What about Jesus?

[declanr]

Hello,

As I said before I need a testimony of Christ before I can further bother with the LDS church and Joseph Smith, Has anyone here done any in depth research into the historicity of Jesus Christ? Anyone read the Jesus puzzle, or the "case for Christ"? Please read below and give your thoughts.

I have taken it for granted that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Some writers feel a need to justify this assumption at length against people who try from time to time to deny it. It would be easier, frankly, to believe that Tiberius Caesar, Jesus' contemporary, was a figment of the imagination than to believe that there never was such a person as Jesus.

- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996)

For most of my life, I had taken it for granted that Jesus, although certainly not a god, was nevertheless an historical personage - perhaps a magician skilled in hypnosis. To be sure, I knew that some of the world's greatest scholars had denied his existence. Nevertheless, I had always more or less supposed that it was improbable that so many stories could have sprung up about someone who had never existed. Even in the case of other deities, such as Zeus, Thor, Isis, and Osiris, I had always taken it for granted that they were merely deified human heroes: men and women who lived in the later stages of prehistory - persons whose reputations got better and better the longer the time elapsed after their deaths. Gods, like fine wines, I supposed, improved with age.

About a decade ago, however, I began to reexamine the evidence for the historicity of Jesus. I was astounded at what I didn't find. In this article, I would like to show how shaky the evidence is regarding the alleged existence of a would-be messiah named Jesus. I now feel it is more reasonable to suppose he never existed. It is easier to account for the facts of early Christian history if Jesus were a fiction than if he once were real.

Burden of Proof

Although what follows may fairly be interpreted to be a proof of the non-historicity of Jesus, it must be realized that the burden of proof does not rest upon the skeptic in this matter. As always is the case, the burden of proof weighs upon those who assert that some thing or some process exists. If someone claims that he never has to shave because every morning before he can get to the bathroom he is assaulted by a six-foot rabbit with extremely sharp teeth who trims his whiskers better than a razor - if someone makes such a claim, no skeptic need worry about constructing a disproof. Unless evidence for the claim is produced, the skeptic can treat the claim as false. This is nothing more than sane, every-day practice.

Unlike N. T. Wright, quoted at the beginning of this article, a small number of scholars have tried over the centuries to prove that Jesus was in fact historical. It is instructive, when examining their "evidence," to compare it to the sort of evidence we have, say, for the existence of Tiberius Cæsar - to take up the challenge made by Wright.

It may be conceded that it is not surprising that there are no coins surviving from the first century with the image of Jesus on them. Unlike Tiberius Cæsar and Augustus Cæsar who adopted him, Jesus is not thought to have had control over any mints. Even so, we must point out that we do have coins dating from the early first century that bear images of Tiberius that change with the age of their subject. We even have coins minted by his predecessor, Augustus Cæsar, that show Augustus on one side and his adopted son on the other. 1 Would Mr. Wright have us believe that these coins are figments of the imagination? Can we be dealing with fig-mints?

Statues that can be dated archaeologically survive to show Tiberius as a youth, as a young man assuming the toga, as Cæsar, etc. 2 Engravings and gems show him with his entire family. 3 Biographers who were his contemporaries or nearly so quote from his letters and decrees and recount the details of his life in minute detail. 4 There are contemporary inscriptions all over the former empire that record his deeds. 5 There is an ossuary of at least one member of his family, and the Greek text of a speech made by his son Germanicus has been found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. 6 And then there are the remains of his villa on Capri. Nor should we forget that Augustus Cæsar, in his Res Gestæ ("Things Accomplished"), which survives both in Greek and Latin on the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum, lists Tiberius as his son and co-ruler. 7

Is there anything advocates of an historical Jesus can produce that could be as compelling as this evidence for Tiberius? I think not, and I thank N. T. Wright for making a challenge that brings this disparity so clearly to light.

There is really only one area where evidence for Jesus is even claimed to be of a sort similar to that adduced for Tiberius - the area of biographies written by contemporaries or near contemporaries. a It is sometimes claimed that the Christian Bible contains such evidence. Sometimes it is claimed that there is extrabiblical evidence as well. Let us then examine this would-be evidence.

The Old Testament "Evidence"

Let us consider the so-called biblical evidence first. Despite the claims of Christian apologists, there is absolutely nothing in the Old Testament (OT) that is of relevance to our question, apart from the possible fact that some prophets may have thought that an "anointed one" (a rescuer king or priest) would once again assume the leadership of the Jewish world. All of the many examples of OT "predictions" of Jesus are so silly that one need only look them up to see their irrelevance. Thomas Paine, the great heretic of the American Revolution, did just that, and he demonstrated their irrelevance in his book An Examination of the Prophecies, which he intended to be Part III of The Age of Reason. b

The New Testament "Evidence"

The elimination of the OT leaves only the New Testament (NT) "evidence" and extrabiblical material to be considered. Essentially, the NT is composed of two types of documents: letters and would-be biographies (the so-called gospels). A third category of writing, apocalyptic, c of which the Book of Revelation is an example, also exists, but it gives no support for the historicity of Jesus. In fact, it would appear to be an intellectual fossil of the thought-world from which Christianity sprang - a Jewish apocalypse that was reworked for Christian use. 8 The main character of the book (referred to 28 times) would seem to be "the Lamb," an astral being seen in visions (no claims to historicity here!), and the book overall is redolent of ancient astrology. 9

The name Jesus occurs only seven times in the entire book, Christ only four times, and Jesus Christ only twice! While Revelation may very well derive from a very early period (contrary to the views of most biblical scholars, who deal with the book only in its final form), the Jesus of which it whispers obviously is not a man. He is a supernatural being. He has not yet acquired the physiological and metabolic properties of which we read in the gospels. The Jesus of Revelation is a god who would later be made into a man - not a man who would later become a god, as liberal religious scholars would have it.

