The existence of Jesus

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
This brings up an interesting point. [b]"Christ did not come to do away with blood sacrifice and the high preist. He became our blood sacrifice and our high preist." This reminds us that before Jesus the poor Jews had to shunt their sins onto animals and then kill the animals to be rid of their sins. In order for someone to believe that Jesus' " one, you need to believe in the other or it all has no meaning.

Edit: Typo correction.[/b]

I wonder if I can escape the burden of my sins by killing animals. Can I do it with a 0.22 rifle and the pigeons that like to sit on my air conditioner? I suppose firing a rifle at my air conditioner isn't the best idea, but you get the point I hope?

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
This brings up an interesting point. [b]"Christ did not come to do away with blood sacrifice and the high preist. He became our blood sacrifice and our high preist." This reminds us that before Jesus the poor Jews had to shunt their sins onto animals and then kill the animals to be rid of their sins. [i]In order for someone to believe that Jesus' " ...[text shortened]... one, you need to believe in the other or it all has no meaning.

Edit: Typo correction.[/b]

As far as Jesus being our high preist, this can be found in Hebrews. I am not making this up. As far as the God in which you believe, is Christs sacrifice a part of your belief for redemption? Do you base your faith in the Bible? If not, what beleifs do you have?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Jews don't feel Jesus fulfills any of the Messianic criteria. I can get you a Jewish website with detailed arguments if you want one.

EDIT: Here's a short version: http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/Why_Dont_Jews_Believe_In_Jesus$.asp

Yes, I am aware that the Jews do not believe that their Messiah has come and do not connect the dots with the prophesies. I could be wrong, but I assume that is why we still have Judism. My logic astounds me.

Originally posted by whodey
Yes, I am aware that the Jews do not believe that their Messiah has come and do not connect the dots with the prophesies. I could be wrong, but I assume that is why we still have Judism. My logic astounds me.

Do you think the Jews are willfully and intentionally rejecting God by not being Christians?

Originally posted by whodey
Yes, I am aware that the Jews do not believe that their Messiah has come and do not connect the dots with the prophesies. I could be wrong, but I assume that is why we still have Judism. My logic astounds me.

Do you remember typing this:

I would also argue that Christ fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophesies regarding the coming of the Messiah except one. The only prophesy that was not fulfilled is the one regarding issuing in the Millenial reign.

OK, argue. Specifically address the points raised by the Rabbi in the link I cited.

EDIT: Here they are:

1) JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.

Originally posted by whodey
As far as Jesus being our high preist, this can be found in Hebrews. I am not making this up. As far as the God in which you believe, is Christs sacrifice a part of your belief for redemption? Do you base your faith in the Bible? If not, what beleifs do you have?

I never claimed that you were. All I claim it that for you to believe that Christ's "sacrifice" is your redemption you have to believe that God accepted the slaughter of animals as payment for sins.

P.S. Please see my "Why don't people rip on my beliefs" thread for and overlay of my beliefs, if you are interested.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I never really thought of that. Are there actually any significant group of Christians who believe such a thing?

All of them should if they don't want to be hypocrites. What is Christ supposed to be? What was the whole purpose of his death? The death itself was meaningless as a sacrifice, as he himself announces several times in the gospels that he knew he would rise again and go to heaven, and he even got his body back before that happened. In short, he lost nothing, he knew he would lose nothing, so nothing was sacrificed. The point of his death is that he becomes the replacement for all those poor animals that no longer have to bear the terrible burden of our sins for a few moments before getting the stone knife. Let us give praise to the glory.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Jews don't feel Jesus fulfills any of the Messianic criteria. I can get you a Jewish website with detailed arguments if you want one.

EDIT: Here's a short version: http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/Why_Dont_Jews_Believe_In_Jesus$.asp

