed. History would be thinly populated indeed if we insisted that everyone for whom there was no evidence hadn't existed :)

I just rolled my eyes after reading the first paragraph.

Shroud of turin?
Maybe easy to dismiss, but it does not do your creditability any good pretending it does not exist.

source?
You have a copy of all contemporary Roman records?


Again source?
Stating opinion as fact.


Ever read a history book?
Lies!!!
hearsay!!!

I am just saying that debating if Christ existed or not is kind of a moot point.

edit.
Just because someone existed does not make the stories any more (or less) believable.

It does not do your creditability any good pretending that it's authentic or worth mentioning as anything except a clever fraud.


There are existing contemporary sources from a bunch of people, and none mention Jesus. Go back and check my link on the first page.


It's not opinion. There is NO existing contemporary evidence mentioning Jesus. Again, read my link. Find me a single piece if you can. If it existed it would be a big deal, and all over google no doubt. Search on.



I've read a ton. Any history book worth a damn uses primarily contemporary evidence as much as possible, and where it can't and is instead relying on non-contemporary or untrustworthy evidence, it would say so.

I don't see how it can be a moot point. If Christ DIDN'T exist, well, doesn't that sort of make Christianity itself a moot point? If he DID exist, yeah, sure, it doesn't mean that any of the NT is true, it just means that it did in fact start with a dude named Jesus. Still, that would be slightly more promising for believers.

The lack of any contemporary evidence not only talking about Jesus himself, but also about the pretty spectacular miracles he is supposed to have performed - you know, the kind of things you'd figure would get people talking - would be pretty worrying to me if I was trying to prove Christianity and Jesus Christ were real, and not another religion of many that have come and gone on this strange little planet of ours.

The reason I said it is a moot point is that,
if You are a Christian: you will believe in Christ, no matter if there is historical evidence or not.
(I do not believe there is any way to prove he didn't exist)

If you do not: having a actual Christ will not prove he was the son of god.

Fraud?
Source?

As I said it is out there and people believe it.
If you say nothing exist, but people say what about....
You need to at least acknowledge that it is there.



???
You are making a statement about something that happened 2000 years ago and challenging me to prove it it wrong using google?

I am not a biblical scholar or an archaeologist.
But if you make a claim about such things i expect you to have someone in those field to back you up.
Stating opinion as fact.

*I see a bunch of sources at the bottom.
But without citing them in the actual essay they are worthless.

**
"There is NO existing contemporary evidence mentioning Jesus"
Do you have listing of everyone crucified?
Or perhaps a listing of all miracles performed and the performer?

At least state what you are referring to here.
Are there court records? Newspaper clippings? stone tablets?




Of course every book written in the first century adhered to this literary standard.

There have been numerous tests done on the shroud that proved it isn't authentic or as old as it was said to be. It's like someone using the human footprint that was intentionally planted below a dinosaur footprint fossil by a creationist to prove that humans did exist at the same time as dinosaurs.



No, I'm making a statement that something doesn't exist. There is NO contemporary evidence in existence. How am I supposed to dig up something that doesn't exist. If you think it does, or that it might exist, google it. You won't find anything that isn't refuted in the link I provided you.


No, to both counts. I don't see the relevance here? I don't think there has ever been a miracle of any form performed EVER by ANYONE. By it's very definition, a miracle should never take place, except by supernatural means, and I don't see any evidence that that's ever happened.


No. Don't be lazy. Read the link. It details several important people who were alive and writing at the time of Jesus. Some of them Jews, some not. None of them mention Jesus or any miracles. These are all we have that are contemporary and originating in the area around where Jesus was supposed to be.


Correct. It's NOT a history book. Yet it describes a history of the world and mankind, and there are a lot of people who consider it a history book.

I guess its back to the same tired same argument given to "prove" god exists. "....but you can't prove that he didn't exist".

+1

You make some good points. I think the key is, look at the evidence that does exist and does that evidence hold up. If the evidence is credible, then you have to include it any analysis being done. I don't know if this guys atheism is getting in the way or he doesn't feel the evidence is credible, I have no idea.

I think it's definitely an interesting subject, but, with the actual events being from so long ago, I don't think there will be a definitive yes or no.

Well, yes and no.

I think the inescapable fact is that to be a Christian you have to accept the NT on it's own merits, as there is nothing independent that confirms the wonderous things written in it. Faith, in other words. And this is why for me it slots in comfortably next to every other religion in the world. It just happens to be the one I'm surrounded by more-so than the others.

This thread reminds me of environmentalists to some extent.

Earth's temperature at 400-year high
Earth's temperature at 400-year high - CNET News




How do we go from 400 years ago looking at pictures of caves and glaciers to the man-made Industrial Era beginning 300 years later to "prove" Global Warming?

Faith?

Are they wrong? I'm not sure.

Well, it took 4 centuries before the first council of Oceana to get the story of global warming out to the people. ;)

And how many centuries of mega-taxation before it's popular to question it? ;)

That's precisely what I'm saying - the nature of the evidence and the manner in which we've received it means there is inevitably a significant "not known" element in the subject. My disagreement with the article is that it assumes far too great a certainty than it can reasonably claim.

To move from "no evidence" to "no existence" can only be acceptable when all alternative reasons for the lack of evidence have been eliminated. In the case of the Jesus story there are at least two other explanations for that lack of evidence - that durable evidence was never created because he was not of sufficient importance at the time or that evidence was destroyed either by time, reuse, carelessness or deliberately destroyed perhaps by the Romans in 66-74 AD or the new Pauline church in the 4th and 5th centuries.

For me it's simply a case of "no smoke without fire". There's an awful lot of smoke to deal with and the most straight forward explanation of this is that there is a figure of Jesus on which the hype is then built to promote his message after his death. I see no reason to come up with a more imaginative explanation than this.