The Gospels

The notion that the four "gospels that made the cut" to be included in the official New Testament were written by men named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does not go back to early Christian times. The titles "According to Matthew," etc., were not added until late in the second century. Thus, although Papias ca. 140 CE ('Common Era') knows all the gospels but has only heard of Matthew and Mark, Justin Martyr (ca. 150 CE) knows of none of the four supposed authors. It is only in 180 CE, with Irenæus of Lyons, that we learn who wrote the four "canonical" gospels and discover that there are exactly four of them because there are four quarters of the earth and four universal winds. Thus, unless one supposes the argument of Irenæus to be other than ridiculous, we come to the conclusion that the gospels are of unknown origin and authorship, and there is no good reason to suppose they are eye-witness accounts of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. At a minimum, this forces us to examine the gospels to see if their contents are even compatible with the notion that they were written by eye-witnesses. We cannot even assume that each of the gospels had but one author or redactor.

It is clear that the gospels of Matthew and Luke could not possibly have been written by an eye-witness of the tales they tell. Both writers plagiarize d (largely word-for-word) up to 90% of the gospel of Mark, to which they add sayings of Jesus e and would-be historical details. Ignoring the fact that Matthew and Luke contradict each other in such critical details as the genealogy of Jesus - and thus cannot both be correct - we must ask why real eye-witnesses would have to plagiarize the entire ham-hocks-and-potatoes of the story, contenting themselves with adding merely a little gravy, salt, and pepper. A real eye-witness would have begun with a verse reading, "Now, boys and girls, I'm gonna tell you the story of Jesus the Messiah the way it really happened..." The story would be a unique creation. It is significant that it is only these two gospels that purport to tell anything of Jesus' birth, childhood, or ancestry. Both can be dismissed as unreliable without further cause. We can know nothing of Jesus' childhood or origin!

Mark

But what about the gospel of Mark, the oldest surviving gospel? Attaining essentially its final form probably as late as 90 CE but containing core material dating possibly as early as 70 CE, it omits, as we have seen, almost the entire traditional biography of Jesus, beginning the story with John the Baptist giving Jesus a bath, and ending - in the oldest manuscripts - with women running frightened from the empty tomb. (The alleged postresurrection appearances reported in the last twelve verses of Mark are not found in the earliest manuscripts, even though they are still printed in most modern bibles as though they were an "authentic" part of Mark's gospel.) Moreover, "Mark" being a non-Palestinian non-disciple, even the skimpy historical detail he provides is untrustworthy.

To say that Mark's account is "skimpy" is to understate the case. There really isn't much to the gospel of Mark, the birth legends, genealogies, and childhood wonders all being absent. Whereas the gospel of Luke takes up 43 pages in the New English Bible, the gospel of Mark occupies only 25 pages - a mere 58% as much material! Stories do indeed grow with the retelling.

I have claimed that the unknown author of Mark was a non-Palestinian non-disciple, which would make his story mere hearsay. What evidence do we have for this assertion? First of all, Mark shows no first-hand understanding of the social situation in Palestine. He is clearly a foreigner, removed both in space and time from the events he alleges. For example, in Mark 10:12, he has Jesus say that if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. As G. A. Wells, the author of The Historical Evidence for Jesus 10 puts it,

Such an utterance would have been meaningless in Palestine, where only men could obtain divorce. It is a ruling for the Gentile Christian readers... which the evangelist put into Jesus' mouth in order to give it authority. This tendency to anchor later customs and institutions to Jesus' supposed lifetime played a considerable role in the building up of his biography.

One further evidence of the inauthenticity of Mark is the fact that in chapter 7, where Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees, Jesus is made to quote the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah in order to score his debate point. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version says something different from the Greek. Isaiah 29:13, in the Hebrew reads "their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote," whereas the Greek version - and the gospel of Mark - reads "in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" [Revised Standard Version). Wells observes dryly [p. 13], "That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely." Indeed!

Another powerful argument against the idea that Mark could have been an eye-witness of the existence of Jesus is based upon the observation that the author of Mark displays a profound lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. If he had actually lived in Palestine, he would not have made the blunders to be found in his gospel. If he never lived in Palestine, he could not have been an eye-witness of Jesus. You get the point.

The most absurd geographical error Mark commits is when he tells the tall tale about Jesus crossing over the Sea of Galilee and casting demons out of a man (two men in Matthew's revised version) and making them go into about 2,000 pigs which, as the King James version puts it, "ran violently down a steep place into the sea... and they were choked in the sea."

Apart from the cruelty to animals displayed by the lovable, gentle Jesus, and his disregard for the property of others, what's wrong with this story? If your only source of information is the King James Bible, you might not ever know. The King James says this marvel occurred in the land of the Gadarenes, whereas the oldest Greek manuscripts say this miracle took place in the land of the Gerasenes. Luke, who also knew no Palestinian geography, also passes on this bit of absurdity. But Matthew, who had some knowledge of Palestine, changed the name to Gadarene in his new, improved version; but this is further improved to Gergesenes in the King James version.

By now the reader must be dizzy with all the distinctions between Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes. What difference does it make? A lot of difference, as we shall see.

