Existence of Jesus
Offline Hello there!
I'm an atheist. I enjoy discussing my views with theists (just Christians so far). I can never get them to see sense because their beliefs are so deep-seated due to parental influence in every case.
Anyway, there's this one slippery customer who refuses to be beaten down. He's a public speaker, and so knows exactly how to add spin to any situation, turning any bystanders well against me.
I briefly touched on a topic which definitely hit a nerve - the existence of Jesus. I proposed that he didn't exist. He told me that there are documents in some Bethlehem museum clearly stating that Pontius Pilate allowed the crucifixion of a Jesus Christ. I was deeply skeptical of his claims, yet I cannot find any impartial information on the internet. Does anyone know anything about said documents? I've already read "The Silence That Screams". If I can prove that he was lying to re-affirm his beliefs, I can expose a degree of irrationality.
Thanks.
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Ask him to prove it by pointing out the name of the museum and where information on these documents can be found. When he says, as he invariably will, that he doesn't remember or that it's not important, reply that you spent a good deal of time looking it up and found nothing to support it, and that you're starting to think he's either mistaken or BSing. Make him do your dirty work.
As for the documents themselves, if they existed they would be some of the most prized artifacts in archeology, and it is pretty inconceivable that the first place you'd have heard of them would be from a preacher who can't back up his sources. They don't exist. It would be like not being able to find information on the Rosetta Stone or the Dead Sea Scrolls or even the Shroud of Turin.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
the first mention of jesus was at least 70 years after his death, i can't see a document like this existing.
futhermore, jesus christ, or in particular "christ" is a pretty generic term and not always about a specific individual.
I knew this was the case. He lies all the time. It's incredibly difficult to tell when he isn't.
I can't wait to mention this. All make sure there's a nice audience.
Of course, he is a total coward at heart. Recently, he has started to surround himself with his fellow Christians. In fact, just today he has began to belittle my sense by whispering to those anound him and sniggering when I'm talking. This is childish behaviour, yes. What worries me is that everyone around him laughs along, without even listening to a word I'm saying.
My only hypothesis is that he is scared. That's the only way to explain it. I used to get some civil debate from him, now he has realised that I am a threat and dealt with me in the most apalling way - the debating equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "Lalalalala". =P
I really shouldn't be wasting my time on him. He is a totally lost cause. Meh.
Well, he may be beyond rationality, but it's not about him. It's about the people listening to you two discussing. You can't let his crap go unchallenged, or others might think he's right by default
I remember hearing about the exact document he mentioned to you.
However, when I heard about it, it was supposedly destroyed in a fire a few centuries ago.
How convenient, eh?
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I would recommend reading some of the old posts in here:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forums/rook_hawkins/the_jesus_mythicist_campaign
.... what does some proof of a dude called jesus being executed have anything to do with proving a silly god of abraham is real ?
That debate is an example of propaganda, just as the war debates on our privately owned major tv/media make war seem debatable .... but it ain't , ... so sad it is ...
Atheism Books.
I can tell you a few things.
1.) No document exists which is contemporaneous to a Jesus of Nazareth
2.) No archaeological evidence exists which is from any roman official or magistrate which discusses Jesus who would have been there. (We have a record in Tacitus, but it dates to 113 CE, long after Christianity had established some tenents of faith, and at least two Gospels had been written)
3.) Please read my blog, and browse some of the threads in the Jesus Mythicist Campaign forum. There are tons of great articles I've written on mythicism that will help you. More recently, my rebuttle of Hillegas' article in American Atheist.
The best,
Rook
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
That is not accurate. Most scholars today, including the eminent atheist A.T. Robinson (who wrote "Redating the New Testament) hold to the Gospels being written between 40-65 A.D. Matthew and Mark were written about a decade after Christ's crucifiction. The "late-date" theory has been abandoned by the scholarly community (which was only a minority view anyway). Also, it is the unanimous consent by New Testament historians today, that the text of 1 Corinthians 15 is pre-pauline (before Paul's conversion) and comes from an Aramaic Christian creed from about five years after Jesus' death. Some scholars date it even earlier, to just a few months after Jesus' crucifiction. We also have non-biblical sources of Jesus before the close of the first century. And the existance of apostolic succession (a historical link of bishops back to Christ and the apostles). This was not written. It was transmitted orally and doctrinally. It was the laying on of hands of ordination; which, incidently, exists all the way up to our own day in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
I don't know anything about a Bethlehem museum. This might or might not be true. But I know that Tacitus spoke of Chrestus (Latin Christ) in the historical context as the founder of the Christian religion, Pontius Pilate and Tiberius. This is cleary a reference to Jesus Christ. And no one in the scholarly community denies this.
The best books I have come across on the historical Jesus, are:
The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, by Bomberg
Assessing the New Testament's Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Craig
Myth Became Fact (an essay), by Lewis
Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, by Bruce
The Gospel and the Greeks, by Nash
The Historical Jesus, by Habermas
God always is, nor has He been and is not, nor is but has not been, but as He never will not be; so He never was not -- Augustine
That is not true. First, we have eyewitness accounts in the four Gospels, the epistles of Peter, Jude, James and 1 and 2nd John. James, by the way, did not believe Jesus was Messiah untill after the resurrection. Jude was also a doubter, untill the resurrection. Something happened to these two men to drastically change their views. They even died for the lie? No, the truth of Christ's resurrection from the dead. All apostles were martyred, except John the Divine.
