• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

History and Jesus

Glaurung

Denizen of Niflheim
We have to read an entire book/s to determine that Jesus is historical? Houston, we have a problem.
What do you expect? The entire mainstream case for Jesus in a sentence?

Historians accept the historicity of Jesus because he is abundantly attested in historical sources. Rejection of those sources as insufficient, amounts to an isolated demand for rigor. (Unless you're equally willing to throw out pretty much everyone else we know from antiquity).

 
Last edited:

Glaurung

Denizen of Niflheim
You have not provided any explanation for Christmas trees magical elves magical flying sleds santa clause or any of the rest of it.
Santa isn't pre-Christain. But as for various cultural holdovers I wrote:

Now it is true that as various peoples Christianized they retained certain cultural artifacts of pagan origin. For example, the English days of the week are references to Germanic deities. Christmas trees may have origins in Germanic winter celebrations. The alphabet itself was obviously retained by Christians as were many of the great philosophical and literary works of antiquity. But none of this is a problem unless one makes the typically Protestant error of assuming that anything of pagan origin is by that fact alone incompatible with Christianity. It's not. The Church as it is said, rejects nothing authentically good. Christmas trees and Easter eggs, far from being insidious forms of pagan worship, are in fact harmless cultural artifacts. And there is nothing wrong with that. It in no way detracts from the Christian nature of the culture and the said feasts in question.
 
Last edited:

Riders

Well-Known Member
Santa isn't pre-Christain. But as for various cultural holdovers I wrote:


Oh no no one said it was pre Christian. I believe the Catholic church when they were trying to convert Christians in Europe 13 14 1500s were responsible .

They were writing about Christmas trees bringing in the popularity of Santa Claus and elves. They were trying to reach Pagans and added some Pagan thoughts and rituals to bring them in. But let me fact check that to make sure.

No it was not pre Christian.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
What do you expect? The entire mainstream case for Jesus in a sentence?

Historians accept the historicity of Jesus because he is abundantly attested in historical sources.

What are his historical sources?

Rejection of those sources as insufficient, amounts to an isolated demand for rigor. (Unless you're equally willing to throw out pretty much everyone else we know from antiquity).

That video ad for his book wouldn't say what his historical sources were, you have to read the book to find that out, (spoiler alert), they're The Bible. Read your Bible lest we reject his sources as insufficient, 'cause we know what that amounts to.
 
Last edited:

Riders

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry I know I'm off topic on my topic.I think I will bow out. If I offended anyone I apologize.

I need to take a break from debating so much. I should not be debating this much maybe its just a negative thing to do. I'm gonna try and drop out of debating for awhile. have fun on the thread.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
I'm sorry I know I'm off topic on my topic.I think I will bow out. If I offended anyone I apologize.

I need to take a break from debating so much. I should not be debating this much maybe its just a negative thing to do. I'm gonna try and drop out of debating for awhile. have fun on the thread.

Debating whatever Jesus was or wasn't is like that, as any sport can be.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
Traditionally Jews didn't argued that Jesus never existed, they argued that he was not the Messiah. This is often presented as evidence that he did exist as a historical figure. That early opponents didn't question his existence is evidence that they believed he was a real person.

Obviously this does not mean that the Gospels are therefore an accurate representation of his life though.

Accurate representations of his life appear to be hard to come by. We have those with strong convictions that he was a mythical persona from the get go to those declaring an historical Jesus in a real time and place, and all this from reading the same religious texts, which BTW are all we have to go on. So it boils down to interpretation. What can we know, what do we have real knowledge of? Maybe suspending belief is the best option for now.
 
Top