Gerasa, the place mentioned in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, is located about 31 miles from the shore of the Sea of Galilee! Those poor pigs had to run a course five miles longer than a marathon in order to find a place to drown! Not even lemmings have to go that far. Moreover, if one considers a "steep" slope to be at least 45 degrees, that would make the elevation of Gerasa at least six times higher than Mt. Everest!

When the author of Matthew read Mark's version, he saw the impossibility of Jesus and the gang disembarking at Gerasa (which, by the way, was also in a different country, the so-called Decapolis). Since the only town in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee that he knew of that started with G was Gadara, he changed Gerasa to Gadara. But even Gadara was five miles from the shore - and in a different country. Later copyists of the Greek manuscripts of all three pig-drowning gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) improved Gadara further to Gergesa, a region now thought to have actually formed part of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So much for the trustworthiness of the biblical tradition.

Another example of Mark's abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which - apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text - says "Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee..." Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark!

...continued below

[declanr]

john

The unreliability of the gospels is underscored when we learn that, with the possible exception of John, the first three gospels bear no internal indication of who wrote them. Can we glean anything of significance from the fourth and latest gospel, the gospel of John? Not likely! It is so unworldly, it can scarcely be cited for historical evidence. In this account, Jesus is hardly a man of flesh and blood at all - except for the purposes of divine cannibalism as required by the celebration of the rite of "holy communion."

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god," the gospel begins. No Star of Bethlehem, no embarrassment of pregnant virgins, no hint that Jesus ever wore diapers: pure spirit from the beginning. Moreover, in its present form, the gospel of John is the latest of all the official gospels. f

The gospel of John was compiled around the year 110 CE. If its author had been 10 years old at the time of Jesus' crucifiction in the year 30 CE, he would have been 80 years old at the time of writing. Not only is it improbable that he would have lived so long, it is dangerous to pay much attention to the colorful "memories" recounted by a man in his "anecdotage." Many of us who are far younger than this have had the unpleasant experience of discovering incontrovertible proof that what we thought were clear memories of some event were wildly incorrect. We also might wonder why an eye-witness of all the wonders claimed in a gospel would wait so long to write about them!

More importantly, there is evidence that the Gospel of John, like Matthew and Luke, also is a composite document, incorporating an earlier "Signs Gospel" of uncertain antiquity. Again, we ask, if "John" had been an eye-witness to Jesus, why would he need to plagiarize a list of miracles made up by someone else? Nor is there anything in the Signs Gospel that would lead one to suppose that it was an eye-witness account. It could just as easily have been referring to the wonders of Dionysus turning water into wine, or to the healings of Asclepius.

The inauthenticity of the Gospel of John would seem to be established beyond cavil by the discovery that the very chapter that asserts the author of the book to have been "the disciple whom Jesus loved" [John 21:20] was a late addition to the gospel. Scholars have shown that the gospel originally ended at verses 30-31 of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 - in which verse 24 asserts that "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true" - is not the work of an eye-witness. Like so many other things in the Bible, it is a fraud. The testimony is not true.

Saint Saul And His Letters

Having eliminated the OT and the gospels from the list of possible biblical "evidences" of the existence of Jesus, we are left with the so-called epistles.

At first blush, we might think that these epistles - some of which are by far the oldest parts of the NT, having been composed at least 30 years before the oldest gospel - would provide us with the most reliable information on Jesus. Well, so much for blushes. The oldest letters are the letters of St. Saul - the man who, after losing his mind, changed his name to Paul. Before going into details, we must point out right away, before we forget, that St. Saul's testimony can be ignored quite safely, if what he tells us is true, namely, that he never met Jesus "in the flesh," but rather saw him only in a vision he had during what appears to have been an epileptic seizure. No court of law would accept visions as evidence, and neither should we.

The reader might object that even if Saul only had hearsay evidence, some of it might be true. Some of it might tell us some facts about Jesus. Well, allright. Let's look at the evidence.

According to tradition, 13 of the letters in the NT are the work of St. Saul. Unfortunately, Bible scholars and computer experts have gone to work on these letters, and it turns out that only four can be shown to be substantially by the same author, putatively Saul. g These are the letters known as Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. To these probably we may add the brief note to Philemon, a slave-owner, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. The rest of the so-called Pauline epistles can be shown to have been written by other and later authors, so we can throw them out right now and not worry about them.

aul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:32 that King Aretas of the Nabateans tried to have him arrested because of his Christian agitation. Since Aretas is known to have died in the year 40 CE, this means that Saul became a Christian before that date. So what do we find out about Jesus from a man who had become a Christian less than ten years after the alleged crucifixion? Precious little!

Once again, G.A. Wells, in his book The Historical Evidence for Jesus [pp. 22-23], sums things up so succinctly, that I quote him verbatim:

The...Pauline letters...are so completely silent concerning the events that were later recorded in the gospels as to suggest that these events were not known to Paul, who, however, could not have been ignorant of them if they had really occurred.

These letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth (for example, by calling him 'of Nazareth'). They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter's denial of his master. (They do, of course, mention Peter, but do not imply that he, any more than Paul himself, had known Jesus while he had been alive.)

These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels, he worked so many...

Another striking feature of Paul's letters is that one could never gather from them that Jesus had been an ethical teacher... on only one occasion does he appeal to the authority of Jesus to support an ethical teaching which the gospels also represent Jesus as having delivered.

