How strong is the evidence that Jesus existed?

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Maybe it's just the Lutheran in me, but I have zero faith in the legitimacy of any relic. Especially something like baby Jesus' foreskin. Why the hell would his parents want to keep that thing, anyway?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The ancients (pagans) didn't have writing. The British pagans had some of their mythical stories written out by the Romans when they came and took over.

Hi Tadzio. I don't think he is interested in correlations between Jesus and previous methods of thinking. But I can see what you mean. Christianity is just the latest version of older stories which were grounded in practical ideas and observable facts.

Wrong.

We have access to pre-Britain pagan myths. Not one of them supports what you say.

Where is this writing? And who wrote it? As far as I know it was the Mesopotomains who invented writing and I am not referring to them as ancients. When I say ancients or pagan I mean pre civilised.

Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient Greek texts, ancient Roman texts, Mesopotamian texts, and so on and so forth.

Nowhere in these texts is anything that supports the specific claims you've made about the ancient belief in the sun.

I am confused now. What specific claims have I made? Also the Egyptian and Mesopotamians were classed as civilisations, so yes they had writings. Egyptians had sun gods and so did Mesopotamia.

Um, the ancient belief that the sun was born of virgin and so on?

Do you have selective memory or something?

No. But this debate has gone on for so long and has drifted so far from the OP and what I was saying about solar worship and Jesus's birth and death and blah blah blah....

The fact of the matter is that the bible stories are so weird and confused, and have been translated too many times that who knows how many mistakes are in it, that no one can say what or who any of it relates to. But it must have come from somewhere so we have 3 choices. It was either made up by everyone and anyone who had a hand in its writing, or it is elaborate versions of old stories. I am not entertaining the idea that any of it is true.

But we know from observation of the sun's annual cycle that it's progress from north to south grinds to a halt at the winter solstice, hangs around for a few days then begins its ascent north again. The three stars of orions belt and the bright star sirius follow its path across the skies at this time of year. The ancients had a strong regard for the constellations, in particular orion. The star sirius is and has always been the brightest star in the sky, and the sun is undboubtedly the most important object man has ever observed in the sky.

So all that is a pretty strong candidate if we want to even begin to make sense of the jesus birth story, and his alledged death and ressurection. There is no evidence to find, but anyone who assumes there were no stories about the sun, and its cycle, or scoffs at the the idea I am presenting is a closet christian who cannot bear to contemplate the notion that their faith is actually one of the biggest dupes ever to have taken place in human history.

Merry solstice. Fear not, for our Sun will return, follow the path of the three kings, and when they align with the bright star to the east you will find the place where our saviour (the sun) will be reborn.

You of course are upside down, so you will have to wait for this spectacle another 6 months.

BTW - Instead of harrassing me for evidence, or accusing me of being deluded and spreading lies, why don't you tell me your idea of where the bizarre story of jesus comes from and what it all means.

What difference does it make? What has Jesus done for us lately?

ruveyn

I don't think you wanna get involved in this debate. I am sorry I have because it is all a load of crap and for some reason I keep getting requests for evidence of what people had in their heads during pre history.

If you're lost and confused by now, it's because you refused to seek what the evidence points to. Yes, we've been going in circles so many times and I'm one big masochist for even continuing to participate in this circular discussion. But it may also have to do with the fact that when it comes to things I'm very fairly certain of, I tend to be very stubborn because I hate facts and evidence being distorted in favor of clear lies (not saying you're a liar but that what you've been mentioning here are lies propagated by insincere "experts" who aren't really interested in anything but their own personal profits).



There you go. You've already made up your mind nothing in the Bible is true. That's the problem.

Historians don't work that way. And the Bible isn't so distorted to the point that we can't discern anything historical from it. We have evidence that the texts we have access to now are basically the same as the originals. The variants that exist aren't really so big that it warrants distortion of the main message.



You keep mentioning these red herrings over and over again. Please, for God's sake, stop it!

My request was very clear. That you provide evidence that the ancients believed in myths of sun gods collectively being born of virgins, having twelve insider disciples, being crucified, being risen from the dead, ascending bodily to heaven, and so on.