Just seen a program on the History channel, Sun Tzu , which I suspect is based on the book you read and triggered the start of the thread. Interesting but not convincing. I was not impressed at all by the rationalisation in the final analysis with which the priest/author hung on to his faith :)

I would love to know what the special...or at least the book is that this special was based on. I am in absolutely no way, shape, or form an expert on any of this stuff. I find all of this very interesting be though I'm leaning towards the option of jesus existing but being just your average ordinary joe. My "Easter bunny" example was meant to show that by the logic that was being used In said post, that we could make the arguement that any mythical person/creature existed because...hey a lot of people wrote about it, and who's to say that they didn't exist? I'm also very open however to reading some suggested material that may have a logical explanation as to how Jesus did perform all of these miracles...or even one of them for that matter.

Thanks again for the great reading so far. Please forgive any grammatical errors here. I'm posting from my new iPhone. This thing is awesome but will take some getting used to.

Some flawed thinking in the arguments about "Why no recordings of Jesus' miracles? I mean, if the guy walked on water, wouldn't that merit some record, somewhere?"

Answer: No.

For in the historical context, one has to consider, where and before whom were these alleged miracles performed? Rural Israel and Judea, among typically small crowds of uneducated peasants, nobodies and priests (who more often than not attributed his "miracles" to black magic or trickery).

Imagine same scenario today: A man walks across a lake in rural Minnesota before a crowd of 10 people. What record would exist? The news media (which they didn't have back then) would interview the witnesses...but who would believe them? Would this become "national news"? Would it make the NYT best-sellers list? Heck no. And the media and press didn't exist then. Would a Roman official make a record of it? No. "Crazy Jews dreaming up their Messiah again, eh, Flavius? Tell 'em to shut up and pay their taxes."

The only highly public miracle Jesus performed before educated crowds in a major city of political importance...his resurrection. And what do we have? Eyewitness accounts recorded by a LEGITIMATE historian of the day, Dr. Luke. A flood of accounts written - while Jesus' contemporaries were still alive (not while Jesus was alive, the resurrection happened after his death, obviously) and while eyewitnesses were still around to confirm or deny the reports - about the resurrection.

A bit of historical perspective makes it obvious: there wouldn't be any "records" of his miracles to look up. We have one legitimate record of his life, Luke's. Three, if you count Matthew and John (not going to get into the Mark controversy in this thread). Paul (who was alive during Jesus lifetime), wrote about it extensively 10-20 years later (not 70), even saying to his readers: "Don't believe me? Check with the eyewitnesses; they're still alive."

Asking for more proof that Jesus existed is asking for the unreasonable. Like asking for proof of the existence of Joseph, his father, or Mary, his mother. Good luck with that. The fact that we have so MUCH about Jesus is the remarkable fact, not that we have so little.

There is one example that I know of off the top of my head, though unrelated to Jesus. It's the story of the parting of the Red Sea. It was possibly mistranslated to where the actual meaning was, the Sea of Reeds and when a low tide came in, people could very easily travel across without drowning. I think that fits within a reasonable logical explaination.

Paul has always interested me as a historical figure. Some of the above mentions have brought to mind how when the first Christians, especially converts outside of Judea, worshipped, they didn't have a "New Testament" to pray with (of course). You could even argue the Old Testament was of little use to the mostly Jewish converts, as they had to have been disenchanted by both the differences in teachings between the Pharisees and Jesus, and also by being persecuted among their own people (Christianity was largely regarded as a Jewish outlier cult in the early years after Jesus's death). Gentile converts, of course, wouldn't even have had the Old Testament.

Without a book in which the events of Jesus's life was recorded, there had to be tellings and re-tellings of the stories over and over again to keep the stories alive and known. Of course, it's possible (perhaps even likely if the few who could read or write were put to use) that copies of the early stories were written down that have simply not survived. But from this point in history, it has the appearance that Chrisitianity was almost entirely oral in nature in its first few decades.

Happy Resurrection Day everyone! :)

w00t!

No Rainmaking on my parade today!

And yesterday was Zombie Jesus Day. How on Earth did we miss this obvious connection to the coming Zombie Apocalypse?

This in itself is an interesting point that also isn't unique to Christianity, and is worthy of a thread of its own rather than expanding on here and dragging this thing too OT.


Of course. In the example above, everyone would think they were nuts, and would demand to see it again for themselves. This is because common sense tells us that man can't ordinarily walk across the surface of water. Only the most naive of people would believe something like this without seeing it for themselves.


There is no certainty as to who wrote any of the gospels, nor when they were written. Most biblical historians date the first gospel as Mark's, written sometime after the year 70 AD, roughly 40 or more years since Jesus likely would have been crucified. Mark's gospel is referenced by both Matthew (~600 references) and Luke (~300 references), placing them well beyond the lifespan of the average human who would have been contemporary to Jesus.

The author of Luke himself admits to being an interpreter of earlier events passed on to him:

" ¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." - Luke 1:1-4

Remembering here that he is getting his information from "uneducated peasants, nobodies and priests (who more often than not attributed his "miracles" to black magic or trickery)", more than half a century later.


If we were talking about a man walking across water, sure. Jesus raises four people from the dead, including himself, cures just about ever disease known in his time, and feeds a crowd of people with next to no bread or fish, next to many more. These are all acts that are miracles in the "no freaking way should this happen" sense, and there are lots of them. People would take notice of this kind of thing. We have the writings of Romans and Jews around these poor and miserable areas that this happened. None of them put a single letter to paper about any of it.


Again, this is contrary to what biblical historians believe, who date these gospels far later.


We'll have to agree to disagree. We have just as much proof of every single other major religious figure.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.