It turns out that Saul's appeal to the authority of Jesus involves precisely the same error we found in the gospel of Mark. In 1 Cor. 7:10, Saul says that "not I but the Lord, [say] that the wife should not separate from the husband." That is, a wife should not seek divorce. If Jesus had actually said what Saul implies, and what Mark 10:12 claims he said, his audience would have thought he was nuts - as the Bhagwan says - or perhaps had suffered a blow to the head. So much for the testimony of Saul. His Jesus is nothing more than the thinnest hearsay, a legendary creature which was crucified as a sacrifice, a creature almost totally lacking a biography.

Extrabiblical "Evidence"

So far we have examined all the biblical evidences alleged to prove the existence of Jesus as an historical figure. We have found that they have no legitimacy as evidence. Now we must examine the last line of would-be evidence, the notion that Jewish and pagan historians recorded his existence.

Jewish Sources

It is sometimes claimed that Jewish writings hostile to Christianity prove that the ancient Jews knew of Jesus and that such writings prove the historicity of the man Jesus. But in fact, Jewish writings prove no such thing, as L. Gordon Rylands' book Did Jesus Ever Live? pointed out nearly seventy years ago:

…all the knowledge which the Rabbis had of Jesus was obtained by them from the Gospels. Seeing that Jews, even in the present more critical age, take it for granted that the figure of a real man stands behind the Gospel narrative, one need not be surprised if, in the second century, Jews did not think of questioning that assumption. It is certain, however, that some did question it. For Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho, represents the Jew Trypho as saying, "ye follow an empty rumour and make a Christ for yourselves." "If he was born and lived somewhere he is entirely unknown."

That the writers of the Talmud [4th-5th centuries CE, FRZ] had no independent knowledge of Jesus is proved by the fact that they confounded him with two different men neither of whom can have been he. Evidently no other Jesus with whom they could identify the Gospel Jesus was known to them. One of these, Jesus ben Pandira, reputed a wonder-worker, is said to have been stoned to death and then hung on a tree on the eve of a Passover in the reign of Alexander Jannæus (106-79 BC) at Jerusalem. The other, Jesus ben Stada, whose date is uncertain, but who may have lived in the first third of the second century CE, is also said to have been stoned and hanged on the eve of a Passover, but at Lydda. There may be some confusion here; but it is plain that the Rabbis had no knowledge of Jesus apart from what they had read in the Gospels. 11

Although Christian apologists have listed a number of ancient historians who allegedly were witnesses to the existence of Jesus, the only two that consistently are cited are Josephus, a Pharisee, and Tacitus, a pagan. Since Josephus was born in the year 37 CE, and Tacitus was born in 55, neither could have been an eye-witness of Jesus, who supposedly was crucified in 30 CE. So we could really end our article here. But someone might claim that these historians nevertheless had access to reliable sources, now lost, which recorded the existence and execution of our friend JC. So it is desirable that we take a look at these two supposed witnesses.

In the case of Josephus, whose Antiquities of the Jews was written in 93 CE, about the same time as the gospels, we find him saying some things quite impossible for a good Pharisee to have said:

About this time, there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. 12

Now no loyal Pharisee would say Jesus had been the Messiah. That Josephus could report that Jesus had been restored to life "on the third day" and not be convinced by this astonishing bit of information is beyond belief. Worse yet is the fact that the story of Jesus is intrusive in Josephus' narrative and can be seen to be an interpolation even in an English translation of the Greek text. Right after the wondrous passage quoted above, Josephus goes on to say, "About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder..." Josephus had previously been talking about awful things Pilate had done to the Jews in general, and one can easily understand why an interpolator would have chosen this particular spot. But his ineptitude in not changing the wording of the bordering text left a "literary seam" (what rhetoricians might term aporia) that sticks out like a pimpled nose.

The fact that Josephus was not convinced by this or any other Christian claim is clear from the statement of the church father Origen (ca. 185-ca. 154 CE) - who dealt extensively with Josephus - that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah, i.e., as "the Christ." Moreover, the disputed passage was never cited by early Christian apologists such as Clement of Alexandria (ca.150-ca. 215 CE), who certainly would have made use of such ammunition had he had it!

The first person to make mention of this obviously forged interpolation into the text of Josephus' history was the church father Eusebius, in 324 CE. It is quite likely that Eusebius himself did some of the forging. As late as 891, Photius in his Bibliotheca, which devoted three "Codices" to the works of Josephus, shows no awareness of the passage whatsoever even though he reviews the sections of the Antiquities in which one would expect the disputed passage to be found. Clearly, the testimonial was absent from his copy of Antiquities of the Jews. 13 The question can probably be laid to rest by noting that as late as the sixteenth century, according to Rylands, 14 a scholar named Vossius had a manuscript of Josephus from which the passage was wanting.

......

Edited November 12, 2008 by declanr

[declanr]

Apologists, as they grasp for ever more slender straws with which to support their historical Jesus, point out that the passage quoted above is not the only mention of Jesus made by Josephus. In Bk. 20, Ch. 9, §1 of Antiquities of the Jews one also finds the following statement in surviving manuscripts:

Ananus… convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.

It must be admitted that this passage does not intrude into the text as does the one previously quoted. In fact, it is very well integrated into Josephus' story. That it has been modified from whatever Josephus' source may have said (remember, here too, Josephus could not have been an eye-witness) is nevertheless extremely probable. The crucial word in this passage is the name James (Jacob in Greek and Hebrew). It is very possible that this very common name was in Josephus' source material. It might even have been a reference to James the Just, a first-century character we have good reason to believe indeed existed. Because he appears to have born the title Brother of the Lord, h it would have been natural to relate him to the Jesus character. It is quite possible that Josephus actually referred to a James "the Brother of the Lord," and this was changed by Christian copyists (remember that although Josephus was a Jew, his text was preserved only by Christians!) to "Brother of Jesus" - adding then for good measure "who was called Christ."

