historical proof that jesus existed

Flick,

No I meant that some of the evidence would counter the notion that the gospels themselves are indirect references to the historicity of Jesus.... i.e. second hand.
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I've had a similar debate with PotatoStew in the past - I think the Gospels even if somehow proven to be historical first hand accounts need to be treated as "secondary evidence". Simply, because they are documents written by authors with a clear and unambiguous agenda. I don't believe that the Gospels, in any normal sense of the phrase, could be considered "unbiased". Of course, the counter argument is "well, what document (ancient or otherwise) *is* truly unbiased - don't all authors bring their bias to their writing?" True enough, but hopefully we can agree that "bias" is a scale, not a binary option, and I fail to see why we should accept that the Gospels authors would in any way seek to limit their biases.

Assume for a moment that Jesus, having distributed a meal of tuna sandwiches to the waiting crowd, then headed off to the pub after a hard day's work. While there, drinking a few lagers with the boys, a local lad makes a few disparaging remarks about Jesus' parentage - "You don't look much like your Dad you know - are you sure Mary wasn't keeping the straw warm in someone else's stable?". Jesus swears, staggers to his feet, and takes a few swings at the guy. Luke turns to Matthew, and whispers "Damn, he's lost it again. Lets leave this bit out of the Gospels..."

As to the fishes and loaves...
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Regarding the sermon on mount,...
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I think you realise that the tongue was in cheek for much of this!

The idea that a group of peasants had the skills to write anything down is a bit much to assume.
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Agreed, but even thought I accept that most observers of Jesus' more public miracles would not have had either the ability or the inclination to put pen to paper (chisel to tablet?), it still seems unlikely that *no one* other than illiterate followers took any notice.

Regarding the sermon on mount, most of the evidence suggests that someone did in fact right it down,...
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Or write down as best they good remember, or just make up some stuff that sounds pretty much like they wish he'd said. I must admit that I'm staggered that anyone actually believes that Jesus's words on the Mount are accurately recorded. Only godly intervention seems likely to solve that particular issue.
 
LCBOY said:
When the name "JESUS CHRIST" is mentioned it always generates a mulititude of reaction. Many people try to disprove his existence or at least debate that it is possible that he didn't exist. I don't see as many people agruing over the existence of Alexander the Great, or Socrates, or Plato. Is there lots of evidence that these men ever lived?
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I think the main point is - there were so many other characters who lived virtually the same life as Jesus - however hundreds or thousands of years before! (Mithra, Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Serrapis, etc.) Jesus said nothing original. All of his miracles were performed by other God/Men centuries before. Isn't that strange to anyone?
 
triadboy said:


I think the main point is - there were so many other characters who lived virtually the same life as Jesus - however hundreds or thousands of years before! (Mithra, Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Serrapis, etc.) Jesus said nothing original. All of his miracles were performed by other God/Men centuries before. Isn't that strange to anyone?
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And continue to be performed by "god men" today. And, no I don't find it the least bit strange, I find it however to be a poor reflection on human critical thinking skills.
 
Loki said:

Agreed, but even thought I accept that most observers of Jesus' more public miracles would not have had either the ability or the inclination to put pen to paper (chisel to tablet?), it still seems unlikely that *no one* other than illiterate followers took any notice.
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I agree it does seem unlikely. On the other hand, how many of your personal writings will be around 2,000 years from now? It was discussed in another thread how (excepting the discovery of a single stone tablet in recent decades) there is no historical mention of Pilate apart from Tacitus, Philo, Josephus and the New Testament - albeit that (1) he held an official position of regional importance for a number of years and (2) the Romans were highly literate and, by 1st-century standards, relatively obsessive about record-keeping. Pilate must have written, signed or been referred to in hundreds of contemporary official and unofficial documents. They simply didn't survive very long. And historians consider Pilate's existence to be relatively well-attested for a figure of his time!
Loki said:
I must admit that I'm staggered that anyone actually believes that Jesus's words on the Mount are accurately recorded. Only godly intervention seems likely to solve that particular issue.
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Didn't the Jesus Seminar conclude that about half of the Sermon on the Mount probably was recorded reasonably accurately?
 
Simply, because they are documents written by authors with a clear and unambiguous agenda.

I suppose that's where the inconsistency is hiding. You've allowed for your own bias to enter the text from this side of history while denying the author's their own biases, or at least, you placed more value on your biases than those of the gospel authors.

Or write down as best they good remember, or just make up some stuff that sounds pretty much like they wish he'd said. I must admit that I'm staggered that anyone actually believes that Jesus's words on the Mount are accurately recorded. Only godly intervention seems likely to solve that particular issue.