You admitted you had no such evidence, and this is where we were supposed to end the discussion and have you admit that what you've been arguing isn't based on evidence and observations but on wishful thinking.

But you chose to go on propagating distortions of what are deemed historical facts. And that's what's frustrating me.



A stronger candidate is that there was a Jesus and that he failed to be the Roman-defeating, Israel-saving Messiah he was supposed to be. So his disciples distorted the true story of the real Jesus and added exaggerations to it.

It's stronger because it answers some questions proposed about Jesus much better than what you've come up with.

For example, the author of Mark never said that Jesus was born of a virgin. But the authors of Matthew and Luke did so later on in order to show with more power the divinity of Jesus.

The disciples believed Jesus was resurrected because they wanted to believe that their Messiah didn't fail by being crucified and dying without achieving anything.

Some of the questions that a historical approach to Jesus answers better than any known mythicist answer are as follows:

Why have Jesus be from Nazareth (instead of Bethlehem) if Bethlehem was mentioned as the birthplace of the Messiah in the Old Testament?

Why have Jesus be baptized by John the Baptist if he was supposedly greater than John the Baptist?

Why have Jesus fail to do miracles in his hometown if he is the one whom God sent as the Messiah?

Why have Jesus be crucified and f*****g fail? Why the need for a death and then resurrection story if this was all made up?

We have evidence in the Bible, and by using certain criteria, that the answers to the above questions are that Jesus was real and historical and, therefore, had historical events about him. No mythicist answer that I know of answers the questions above better than the historical answer.

Also, I find it hilarious that you consider me a closet Christian given that I don't believe in Jesus' resurrection and all the mythical stuff that was attached to him. And I don't even like the guy.



This is your belief and has nothing to do with what the ancients believed. Please stop conflating your beliefs with the ancient ones.



Gladly. Unlike you, I'm not afraid of providing evidence and good proper explanations. But you have to be specific and, also, not assume that I believe the supernatural stuff actually happened.

There is the problem. We are looking at this from two different viewpoints. I am only looking at the supernatural elements of the story of jesus's birth and death. I am not taking into account what was said of his living years in the bible.

I am not a christian. I was not brought up to be a christian. And yet, through no request of my own, or my parents, I have had this silly story of jesus's birth, death and ressurrection rammed into my head by teachers at school, by our western culture, and by the christians I have met in my life. I never knew much about Jesus's living years as a child apart from the supernatural stuff. Since being an adult I have read parts of the bible. Found it to be an amalgamation of historical events, words of law or moral guidelines (that presumably meant something at the time), the passing on of practical information, and supernatural myths.

I have been defending my view that the death, 3 days, risen again concept can be easily explained by the suns solstice movement. And because I have an interest in how humanity went from hunter gatherer to civilisation, I have little doubt that ancients would have been able to pass on information in the form of stories about the sun. Assuming otherwise is not reasonable.

It cannot be deemed an historical fact that jesus died for 3 days then was ressurected.

If we have agreed there is no evidence of pre history apart from stone circles, artifacts, and cave paintings, then how can you say this is nothing to do with what the acient's believed. I am not talking here about Mesopotamia, or any civilisation after them. I am speculating a possible story told of the sun, by the hunter gatherers of Europe.

You don't sound like you are stupid. So I will admit I made a sweeping statement in this thread about (Jesus = The sun). I have admitted many times that there can be no evidence for what ancient hunter gatherers thought. In Britain we can only speculate on what Stonehenge was built for.

However, surely you cannot assume that people living prior to 5000 years ago had no words, phrases, or stories about the sun. In particular the most crucial, and significant point in its cycle - the winter solstice, for which I have already supplied a scientific explanation as to why an observer on Earth cannot detect the day of the solstice and must make observations over several days (at least 3).

Forget Jesus and the bible. I will admit there is no evidence linking him to prehistory, I will admit there is nothing in prehistory to say the sun is born of a virgin.

If this doesn't interst you, then fine. But do not say I am a deluded liar for speculating a story about the sun. There is no doubt in the world of acedemia that humans have told stores for as long as they had the time, and vocabulary to.