According to William Benjamin Smith's skeptical classic Ecce Deus, 15 there are still some manuscripts of Josephus which contain the quoted passages, but the passages are absent in other manuscripts - showing that such interpolation had already been taking place before the time of Origen but did not ever succeed in supplanting the original text universally.

Pagan Authors Before considering the alleged witness of Pagan authors, it is worth noting some of the things that we should find recorded in their histories if the biblical stories are in fact true. One passage from Matthew should suffice to point out the significance of the silence of secular writers:

Matt. 27:45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour... Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; 52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection [exposed for 3 days?], and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Wouldn't the Greeks and Romans have noticed - and recorded - such darkness occurring at a time of the month when a solar eclipse was impossible? Wouldn't someone have remembered - and recorded - the name of at least one of those "saints" who climbed out of the grave and went wandering downtown in the mall? If Jesus did anything of significance at all, wouldn't someone have noticed? If he didn't do anything significant, how could he have stimulated the formation of a new religion?

Considering now the supposed evidence of Tacitus, we find that this Roman historian is alleged in 120 CE to have written a passage in his Annals (Bk 15, Ch 44, containing the wild tale of Nero's persecution of Christians) saying "Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus..." G.A. Wells [p. 16] says of this passage:

[Tacitus wrote] at a time when Christians themselves had come to believe that Jesus had suffered under Pilate. There are three reasons for holding that Tacitus is here simply repeating what Christians had told him. First, he gives Pilate a title, procurator [without saying procurator of what! FRZ], which was current only from the second half of the first century. Had he consulted archives which recorded earlier events, he would surely have found Pilate there designated by his correct title, prefect. Second, Tacitus does not name the executed man Jesus, but uses the title Christ (Messiah) as if it were a proper name. But he could hardly have found in archives a statement such as "the Messiah was executed this morning." Third, hostile to Christianity as he was, he was surely glad to accept from Christians their own view that Christianity was of recent origin, since the Roman authorities were prepared to tolerate only ancient cults. (The Historical Evidence for Jesus; p.16).

There are further problems with the Tacitus story. Tacitus himself never again alludes to the Neronian persecution of Christians in any of his voluminous writings, and no other Pagan authors know anything of the outrage either. Most significant, however, is that ancient Christian apologists made no use of the story in their propaganda - an unthinkable omission by motivated partisans who were well-read in the works of Tacitus. Clement of Alexandria, who made a profession of collecting just such types of quotations, is ignorant of any Neronian persecution, and even Tertullian, who quotes a great deal from Tacitus, knows nothing of the story. According to Robert Taylor, the author of another freethought classic, the Diegesis (1834), the passage was not known before the fifteenth century, when Tacitus was first published at Venice by Johannes de Spire. Taylor believed de Spire himself to have been the forger. i

So much for the evidence purporting to prove that Jesus was an historical figure. We have not, of course, proved that Jesus did not exist. We have only showed that all evidence alleged to support such a claim is without substance. But of course, that is all we need to show. The burden of proof is always on the one who claims that something exists or that something once happened. We have no obligation to try to prove a universal negative. j

It will be argued by die-hard believers that all my arguments "from silence" prove nothing and they will quote the aphorism, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But is the negative evidence I have referred to the same as absence of evidence? It might be instructive to consider how a hypothetical but similar problem might be dealt with in the physical sciences.

Imagine that someone has claimed that the USA had carried out atomic weapons tests on a particular Caribbean island in 1943. Would the lack of reports of mushroom-cloud sightings at the time be evidence of absence, or absence of evidence? (Remember, the Caribbean during the war years was under intense surveillance by many different factions.) Would it be necessary to go to the island today to scan its surface for the radioactive contamination that would have to be there if nuclear explosions had taken place there? If indeed, we went there with our Geiger-counters and found no trace of radioactive contamination, would that be evidence of absence, or absence of evidence? In this case, what superficially looks like absence of evidence is really negative evidence, and thus legitimately could be construed as evidence of absence. Can the negative evidence adduced above concerning Jesus be very much less compelling?

It would be intellectually satisfying to learn just how it was that the Jesus character condensed out of the religious atmosphere of the first century. But scholars are at work on the problem. The publication of many examples of so-called wisdom literature, along with the materials from the Essene community at Qumran by the Dead Sea and the Gnostic literature from the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt, has given us a much more detailed picture of the communal psychopathologies which infested the Eastern Mediterranean world at the turn of the era. It is not unrealistic to expect that we will be able, before long, to reconstruct in reasonable detail the stages by which Jesus came to have a biography.

[top]

They Should Have Noticed

John E. Remsburg, in his classic book The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date, pp. 24-25), lists the following writers who lived during the time, or within a century after the time, that Jesus is supposed to have lived:

Josephus

Philo-Judæus

Seneca

Pliny Elder

Arrian

Petronius

Dion Pruseus

Paterculus

Suetonius

Juvenal

Martial

Persius

Plutarch

Pliny Younger

Tacitus

Justus of Tiberius

Apollonius

Quintilian

Lucanus

Epictetus

Hermogones Silius Italicus

Statius

Ptolemy

Appian

Phlegon

Phædrus

Valerius Maximus

Lucian

Pausanias

Florus Lucius

Quintius Curtius

Aulus Gellius

Dio Chrysostom

Columella

Valerius Flaccus

Damis

Favorinus

Lysias

Pomponius Mela

Appion of Alexandria

Theon of Smyrna

According to Remsburg, "Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ." Nor, we may add, do any of these authors make note of the Disciples or Apostles - increasing the embarrassment from the silence of history concerning the foundation of Christianity.