Luke knew Peter and the apostles (Luke 1) and wrote an historical chronology f the early Church (Book of Acts), and claimed his information was based on eyewitness accounts (Luke 1, Acts 1). Moreoever, there were still eyewitnesses alive when Luke wrote, so if he got anything wrong they would have corrected him, but they didn't.
John claims to have been an eyewitness of Jesus (John 21; 1 John 1) He also wrote the book of Revelation.
Clement of Alexandria was a disciple of the Apostle Peter.
Papias and Polycarp were disciples of the Apostle John.
And Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp. There are even more, and they all confrim the facts of historic orthodoxy; namely, that Jesus is the Son of God, lived, died and rose from the dead.
Now my question to the skeptic is: would you rather believe some modern day skeptical writer who is alive 2,000 years after the actual events, or the apostles and the disciples of the apostles who were alive during the time in question? The ancients were not idiots. There is a idea today that everyone before the modern era were fools. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These men died and suffered greatly for what they knew to be true. They gave us everything they could give.
Also, even if there wasn't contemporary evidence, which there was, it wouldn't prove anything. The New Testament passes all the tests for historicity. The only reason a person would doubt its historicity, is because they have a presupposition that miracles are impossible. This bias effects how they approach historical data and the New Testament.
Even if there wasn't, it doesn't prove anything. I think you are arguing from silence. The absence of data, does not preclude its existance. But since arguments from silence don't prove anything, I will leave it at that. You don't prove anything from your point.
All Gospels (with the possible exception of John) were written before 70 A.D. Atheist and scholar, A. T. Robinson proves this in his classic "Redating the New Testament."
We also have "Corinthians" by Clement of Rome, written A.D. 95, etc.
I did and I have one comment:
garbage
God always is, nor has He been and is not, nor is but has not been, but as He never will not be; so He never was not -- Augustine
Rook's stuff is garbage?
This from one who claims John A.T. Robinson is an atheist?
If Robinson's dating is correct, Spyridon, where do you put Paul?
Dating Paul early puts his writings during Jesus' lifetime where he would've had no excuse to not mention any aspect of said life.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Nobody agrees with you. Your claim is here baseless.
You have never heard of the term pseudepigrapha have you?
Again, Jude did not write "Jude" just like Mary did not write the Gospel of Mary, not Phillip write the Gospel of Phillip, nor Paul write the Hymn of the Apostle Paul, etc... They are pseudepigrapha.
These viewpoints were changed by the church, anonymous authors, and theology which can clearly be seen and pulled from the text.
Why do theists always ask this? Of course they didn't die for a lie. They died for who they thought the Christ was - a spiritual revealer of wisdom. The savior of mankind. Obviously they didn;'t die for a what they thought was a lie, just as the followers of Dionysus who died for their savior, or those who believed Prometheus who was the savior of mankind. They all believed they worshipped the truth, but of course it wasn't.
More baseless, incredulous assertions.
False. You need to read up on new scholarship. Methinks you are reading outdated very bad scholarship. Try any new publication on Luke-Acts within the last five years, specifically books by renowned scholrs Joseph B. Tyson and Richard I. Pervo. Also a whole monograph was published called "Contextualizing Acts" put out by the Journal of Biblical Literature. There are more books also out which were done about two decades ago by Charles H. Talbert.
More baseless claims.
More baseless claims.
More baseless claims.
More baseless claims.
Neither. I'd rather examine the evidence for myself and make my own conclusions. Something, it seems, you've not tried.
No. They just believed in idiotic things. Like the earth having four corners, resting on pillars, talking donkeys and snakes, dragons, talking burning bushes, and most importantly, they believed in mythical sky beings called Gods. But they certainly weren't idiots. Non-sequitor, strawman, ad hoc.
Non-sequitor, strawman, ad hoc.
Non-sequitor, strawman, ad hoc.
False on all counts. Please read some udpated scholarship. Even in the past twenty years. Hell, go back to Kasemann, Bultmann, Schweitzer, James Robinson, etc... More recently Charles Talbert and Thomas L. Thompson, and soon a new book by N.P. Lemche, Thompson and Van Seters will be out to show the genre of the Gospels as narrative.
Non-sequitor, strawman, ad hoc. You have this game, methinks, where you just try to avoid the subject by creating new ones.
Wow, hypocrite.
Naive.
No, I'm showing how the silence suplements a far better explanation.
Hah! I knew you were using shitty scholarship. Even his PEERS thought his book was retarded. Allow me to quote his reviewer:
"The case for placing all the NT books before 70 cannot be made by the methods employed here, and it has not been made." (Robert M. Grant, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 97, No. 2. [Jun., 1978], pp. 294-296.)
Nobody takes Robinson's claim seriously. By the way, Robinson was NOT an atheist - which shows that you've never read his work. You aren't going to be one of those theists like Apotheon who just cites without reading, are you?
More baseless assertions. You're easy to refute because you just make a lot of baseless claims.
Apparently you're a liar or you are ignorant. Perhaps both.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)