There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[Colt]

It tells us nothing about whether it's true or not.

Jim Jones had hundreds of followers too. Followers who were willing to take their own lives, and their children's lives. People believe stuff. Doesn't make it true.

I guess people dying for dedication to a conspiracy myth doesn't seam true to me. Billions lived on this earth for whom there is no eyewitness proof!

 

[Colt]

Where can we read these 500 testimonies?

They didn't write any that we know of. I suppose they weren't thinking of the carping critiques of the next age. Besides, those accounts that people did write are dismissed as well so they were wise not to waste their time!

 

[RestlessSoul]

That the answer was wrong is critical to my point. As you say, my mind fooled itself into believing it was correct so I could get to sleep. Later, my mind convinced itself that I was communicating with God. Same thing, in essence.

And yes, a colleague worked out what the problem was and we fixed it, to my great relief.

Maybe you should have more trust in that part of yourself you don’t understand.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Maybe you should have more trust in that part of yourself you don’t understand.

Why should one trust what one doesn't understand? Seems like a bad idea.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

It tells us nothing about whether it's true or not.

Jim Jones had hundreds of followers too. Followers who were willing to take their own lives, and their children's lives. People believe stuff. Doesn't make it true.

There was also David Koresh, who proclaimed that he was the final prophet and "the Son of God, the Lamb," and his followers truly believed in him.

 

[SkepticThinker]

They didn't write any that we know of. I suppose they weren't thinking of the carping critiques of the next age. Besides, those accounts that people did write are dismissed as well so they were wise not to waste their time!

Anybody can say 500 people saw something. So what? That's not evidence.
On top of that we're talking about an extraordinary claim of seeing a dead person walking around.

 

[Augustus]

What is the evidence for Jesus the human? Forget about Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny and all those other bogus references. None of them mention Jesus the Christ. Josephus is an interpolation that's already been proved.

The evidence for a normal human on who the legends are based would include the movement that developed from his followers close to his lifetime, the Gospels and Paul’s writings, features of this writing that are better explained by a historical Jesus rather than a celestial Jesus, the lack of any near contemporary sources who doubt his existence despite their hostility, the references in Josephus, Tacitus, etc. (and, no, most secular experts do not consider them to be proven bogus despite your assertion) and several other points that make more sense with a real person.

While it can’t be definitively proven and remains a balance of probability question, for basically any other historical figure, there wouldn’t be that much doubt as to them being real rather than a pure invention.

This is why mythicism remains a fringe position that is mostly the preserve of those with an ideological axe to grind.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Why should one trust what one doesn't understand? Seems like a bad idea.

Because some things, indeed many things, are beyond human understanding.

For that matter, trusting what one doesn’t understand, but which one intuitively feels to be right, is actually a reasonable definition of faith. And without faith, how does one have the courage to embrace life?

 

[Colt]

Anybody can say 500 people saw something. So what? That's not evidence.
On top of that we're talking about an extraordinary claim of seeing a dead person walking around.

If it happened today we would have the ability to record it all but he came down from heaven in a very different age.

 

[Thrillobyte]

The evidence for a normal human on who the legends are based would include the movement that developed from his followers close to his lifetime, the Gospels and Paul’s writings, features of this writing that are better explained by a historical Jesus rather than a celestial Jesus, the lack of any near contemporary sources who doubt his existence despite their hostility, the references in Josephus, Tacitus, etc. (and, no, most secular experts do not consider them to be proven bogus despite your assertion) and several other points that make more sense with a real person.

While it can’t be definitively proven and remains a balance of probability question, for basically any other historical figure, there wouldn’t be that much doubt as to them being real rather than a pure invention.

This is why mythicism remains a fringe position that is mostly the preserve of those with an ideological axe to grind.

Don't you think that Jesus' father, who likely wanted people to believe in Jesus, should have and could have left a Library of Congress-size mountain of evidence for Jesus that was so unassailable, so convincing that no atheist in his right mind could deny Jesus was the son of God come to die and rise for our sins? Why didn't God? The proof God didn't leave such evidence is that we are having this conversation and it has over 1000 contentious posts for and against.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Where can we read these 500 testimonies?

Do you know how you can tell a story to several people over time and the initial story changes dramatically because some people either forget what was said, so they guess and make up something to fill in the blanks, or they add their own narratives to embellish the story? I believe that could be the reason why the stories of Jesus spread from region to region and that some of these stories about him were embellished to make him appear to be godlike or even God himself. In my opinion, based on the information I've read, I believe that if Jesus actually existed, then he was just an ordinary man and a very popular, zealous religious leader of his time. I also believe that many of his stories were embellished to make him appear to be more than he was, and that other stories about him were copied and adapted from Greek mythology and a few other ancient pagan religions to give him godlike qualities (such as a divine birth, miraculously healing the sick, performing supernatural miracles, walking on water, raising the dead, and being raised from the dead).

 

[SkepticThinker]

I guess people dying for dedication to a conspiracy myth doesn't seam true to me. Billions lived on this earth for whom there is no eyewitness proof!

Nine hundred people committed suicide and killed their children because they really believed in the crap Jim Jones was selling them.
People dedicate themselves to lies all the time.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Because some things, indeed many things, are beyond human understanding.