"The Christian faith is based on the belief that the Bible is indeed the word of god. If the Bible cannot be shown to be inspired, then the Christian faith could be said to be false and no more than a farce. If the Bible cannot be shown to be inspired, then Christianity can be said to be the same as any other religion that has been devised and practiced by man.

The Bible story of Jesus is a contradictory and confusing account. The Bible shows that this Jesus fellow spoke and taught many absurd and foolish things, and often believed he was having a conversation with devils. If one will read the entire Bible, one will find tales of ignorance, murder, sexual perversions, mass insanity, idiotic laws, and even cannibalism and human sacrifice. It staggers the imagination how anyone in his right mind could read the Bible and believe that it was written by a wise, just, and loving god. Christians have found biblical scriptures telling them to burn people at the stake, to justify slavery, to oppress and persecute others, and to kill and commit war in the name of their god. Unfortunately, there are some even today who would have us return to the teachings and laws found in the Bible.

We are taught in our culture that Jesus is the divine hero, but other cultures have different saviors. Religious beliefs are a function of the culture in which one lives. If we had been reared in a different culture, we would have heard the story of a different savior, instead of the Jesus story. Upon comparing the stories of the different saviors, one finds that the similarities are so striking, it is beyond a doubt that they are more than just a coincidence.

Jesus is a myth just like all the other saviors and gods of old. Atheism is the clear and rational alternative to the confusion, fear, and superstition that are offered by religion. Atheism encourages freedom of thought and inquiry, while religion by its very nature has to encourage unquestioning obedience and blind faith in doctrines. Belief in god myths has brought misery, suppression of thought and inquiry, fear, and has promoted ignorance. The human race no longer needs these myths of old. Just as little children grow up and learn the truth about the existence of the tooth fairy, the human race needs to mature and learn the truth about the existence of god.

Edited November 12, 2008 by pam
Link to an atheist site is against the rules

[pam]

Wow I'll never make it through all of that. lol

[skalenfehl]

As much as I'd love to, that's a lot of reading. I'll add this much. Christ's own disciples weren't completely sure who he was until after his crucifixion, except Peter.

13 ¶ When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Only by exercising faith, taking that leap and addressing God and asking him in complete faith can you receive a witness as Peter did. We can learn all there is to learn, read through all the texts on earth, but this will not produce a testimony, which only comes through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Christ came to the earth to testify of the Father, and to testify of His mission. Only by knowing if what Christ taught is true, or if He is the Son of God can be truly known by asking God the Father for a witness. God testifies to us of His Son through the Holy Ghost. Christ knew this, which is why he tested his disciples, including Peter.

[pam]

Declanr this is an awful long post to have to respond to. Why did you just copy and paste this from an atheist website? Of course they wouldn't believe in Christ or the Bible so why respond to this? Wouldn't it be easier to ask simple questions about Christ? Ask questions from your own thoughts instead of an atheist website?

[john doe]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: you cannot prove religion with science.

[pam]

Let me ask a question of you dec. Do you believe that Christ exists? I think I need to clarify that.

[a-train]

While Revelation may very well derive from a very early period (contrary to the views of most biblical scholars, who deal with the book only in its final form), the Jesus of which it whispers obviously is not a man. He is a supernatural being. He has not yet acquired the physiological and metabolic properties of which we read in the gospels. The Jesus of Revelation is a god who would later be made into a man - not a man who would later become a god, as liberal religious scholars would have it.

After some looking at all of this, I wondered if I should reply and if so, to what should I reply exactly? So I really just randomly ran my finger like a throwing dart at the screen and the quoted portion is where it landed.

My response to that is this: What indication does the Book of Revelation give that the Jesus therein "is a god who would later be made into a man"? Also, what inconsistancy does any statement that Jesus is in some way supernatural pose? For that matter, what inconsistancy is there in any statement that Jesus is Diety who took on the form of man? Plus, wherein does the Book of Revelation indicate that the Jesus of which it speaks is "not a man"?

Virtually the entire barrage of text posted in the ops brings to mind questions such as these.

-a-train

PS: Revelation 1:1, 1:2, 1:5, 1:9, 12:17, and 22:21 all use the exact phrase "Jesus Christ". 1:9 uses the phrase twice. With those alone, that makes seven uses of the phrase "Jesus Christ" in the Book of Revelation. 14:12, 17:6, 19:10, 20:40, 22:16, and 22:20 also use the name "Jesus", so that brings the total "Jesus" count to thirteen. 11:15, 12:10, 20:4, and 20:6 mention "Christ", so the "Christ count is actually up to eleven. I am having difficulty reconciling these facts with the statement:"The name Jesus occurs only seven times in the entire book, Christ only four times, and Jesus Christ only twice!"

Edited November 12, 2008 by a-train

[Heavenguard]

I actually read the whole thing, and do have some things to say in response ... however, it will take quite a time to write it. (Obviously the original author of this had much time to write it.)

But my very brief summation is that although this initially seems well-written,

1) the author of this has double standards, and thus can never be satisfied,

2) imposes his own expectations on what the bible "should" be (rather than reading it as it is)

3) has logical fallacies, and

4) also includes ad hominem fallacies.

