On 1/10/2012 3:10 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 10/01/2012 03:36 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 1/9/2012 8:31 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> The contents of the Bible may or may not be real, but the book itself is
>>> quite real. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (which is inerrant),
>>> it seems that at least a few of the things in the Bible might actually
>>> be true. In particular, there might actually have been a real person
>>> actually called Jesus, who at least /claimed/ to be a messenger of God.
>>
>> Based on what? The census data that, supposedly, was collected when he
>> was born, but doesn't mention him? The total lack of anything written
>> "during his own life", by anyone at all, that mentions him.
>
> I won't claim to be an expert in such fields. But it appears that a
> couple of non-Christian sources do mention him (though never first-hand
> accounts).
>
And a lot of ones that "are" Christian insist there is more, then 
inexplicably can't show any. The problem is, we are talking about a 
name. Christ was a title added later. No one just pulled "Jesus" out of 
no place. More than one person had that name, so merely finding the name 
gets you no where at all.

The other problem is, there is no exact certainty as to when what ever 
original of those sources was written either. They seem to be copies, 
not originals, so.. again, no evidence "prior" to well after the fact.

> To be clear: I didn't say there is /proof/ that he existed, I merely
> said that some evidence suggests that he /might/ have existed.
>
>> And, that doesn't even go into the problem with how nothing claimed
>> about his wasn't basically stolen from other religions, from virgin
>> births, to raising the dead, and walking on water (or turning it into
>> whine).
>
> I have seen absolutely no evidence at all that this person was actually
> God incarnate, or that he actually performed any miracles. I only said
> he might have been a real person, who /claimed/ to be a messenger from God.
>
The problem is, during that time period, as is joked about in the Monty 
Python movie Life of Brian, the Romans where actively messing with 
several cultures at the time, including the Jews, and even among Romans, 
there was a lot of fly by night religions popping up, with their own 
godlings, so there where probably 2-3 such people on every damn street 
corner, during the time that Jesus was supposed to be around. Kind of 
begs for answers to two questions - Which one of the thousands was he 
then? Why, if you assume the crucifixion bit actually happened, would 
they have even bothered much, unless he did way more than all the rest 
of them where doing. Actually, make that three - If he did, why isn't it 
written down in any official documents from the time, at all, instead of 
either being one of thousands of other unnamed, uninteresting 
executions, or otherwise considered of so little consequence that no one 
made note of it?

> I see nothing particularly implausible in a man being born, walking
> around giving speeches and stuff, and then after his death the stories
> being gradually embellished until we end up with the current Bible myth
> about him being the son of God and rising from the dead and performing
> other miracles. Obviously the Bible story is fiction; that doesn't mean
> that it isn't at least loosely based on a real person, or on events that
> really happened. And it seems possible that some of the words he is
> credited as having said might be words that a real person actually
> spoke. (Mind you, the words could have been altered somewhat over the
> years too.)
>
>> Or, the really big one, that nothing at all in the Bible's NT
>> has *ever* been found, in any form, earlier than roughly 50 years
>> "after" he was supposedly crucified. You would think someone, some
>> place, would have made mention of it, kept and old copy, accidentally
>> stuffed a wall with a manuscript that contained mention of "any" of his
>> speeches, describing any of the events, etc.
>
> We're talking about something which [may have] happened two *thousand*
> years ago. It's a miracle we have any documents at all.
>
We know more about Zeus that we do Jesus, precisely because there *are* 
records from that time. This wasn't some back water country, where they 
used leather hides to record things. Its like coming back 2000 years 
from now, and wondering that any part of the contents of the library of 
congress survived. The Library at Alexandria certainly would have been 
helpful, if it hadn't been burned down, but other records did exist, and 
most "official" ones where kept, even by the morons that burned that 
one. Its hardly a miracle. On the contrary, we have a more complete 
collection of documents from the time period than we do from some more 
"recent" periods, ranging from private documents, to just catalogs of 
purchases from some merchants. What we don't have is anything more than 
a few references, to a common name, without the messiah title attached, 
none of which connect to a specific person, or event, or necessarily 
even the right time frame.

Oh, and to give you another example from "earlier". How about we go back 
another 1,000 years or so, and to Egypt. We couldn't even read most of 
it for a long time, now.. We know that the time line, roughly, works 
like this:

1. Egyptians settle there.

2. Some time later the Semitic people show up, and slowly take over 
government, and then they get kicked out, and the Egyptians are back in 
power.

3. Even later the events leading "up to" Exodus happen.

4. Exodus comes and goes with a) no sign of Semitic clothes, pottery, 
writing, the death of huge swaths of a) live stock, b) citizens, c) 
crops, or d) armies, or anyone trying to conquer the now, supposedly 
devastated, Egyptian people.

5. Other things that we "know" the time frame for happen.

6. Ramses takes over.

7. Egypt eventually drifts into history as a unique culture, and a few 
thousand years later some clown makes a movie where Ramses denies Moses 
the right to leave a non-existent slavery, under the Egyptions.

Or, to put it mildly, we have "more" evidence of Semitic people having 
been, in power, in Egypt, and not being there during the time of Moses, 
than we have of Jesus, from an empire with a recorded history, list of 
plays, recorded works, etc., that was the largest in history, until 
modern times.

Could it have, somehow, gotten lost anyway? Yeah. Could the guy have 
been such a nobody that no one, other than the eventual Christians 
cared? Possibly. Could it have all been made up, for another reason, 
then kept, when it proved useful? Of course, every two bit seer and 
prophet during that time was trying the same thing. One of them was 
bound to get luck, especially if they hit one something that those in 
power thought they could use to retain it. It wasn't, after all, 
uncommon for some Romans to go to a dozen, often contradictory, temples, 
at the time, to make donations, on the chance that at least "one" of the 
gods/goddesses actually existed, and would either grant them what they 
wanted, or worse, punish them for picking the wrong temple instead.

Post a reply to this message