For that matter, trusting what one doesn’t understand, but which one intuitively feels to be right, is actually a reasonable definition of faith. And without faith, how does one have the courage to embrace life?

How can one trust that which they don't understand?
Sounds like a pathway to error, if you ask me.

 

[Thrillobyte]

Do you know how you can tell a story to several people over time and the initial story changes dramatically because some people either forget what was said, so they guess and make up something to fill in the blanks, or they add their own narratives to embellish the story? I believe that is a partial reason why the stories of Jesus spread from region to region and that some of these stories about him were embellished to make him appear to be godlike or even God himself. In my opinion, based on the information I've read, I believe that if Jesus actually existed, then he was just an ordinary man and a very popular, zealous religious leader of his time. I also believe that many of his stories were embellished to make him appear to be more than he was, and that other stories about him were copied and adapted from Greek mythology and a few other ancient pagan religions to give him godlike qualities (such as a divine birth, miraculously healing the sick, performing supernatural miracles, raising the dead, and being resurrected from the dead).

It was an attempt by the Christian churchmen to turn a spirit Jesus into a physical man god like Hercules, Romulus and Mithra so that Jesus would more better compete with these human gods for drawing pagans into the Christian religion. Paul originally believed Jesus was not human, he was an angel of God. Churchmen didn't like this version of Jesus so they made him into a god in a human body.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Do you know how you can tell a story to several people over time and the initial story changes dramatically because some people either forget what was said, so they guess and make up something to fill in the blanks, or they add their own narratives to embellish the story? I believe that could be the reason why the stories of Jesus spread from region to region and that some of these stories about him were embellished to make him appear to be godlike or even God himself. In my opinion, based on the information I've read, I believe that if Jesus actually existed, then he was just an ordinary man and a very popular, zealous religious leader of his time. I also believe that many of his stories were embellished to make him appear to be more than he was, and that other stories about him were copied and adapted from Greek mythology and a few other ancient pagan religions to give him godlike qualities (such as a divine birth, miraculously healing the sick, performing supernatural miracles, walking on water, raising the dead, and being raised from the dead).

Yep, it's a long line of the telephone game with some copying and embellishments thrown into the mix.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Nine hundred people committed suicide and killed their children because they really believed in the crap Jim Jones was selling them.
People dedicate themselves to lies all the time.

Yep, people dedicate themselves to lies all the time.

Your statement sort of reminds me of Donald Trump standing before his faithful followers and telling them that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and they believed him without question, despite all of the proven evidence otherwise (such as the 60+ failed lawsuits to overturn the election, which includes a SCOTUS case), and then his followers went back home and began to spread this lie of a stolen election to other Trump followers who weren't present and to anyone else who would listen. And now, to this very day, there are thousands of faithful Trump supporters who still genuinely believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. Not to mention the fact that thousands of these easily influenced people believed in this lie so much that they violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempted coup to overturn the presidential election results in Trump's favor. The point I'm trying to make is that there are a lot of people in this world who will typically believe anything if they can be persuaded in their own minds that what they are told is the absolute truth, even though their sincere beliefs have been repeatedly demonstrated to be wrong and misleading.

 

[Augustus]

Don't you think that Jesus' father, who likely wanted people to believe in Jesus, should have and could have left a Library of Congress-size mountain of evidence for Jesus that was so unassailable, so convincing that no atheist in his right mind could deny Jesus was the son of God come to die and rise for our sins? Why didn't God? The proof God didn't leave such evidence is that we are having this conversation and it has over 1000 contentious posts for and against.

Why would the human Jesus’ father have been able to leave a library of congress sized pile of evidence?

He was presumably a lower class Jew or perhaps even a Roman legionary and they tend not to have magical powers.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Because some things, indeed many things, are beyond human understanding.

If I don't understand something, I don't understand it. That's precisely why to not trust it. Trusting what you don't understand is flat out dangerous.

For that matter, trusting what one doesn’t understand, but which one intuitively feels to be right, is actually a reasonable definition of faith. And without faith, how does one have the courage to embrace life?

But I never have an intuition that that which I don't understand is right.

As for embracing life, on average, I find it trivially easy. When things get rough, it isn't things I don't understand that help me.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yep, people dedicate themselves to lies all the time.

"Your statement sort of reminds me of Donald Trump standing before his faithful followers and telling them that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and they believed him without question, despite all of the proven evidence otherwise (such as the 60+ failed lawsuits to overturn the election, which includes a SCOTUS case), and then his followers went back home and began to spread this lie of a stolen election to other Trump followers who weren't present and to anyone else who would listen. And now, to this very day, there are thousands of faithful Trump supporters who still genuinely believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. Not to mention the fact that thousands of these easily influenced people believed in this lie so much that they violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempted coup to overturn the presidential election results in Trump's favor. The point I'm trying to make is that there are a lot of people in this world who will typically believe anything if they can be persuaded in their own minds that what they are told is the absolute truth, even though their sincere beliefs have been repeatedly demonstrated to be wrong and misleading."


I was just thinking this exact thing. And this all happened in a time with endless recordings, documentation, testimony, video and photo evidence, etc., etc. which we definitely don't have for Bible stories and claims.

 

[RestlessSoul]

How can one trust that which they don't understand?
Sounds like a pathway to error, if you ask me.

Going through life in fear of error sounds like a pathway to nowhere, to me.