I will get to these points later when I have the time to.

[declanr]

Declanr this is an awful long post to have to respond to. Why did you just copy and paste this from an atheist website? Of course they wouldn't believe in Christ or the Bible so why respond to this? Wouldn't it be easier to ask simple questions about Christ? Ask questions from your own thoughts instead of an atheist website?

Hey Pam,

First I must say that I think you are great. So please do not assume any response to you is out of disrespect or rudeness.

This is a long post, and so is the research into the historical validity of Christ. It is not an extremely simple subject. I copied and pasted in hopes that I would get a decent reply, or even a link in reply to the questions posed on the origin of christ.

It would appear that Christ is an unprovable myth, there were pagan gods with very similar stories before Christ, and anything written about Jesus was written long after he was dead, and not by eye witnesses, it appears to be folklore at best. The bible was assembled after over 300 years after he may have died, for what appears to be political reasons and selectively I may add. So my questions do arise from my own thoughts, my thoughts are, where is the evidence, has anyone here with such a strong testimony of Christ even bothered to read more than a few pages on the historical questions? I feel this is very relevant...

Dec

Edited November 12, 2008 by declanr

[declanr]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: you cannot prove religion with science.

I am not asking about science, I am asking about history...

[declanr]

Let me ask a question of you dec. Do you believe that Christ exists? I think I need to clarify that.

Pam,

I addressed this in the begging of this post, and on the last post I started. In short, I do not believe or Disbelieve in Christ at the moment, I am evaluating the evidence for such belief, and so far it is coming up very short for Christ. Do you believe or disbelieve in Zeus? Mithra? Vishnu? Why? I think they seem at the moment equally valid questions...

Dec

[declanr]

I actually read the whole thing, and do have some things to say in response ... however, it will take quite a time to write it. (Obviously the original author of this had much time to write it.)

But my very brief summation is that although this initially seems well-written,

1) the author of this has double standards, and thus can never be satisfied,

2) imposes his own expectations on what the bible "should" be (rather than reading it as it is)

3) has logical fallacies, and

4) also includes ad hominem fallacies.

I will get to these points later when I have the time to.

Hello,

Please list the fallacies, and errors when you get time, I am definitely interested!

Dec

[pam]

Okay valid questions. Though giving you my answer..(no because I believe Zeus is a mythical character). So I know your response would be so would not Christ be? Okay I can understand your thoughts there.

But my thoughts are...how could billions and billions of people who have believed and who currently believe in Christ be wrong?

My personal testimony is...I have lived with Christ before in the prexistence. I don't remember him from that of course but I believe without a shadow of a doubt that he exists and that I knew him. I believe that he came to earth, taught, and died for us.

How do I know that without tangible proof? Let me tell you a story I've told before. Now whether you believe it or not..I will understand.

I was sitting in a Sunday School class. Had one of my children in my arms. He was about 3 months old. Very cranky. Had him so he was looking over my shoulder. I noticed all of a sudden his crankiness was gone and he was smiling. Now we were in the back row so I couldn't understand what he could possibly be smiling at. But there on the wall was a picture of Christ. And he was smiling at it. I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that we knew Christ before we came to earth. That my son knew who he was and was happy to see him. That he loved us then and still does. I believe that the veil that exists between us and heaven is very thin and at that moment had not been completely lifted from my son.

Outlandish story? Some may think so but it had the most profound affect on me. That was one incident that truly had me believing.

[Wingnut]

But my thoughts are...how could billions and billions of people who have believed and who currently believe in Christ be wrong?

Fifty thousand Elvis fans can't be wrong?

Dec, if you are looking for a good LDS perspective on Jesus Christ, I can recommend the book Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage.

[pam]

I believe that all of us can use this thread as a learning experience so I ask that we keep it that way. Please both sides be civil and respectful to the other. Let there be no personal attacks.

[declanr]

Okay valid questions. Though giving you my answer..(no because I believe Zeus is a mythical character). So I know your response would be so would not Christ be? Okay I can understand your thoughts there.

But my thoughts are...how could billions and billions of people who have believed and who currently believe in Christ be wrong?

This is not an answer, how could all the jews be wrong, or the hindus? This is not a valid argument, a very typical "argumentum ad populum". Very Silly, and very non-persuasive to anyone with more than a room temperature IQ.

My personal testimony is...I have lived with Christ before in the prexistence. I don't remember him from that of course but I believe without a shadow of a doubt that he exists and that I knew him. I believe that he came to earth, taught, and died for us.

How do I know that without tangible proof? Let me tell you a story I've told before. Now whether you believe it or not..I will understand.

I was sitting in a Sunday School class. Had one of my children in my arms. He was about 3 months old. Very cranky. Had him so he was looking over my shoulder. I noticed all of a sudden his crankiness was gone and he was smiling. Now we were in the back row so I couldn't understand what he could possibly be smiling at. But there on the wall was a picture of Christ. And he was smiling at it. I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that we knew Christ before we came to earth. That my son knew who he was and was happy to see him. That he loved us then and still does. I believe that the veil that exists between us and heaven is very thin and at that moment had not been completely lifted from my son.

Outlandish story? Some may think so but it had the most profound affect on me. That was one incident that truly had me believing.

That is a nice story, it has nothing to do with proof of anything, so a child calmed down...nice. I should point out, this is not Knowledge, it is very inaccurate for you to point out from this story "how do I know", this is a "why I have faith" type of story, which is very different. I think it is intellectually dishonest for one to claim knowledge of any type from this type of subjective, vague, and non-distinct experience.

