How strong is the evidence that Jesus existed?

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The plain observable facts are the seasonal changes that take place. The 3 stars of orions belt, the southern cross, the star sirius, the fact that christmas day is the first day that an observer on Earth can tell that the sun is now in the ascension, and that midwinter has passed.

So this year when you are celebrating christmas day (if you do) you can know that for those of us in the northern hemisphere the shortest days have passed and the days are getting gradually longer.

Many thousands of years before the story of jesus, this would have been known to our ancestors all across Europe, Asia and the middle east, and northern africa.

There are no written documents because writing wasn't around, or if it was it was written in the sand perhaps. Verbal story telling would have been the method of communication.

And the story would be: At midwinter the sun dies for 3 days, it lies on the southern cross, but after the 3rd day it is ressurected and will return (it is reborn). The 3 kings (stars of orions belt) are aligned with the bright star to the east (sirius) and point to the location of the birthplace of the saviour (our sun).

Also there is speculation that the three pyrimids at Giza were built to mirror the three stars of orions belt, and the Egyptians buried their kings in these pyrimids.

It is not concrete (or stone) evidence, but it is very intriguing and compelling correlations to how the ancient mind was working.

But Bart Ehrman wasn't arguing that Paul met the actual Jesus. So not sure what your point above is.

And there's your problem. You rely too much on subjective opinions rather than evidence. And your camp of scholars is really a camp of frauds (judging by the arguments you've been presenting). This is not philosophy, man. Bring us the evidence that supports your claims.



You're doing just like a religious person now who says that he has yet to find any convincing arguments to put him off his faith.

Please stop with the red herrings and bring forth the evidence that the sun does this and that and that the Jesus story was copied/adapted from prior pagan myths.



That's what you think. I liken someone like Acharya S to a religious cult leader who has easily misled a lot of people into believing her wild views.



At least we have these documents to help us determine the likelihood of Jesus' existence based on certain criteria being used consistently.

Where are those documents that I myself have requesting and that support your case?

The seasonal changes are obviously a fact. But I disupute some of these specific claims that you're making (especially the Christmas day bit). Evidence please. And by evidence, I don't mean you just yelling out "observable facts".



What's your source for this information?



How do you know?



So how would YOU know what stories exactly they told?



Again and again, where's the evidence for this. How do YOU know that's what the story would've been?



Can you please stop speculating and give us some evidence for a change?



You're seeing correlations because you WANT to see patterns in these matters. And where there's a will, there's a way.

So far, no evidence.

I need not agree with someone on every issue they take a position on in order to find something admirable in what they say.

Jesus and Cleopatra most likely existed.

Does not help the odds about Yahweh or Isis though.

Irrelevant with regards to the topic title. If you want to discuss the existence of God there are plenty of threads for that. If not, then please refrain from shifting the goalposts.

Saying that Jesus most likely existed seems relevant to the topic.

Still the most likely theory is that Yahweh is an invention of crazy old men obsessed with beards.

I don't have documents. But you can read up on the solstice and ideas about stonehenge. You can get a list of sunrise/sunset times from anywhere in the world throughout the year. Note that around the solstices the sunrise and sunset times change very little compared to other days in the year. This shows that the sun appears to stop its movement either north or south depending on where in the world you are.

I have watched the sunrise and sunset positions since I was a kid. After the winter solstice on Dec 22nd, for 3 days there is no change in the positions. Then on the 25th the sun rises a fraction further north.

If you have documents to help you determine the likelihood of Jesus's exisistence then great. My question is "So what?" What does it tell us? I am sure there was once a man named Moses, or Mohammed (who may actually be the same person) who climbed to the top of a hill and came down claiming to have spoken to god. But so what?

My position is based on what I know from observing the sun. I coudn't care less if jesus existed or not.

Yeah I am seeing correlations because I WANT to see them. No there is no evidence.

What I imagine is that someone called jesus was pissed off with Judeism and began to talk of "new ideas" to a few people who would listen. Perhaps a bit like the OWS protestors.

He was a nobody and didn't come of anything. Then later people heard about him and started to attach myths to him, created a new religion and set about spreading the word.

When the romans conquered Europe, constantine became a christian at some point and tried to convert the pagans.

In Britian they had a hard time doing this and it is speculated that they gave jesus some particular properties (born of a virgin, dead for 3 days, risen again) because it tallied with pagan myths. (This has been suggested by Christians themselves on the BBC)

Moses and Mohamed may have been the same person?
HUH?!?!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The similarities in religions is too coincidental. I would say they all come from a single source. The flood is a big giveaway.

But Moses lived somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 years ago (if I'm wrong, I'm sure ruveyn will correct me), whereas Muhammad lived in the 7th century A.D. That's quite a huge chasm of time between the two, making it quite impossible for them to have been the same person. Any similarities between the faiths of Judaism and Islam - or Christianity, for that matter - is due to the fact that all three are of the Abrahamic tradition.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Not only is Muhammad not Moses, but Allah and Yahweh aren't the same person either, as some have suggested, and they are in fact completely distinct from each other, all the way back to their origins in human historical recognition:

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm

Last edited by Ragtime on 05 Dec 2011, 1:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There is no evidence to say any of these people existed at all, never mind when they existed. The way I see it as that many years ago, when humanity was trying get a civilisation going somewhere around the middle east, some guy who's name began with M went to the top of a hill and claimed he spoke to god. People believed him and that myth was carried on through generations of seperated cultures and the story retold and elaborated and we end up with different religions scrapping with each other and people like us arguing online. All because of some word of mouth crap that may or may not have happened.

Ehrman jumped to the subject that Paul was a source of "historical evidence" about older claimed historical evidence of Jesus, namely the claimed Jesus' other witnesses and biological family relatives.

It is much like if I were to interview people claiming to be related to "Big-Foot", and then my written notes about the people I interviewed taken as establishing Big-Foot as being historical. My claiming the experiences of "seeing" or writing about my "fits" of talking to the Gods taken as also giving the "Bright-Light of Verification" for Big-Foot's being historical helps to confound all the issues too!! ! (Big-Foot's relatives give off very intoxicating fumes!! !).

Tadzio