There's an interesting work out there and I'll try to dig it up about an Aramaic version of the SOTM. This author was demonstrated how it could have easily appeared in spoken couplets so as to be easily remembered... probably a fella with too much time on his hands :)

Flick
 
stamenflicker said:

You've allowed for your own bias to enter the text from this side of history while denying the author's their own biases, or at least, you placed more value on your biases than those of the gospel authors.

Flick
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This is why there is a debate..;)
 
neutrino_cannon said:


And continue to be performed by "god men" today. And, no I don't find it the least bit strange, I find it however to be a poor reflection on human critical thinking skills.
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Yes, but is the cause of the poor critical thinking - ignorance or stupidity?
 
ceo_esq,

It was discussed in another thread how (excepting the discovery of a single stone tablet in recent decades) there is no historical mention of Pilate apart from Tacitus, Philo, Josephus and the New Testament - albeit that (1) he held an official position of regional importance for a number of years and (2) the Romans were highly literate and, by 1st-century standards, relatively obsessive about record-keeping. Pilate must have written, signed or been referred to in hundreds of contemporary official and unofficial documents. They simply didn't survive very long.
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Sheesh - always with the good points! Actually, it was almost a trick question - I've always thought that the destruction of the temple and the dispersal of the Jews provides a perfect backdrop for the loss of much historical information. Anyway, the conclusion I (currently) draw from the absense of such documentation about Jesus is that he probably didn't really have that much of an impact at the time - his fame came latter.

Didn't the Jesus Seminar conclude that about half of the Sermon on the Mount probably was recorded reasonably accurately?
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I like the Jesus Seminar, and think that what they attempt is probably worth doing (if you've got a lot of free time on your hands). Still, if we were to accept their positon completely, we would conclude that 50% of the sermon is probably a fabrication of the gospel writers, and the remaining 50% is "reasonably" accurate. That's pretty much all I was gettting at - it seems exceedingly unreasonable to assume anything like 100% accuracy in the current gospel, short of divine intervention.
 
Flick,

You've allowed for your own bias to enter the text from this side of history while denying the author's their own biases, or at least, you placed more value on your biases than those of the gospel authors.
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Perhaps. I guess I'm just trying to say that if we were to try and understand, 2000 years from now, who John Edward was and what he believed/did - and the *only* single solitary work we had was the book "Crossing Over", then it seems reasonable to treat this single work as "suspect" in terms of it's truth value, since the intent and bias of the author is obvious.

Lets try this from another angle - is there any particular Gospel verse that you feel shows some criticism, even slight, of Jesus?
 
I'm not religious, but I have to say that we do have historical evidence of Jesus. It's contained in four books called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. People exit prehistory when they are first written about. After that, they are referred to as historical. To say we have no historical evidence of Jesus is to say no-one has written about him.
 
JAR,

People exit prehistory when they are first written about. After that, they are referred to as historical.
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The counterpoint is obvious - we have books written about James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Both set in verifiable historical settings, and containing multiple references to other "verified" historical figures. Yet, these are obviously not real, historical people.
 
Loki said:
JAR,


we have books written about James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Both set in verifiable historical settings, and containing multiple references to other "verified" historical figures. Yet, these are obviously not real, historical people.
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James Bond and Sherlock Holmes were never intended by their authors to be viewed as real people. Jesus was, just as Plutarch intended to portray a real person in his biography of Julius Caesar.
 
JAR

James Bond and Sherlock Holmes were never intended by their authors to be viewed as real people
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Is it obvious from reading the book *alone* that James Bond is not real?

Is Achilles real in the Illiad? Did Homer intend for his work to be read as fiction, or history?
 
Unfortunately the one source for the proof of Jesus has been destroyed first by the Xians and then the Islam, the library at Alexandria.
I think that we would have to be very careful with any document written say even two hundred yeadrs after the event.
There is a book called Jesus the Magician which a friend of mine read, he told me that unfortunately there are very few contemporary accounts of Jesus.
The most telling idea I have heard is that cruxifiction was reserved for political criminals.
I am afriad that other religious leaders do have some contemporary accounts.
However myth or man what does it matter? It is the idea not the fact that is cool.

Peace
dancing david

PS the ossuary was found to be a fake, or at least part of the incription was.
 
JAR said:
To say we have no historical evidence of Jesus is to say no-one has written about him.
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Would you apply the same standard of evidence to the existence of ESP? That is, would you claim that to say we have no evidence of ESP is to say that no one has written about it? Or conversely, if someone writes about ESP, is that evidence that ESP exists?