I want to add, that I posted an article concerning very pointed historical issues about Christ, I agree with Pam this should be civil,but how about we keep it on point....

Dec

Edited November 12, 2008 by declanr

[pam]

I'm probably breaking my own rule here. But if I'm not allowed to express how I know that Christs exists then what's the point of this thread?

I can't show you tangible proof. All I have is my faith, my experiences, my thoughts and my feelings. I think people should be allowed to express those.

I will refrain from posting my comments if they are only to be put down. To be told that my comments are silly. Have fun but I'm outta here.

[declanr]

I'm probably breaking my own rule here. But if I'm not allowed to express how I know that Christs exists then what's the point of this thread?

I can't show you tangible proof. All I have is my faith, my experiences, my thoughts and my feelings. I think people should be allowed to express those.

I will refrain from posting my comments if they are only to be put down. To be told that my comments are silly. Have fun but I'm outta here.

I am sorry Pam, but my point is that you do not "know", you have faith. Your comments are silly and unintelligible in the context as an answer to the historical and biblical questions that I presented.

Billions of people of other faiths have faith and experience to back their feelings also, I would think they would ask you the same "whats the point question" to your testimony?

Dec

[Wingnut]

I intend no disrespect declanr, but you have come to an LDS forum asking predominantly LDS people to talk to you about Jesus. About 97% of us will have primarily faith-based testimonies to offer you. If you're not interested in hearing them, then you're barking up the wrong tree.

You dismiss our faith, you dismiss the Bible, and are looking for only verifiable fact. None of us here were there. None of us here can offer than to you. If that's not good enough, then I'm sorry.

In the meantime, please do not disrespect us by calling our faith and our testimonies "silly."

[OneEternalSonata]

Declanr,

In the end, the questions you have are yours to be answered, and while we can give you insight as to our beliefs, we cannot speed up the journey. I don't have tangible, historical evidence that Jesus ever existed, however, that doesn't refute His existence. Let us suppose that someone wanted to prove our existence two thousand years from now. Would a lack of historical evidence mean we didn't exist?

I realize the difficulty of believing in Jesus based on history is very real. Do you require history, which is in itself can also be flawed, to believe? If so, I doubt you will be satiated. If you want to know if He lived you will have to rely on faith, although it sounds like that makes you uneasy. I do wish you the best in your search.

I respect your God-given right to believe or disbelieve.

Edited November 12, 2008 by OneEternalSonata

[Moksha]

Here is a reply to Remsberg's potential chronicler's list:

Remsberg's List of writers that did not mention Jesus is bogus!

[Elgama]

Like others I haven't got time to read the whole post I did skim through it and I think there is a fatal flaw in it you are asking did Jesus the man exist - well there isn't enough history to prove whether he was a man or a myth, you are never going to prove it 100% beyond doubt.

Instead of asking did Jesus the man exist in around the time oatcake, there is as much if not more for his existence than that of Socrates. In order to gain a testimony the question has to be does Christ exist right now this minute?

And yes unfortunately for this one thinking is only part the way of finding out - its not feelings, its instincts you need to learn to rely on, feelings are your own doing, instinct was given us by Heavenly Father. There is also experience and observation, prayer and keeping your own history or journal in my opinion you need your journal to see answers to prayer, often we forget what we asked, or exactly how we asked it, by keeping a journal you can jot it down fresh in your mind and keep looking. It involves having a prayer constantly in your heart and using all your senses constantly. I often wonder if this is part of why we are asked to have children nothing teaches you better the difference between instinct and a feeling

-Charley

[AnthonyB]

declanr,

Have you read any of the source material for yourself? Actually sat down and read the New Testament cover to cover. (It is quite a short work and at the very minimum its historic impact on western civilization would I think make it an essential read for understanding western culture.)

The article you posted pours scorn on NT Wright, although I'm not sure which parts of the material is yours or an article you’re quoting or where that article is sourced from. Before publishing an article that ridicules someone had you actually taken the time to read NT Wright? May I suggest starting with "The New Testament and the People of God". Or if you want a good read from a non Christian on Jesus, then why not try EP Sanders, "The Historical Figure of Jesus"

As for the articles dismissal of Paul's writings I think it overstates the case somewhat. Firstly, the unnamed or sourced “bible scholars” and “people with computers” that have determined that only so many letters are genuine, on what grounds have they done so?

You are aware I hope that the authors of some of the letters actually lists in a number of letters that it is from multiple people (eg Phil1:1 “Paul and Timothy…) What part did the other people listed play in drafting the letters we do not know but it is not beyond reasonable speculation that some of the letters in part read differently because that have multiple authors contributing to them!

Furthermore in 3 case Paul (Col 4:18, Phm 1:19 and 2TH 3:17 ”I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters.”) makes it quite probable that for a number of letters he may have used a scribe in their creation. What impact did that have on the style or wording of a letter we just don’t know?

It seems rather odd for a writer of pseudepigrapha to dilute the grandiosity of the claim of authorship in the ways above. I presume you are supportive of the claim in the article that much of the Paul’s writing is pseudepigraphal and have read some works so as to compare the NT writings with pseudepigraphal writings.

I think using source criticism (which was to a certain extent gone out of fashion) on ancient texts is fraught with danger. It is easy to mangle the text and authorship so that it can be fitted into the agenda of the editor, imposing a preordained outcome from the editor’s mind and not giving justice to the original text.

God bless, I hope one day the living Jesus reveals himself to you.