Is there any historic proof that Jesus existed?

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A conspiracy to undermine Judaism? By whom? The only people with enough power and resources to pull off such a scam would be the Roman government. They even had a motive to do in the Jews. But the fact is, Christianity was illegal in the Roman world till the time of Constantine, and Christians faced torture and death. So much for that theory.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

So you want me to lose 30 minutes of my time to listen to your video, and then do a background check? Sorry, but it's your job to convince me, not mine to come to your "truth".


I don't understand the sentence as a whole. Could you rephrase that?

However, two issues:
a) There are no corroborating sources on almost everything in the Ancient Era. Minor events "at the time" are generally not known at all.
b) All cults are similar to previous cults. Humans are humans. We always absorb influences. Christianity (and christology) did not materialize in a vacuum.


The Bible as a whole is full of fanciful stories. The Old Testament especially. That is not the issue. The Gospels were first written relatively close to the events they describe. They are not perfect, but they have to be analized as historical documents -- that is what they are. Their insight on the beginning of Christianity is not to be dismissed, especially since it's all there is.

I know how the Bible was made. The canon was established at Nicaea (or was it Chalcedon?) from various ealier texts. Important Greek scholars decided which were inspired by God, and which were not. As such, all books should be understood as a different document from the others. Don't patronize me. I know my stuff (kind of).

By the way, you will notice that you have not given any reason why your conspiracy theory of Christianity is more accurate than my simple hypothesis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PICEKwnkhA&feature=related[/youtube]

This is mostly right. It was Nicaea. That particular council was more of a formality than anything else, though. The books that were approved as canon were ones that had already come into widespread use among the churches. There were probably a few variances, of course, but these books were the ones most held in common.

From what I understand, the criteria for acceptance was based on: 1. Divinely inspired; 2. Jewish origins; 3. Apostolic origins, i.e. personally knew Jesus and on mission for His cause. The Apocrypha have never been accepted as canon, for instance. The Gnostics can generally be shown to have a later date of writing and are horribly inconsistent with the canon gospels. The letter to the Hebrews, which is canon, seems a little iffy, but only because it seems to have 2nd generation origins. It COULD have been written by Paul, but we really don't know for certain. But it's not inconsistent with the other writings, either. So if it were in such wide use at the time the canon was drawn up, there are likely good reasons for that--it was already known to meet the criteria.

Surely a prophet as great as Jesus Christ would been aware his presence alone would bring about the suffering and death of millions of people.
He may have existed, but he was a useless prophet if he didn’t understand his existence would cause such mayhem.

He didn’t leave much of an impression with the hundreds of perverted priest who molest little boy’s through-out the world.

Don't blame Jesus. What people did out of what he said is not his fault.

He wasn't a "great prophet", he was a minor prophet. The cult grew after his death.

Exactly my point, such a being as Jesus Christ would have been aware that his message to the world would be misinterpreted and used to control others. It created a follower and leader society in the name of religion.

I live with a very different form of Aspergers that goes from mild to severe autism, my mind slows down. I have predicted the death of three people in my life before they died. They were not sick, I sensed and knew they were going to die.
My point is if I’m able to tap into a state of mind that allows me to predict the future, and I’m no super human, then just imagine how great the mind of Jesus Christ would have been.

Albert Einstein said that if we could use our mind to its full potential, we would be pure energy. Jesus Christ would have been a fully evolved human being. Maybe he did walk on water, but he wasn’t very good at seeing into the future.

What good came out of his presence anyway, lots of suffering as far as history is concerned, war and mayhem.

Marie Curie presence was well worth while, her work with radium still aids people today, she lived to help others, nobody ever died or suffered in the name of Marie Curie.

No no no, he was a very normal human being, as "fully evolved" as you and I, but possibly with some kind of psychotic disorder or a strong desire for attention.

He certainly did not walk on water, cure blind men or come back from the dead. At least, we have no way to know, since historical documents can't prove that something impossible happened.

Use your GPS transponder. That is one of the proofs that Albert Einstein existed.

ruveyn

If Jesus Christ was human like the rest of us then he must have had "Impure Thoughts" he either had wet dreams or masturbated.

Not my thoughts, something Charles Darwin noted.

... Why wouldn't he?

Exactly...

That is correct. It should also be remembered that it was at Nicaea where "Trinitarian" Christianity became recognized by the Roman state as the official religion, leaving Arianism, Nestorianism, and other forms of Christianity out in the cold.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

This is going to take some time to please you, but I will eventually slog through all this.

First things first:

They never talked about the books of the Bible at the First Council of Niacea. See here. I don't think you want the Wikipedia article on the Council given how you are framing your posts. It took a while and a long time to make the Bible...well, at least one Bible, there is that problem of which one is actually correct given all the different denominations.

This is your turn to prove me wrong. As well as Kraichgauer and AngelRho if they want.

Explain to me what evidence you need for the anti-Semitism claim. You don't think the whole Jewish mob wanting Jesus' head is good enough?

Last edited by iBlockhead on 04 Sep 2012, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The only evidence we have for the existence of Godzilla is the fact that the legends speak of a city called 'Tokyo' in a far-off land called 'Japan' or 'Nippon'. Since the location can be found today and in the real world, does this mean that Godzilla is or was real?

By the same token, does the fact that places mentioned in the Bible correspond with real-world locations today prove beyond any doubt the Jesus the Christ (as depicted in the Bible) actually existed?

Fiction writers often set their stories in real-world locations. This does not make their characters real.

To be honest, I generally don't like quoting websites at all, but you did the effort to summarize what you had to say, and the information was easily available. I can't say I'm more knowledgeable on this, so I will give you the point.

Nevertheless, the core point of my argument on this was that each of the books of the Bible should be treated as a separate document. The exact way by which the canon was decided does not adress this.



Christians don't necessarly like new Christian sects, yet the latter are not anti-Christian. At that point, the followers of Jesus were just another sect. I don't see how it was anti-semitic, since most early followers were Jewish.


That's a bad way to frame the question. The "as depicted in the Bible" is necessarily untrue, because many events in the Gospels are entirely impossible.

The important question is: Why was it written? It was not written as a piece of fiction (like Godzilla). It was not the definite transcription of a mythical tradition (like the Illiad or the Old Testament). It was the (biased, transformed, inaccurate, etc.) relation of events seen or heard by the people who wrote it. It is not perfect, but it's all we've got.