--- Argo
 
JAR said"
I'm not religious, but I have to say that we do have historical evidence of Jesus. It's contained in four books called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. People exit prehistory when they are first written about. After that, they are referred to as historical. To say we have no historical evidence of Jesus is to say no-one has written about him.
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JAR,
I think you're making a semantic point here, which is probably valid. I think what you're saying is: regardless of whether there was a real person that served as the inspiration for the Biblical Jesus stories, there was a historical Jesus because people have written about him in a way intended to be non-fiction.

But I also think you're just confusing the issue. When people say "historical Jesus" they mean to refer to the person not the description of the person. So when the question is asked, did a historical Jesus exist what is meant is did the man exist.

Interestingly, some folks take a view which is contrary to yours and also is somewhat valid. That is, if the Biblical description of the life of Jesus is wrong in most substantive ways the historical Jesus did not exist even if a single individual that served as the inspiration for the stories did exist.

So to avoid semantic issues when I think about this I break it down into two questions:
1. Did a single man exist that was the inspiration for the Biblical stories which eventually evolved into the new testament?
2. Was the life of that man close enough to the Biblical description to reasonably call him the historical Jesus.

My answer to the first one, which is really just a guess, is yes.
My answer to the second one is yes also, but only because I don't think the Biblical representation needs to be all that close to refer to the actual man as the historical Jesus.
 
John Edward was and what he believed/did - and the *only* single solitary work we had was the book "Crossing Over", then it seems reasonable to treat this single work as "suspect" in terms of it's truth value, since the intent and bias of the author is obvious.

That analogy can't apply in this situation. First, we have different mediums and a better understanding of written records, second I doubt seriously that we will have large numbers of people committing themselves to his writings; third, I doubt seriously that we will see 2000 years of historians investigating his claims. He just isn't that important. This figure named Jesus, fact or fiction, has demanded more from humanity and poor John Edwards can't hold a candle.

Flick
 
Nyarlathotep said:


Plus there is the assertion that he rose into heaven in front of dozens of witnesses after his resurection. Given the fact that the Romans were literate and very good record keepers one would think that if a criminal that they executed was walking around three days later and then flew up into the sky, more than one account would have been written about it
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The Romans in the Palestinian province quite likely saw the emergence of several Messianic cults or movements. Jesus/Joshua would not be the 1st nor the last to be considered a Messiah.
 
Flick,

That analogy can't apply in this situation.
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You'll be pleased to know that I agree that John Eward is not comparable to Jesus (yet?).

First, we have different mediums and a better understanding of written records, second I doubt seriously that we will have large numbers of people committing themselves to his writings; third, I doubt seriously that we will see 2000 years of historians investigating his claims.
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So if I wish to make an analogy regarding the degree of 'bias' that might be present in the gospels then I need to find another 2000 year old book that has been investigated by historians for that entire time, and which has been embraced by large numbers of people? Hmm....

Look, you might be right that my bias is dominating my thinking. But I guess there are a few basic questions here.

1. Do you accept that, when writing historical documents, it is difficult for the author to achieve "true" objectivity?
2. Do you think an author of an historical document is obliged to "try" and achieve objectivity?
3. Is it "likely" that the gospel writers had a "conclusion" regarding Jesus that they were keen to propagate?

Really, I guess I'm asking "why would the gospel writers tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Jesus"? Even if you wish to discount "deliberate fraud" from their writings, why do you discount "accidental fraud"?

Take 3 people - a fanatical Raiders fan, a fanatical Buccaneers fan, and a "neutral" observer. Play them a tape of a controversial play (referee's decision?), then ask the 3 of them to write down exactly what happens. Even if all three are being honest, do you actually expect to get 3 identical accounts? Aren't the chances very good that you'll get the two fanatical fans agreeing on some basic details, but having completely different interpretations of the event?

Doesn't this demonstrate the problem here - that when *you* interpret the bible, there's every chance that you are interpreting the gospel authors own interpretation of Jesus?

Finally, given the points made in previous posts (about lack of literacy in 33 AD, etc) shouldn't we conclude with some confidence that the gospel writers were, prior to writing the gospels, pretty damn commited to the cause - what else would drive then to spent the time and energy required?
This figure named Jesus, fact or fiction, has demanded more from humanity and poor John Edwards can't hold a candle
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Unless JE fnally finds a way to back up his claims - then he might give Jesus a run for his money! (but I'm not holding my breath!)
 
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