As the web site indicated the prophesies that were not fulfilled will be in the second coming. No scripture was given to prove that this is not possible. No where in the Bible does it say that the Messiah can only come once. It only talks about him coming once. In fact, there is speculation in the Christian faith that he may come again before establishing the Millineal Kingdom by an event called the rapture. No where in the Bible does it spell this out in the New Testament but there are clues to the fact that it might be possible just as there were clues in the Old Testament indicating he would come a second time. The assumption in the Jewish web site is that he cannot come a second time because it only mentions him specifically coming once. If you know anything about Biblical prophesy you will know that prophesies are not time specific. A prophesy may be given about an event in the future and then in the past and then talk about the future again. It can be confusing at times. In all, I was very dissapointed in the web site. Its arguements seemed weak. It made claims without providing scripture such as the following: "Phophesy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry"?, "During the time of Ezra all prophesy ended"? Where do they get this stuff from? Then they move on the attack Christ as not obeying the sabbath in John 9:14 because he healed a man on the Sabbath. Christ addressed healing on the Sabbath by saying to them in Luke 6:9, "I will ask you one thing; is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? To save life, or to destroy it?". Then scripture says the Jews were filled with madness and talked among themselves on how to conspire against him. This adding to the notion that an innocent man was sent to the cross for not doing evil, but good. Would a Jewish doctor refuse to perform CPR on a dying man if it were the Sabbath? This is the evidence they use to say that Jesus changed the Torah. Then they attack the notion of the Trinity. All I can say is that we were made in God's image. We to are a triune being. We cannot explain it, but we are nontheless. However, we are still one person. Likewise there is still only one God. It is not suprising that the Jewish people rejected their Messiah. If you know anything about Jewish history in the Bible you can see a distinct pattern of rejection of their God. God referred to them as a stiffnecked people. There was a continous cycle of rejection of God's law, prophets coming to warn them, and then a chastening by way of invasions from neighboring countries such as Assyria, Babylon, ect. All I can say is that they missed the boat once again, however, they will be reconciled upon his return visit. Then they will look upon him whom they have pierced.

Originally posted by whodey
As the web site indicated the prophesies that were not fulfilled will be in the second coming. No scripture was given to prove that this is not possible. No where in the Bible does it say that the Messiah can only come once. It only talks about him coming once. In fact, there is speculation in the Christian faith that he may come again before establishing ...[text shortened]... reconciled upon his return visit. Then they will look upon him whom they have pierced.

LOL! The arguments on the website "seemed weak"??? Here's WEAK:

As the web site indicated the prophesies that were not fulfilled will be in the second coming. No scripture was given to prove that this is not possible. No where in the Bible does it say that the Messiah can only come once. It only talks about him coming once. In fact, there is speculation in the Christian faith that he may come again before establishing the Millineal Kingdom by an event called the rapture. No where in the Bible does it spell this out in the New Testament but there are clues to the fact that it might be possible. The assumption in the Jewish web site is that he cannot come a second time because it only mentions him specifically coming once.

By this tortured logic, there could 100 Messiahs; after all, the Bible doesn't SPECIFICALLY say there won't be a 100 Messiahs!

Thanks for the laugh. As between you and the Rabbi, the evidence I see is overwhelming that he's actually put some study into it and you are simply parroting what somebody told you.

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
No one historically denies the existance of Jesus of Nazereth, but there is a debate on 'who' or 'what' he was.............

I am not denying the existance of Jesus, I am saying that there is no good reason to believe that he did exist.

Originally posted by whodey
Here is a link that talks about the gospel of Judas from National Geographic.
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/gospel/feature.html
In the article it says that the gospel was not written by Judas and in fact the text was dated around 220 to 340 AD. It was written by a group of mysitic Christians called the Gnostics who were located in Egypt. They wrote many other gospels themselves which the original followers of Christianity latter claimed as heretical.
I subscribe to the National Geographic but have not yet finished reading that article.

In the article scholars all agree the gospel is not an accurate historical document but rather an insightful glimpse into the minds of early Christians. The four gospels, on the other hand, were agreed to have been written much sooner than the Gnostic gospels. The four gospels seemed to have been written down from oral tradition from assumingly the origianal disciples teachings and preachings.
Actually the timeline as stated in other parts of this thread is more like:
1st of the Four Gospels
... 50 years pass ...
4th of the Four Gospels
... 50 years pass ...
Gospel of Judas

You dont explain how one Gospel only reflects the minds of early Christians where as others are supposedly accurate historical records - clearly false as many of the events described could not possibly have been passed down oraly. It is clear that things like the virginity of Mary is either devine inspiration to the writer or pure invention to try to match the Old Testament propheses.

The gospel of Judas does not even match the teachings of the Old Testament. One such example is that the Gnostics believed we live in a flawed world and therefore were created by an inferior creator rather than an ultimate God. Not only is the gospel of Judas heretical in relation to the other four gospels, it is heretical to the original Mosaic writtings.
It is not the only heretical book of the time, if fact the heretical books probably outnumbered the accepted ones. Wouldnt this indicate that accuracy was far from the norm ?

Originally posted by twhitehead
If the Bible is looked at from a non-Christian perspective, is there any reason to believe that a person called Jesus actually existed and that at least some of the events mentioned in the new testament are factual (non-miracles)?
The only reason I have seen put forward in the past is that the Gospels provide evidence and that they should be taken as rea ...[text shortened]... uthentic?

Is the existence of Jesus entirely a matter of faith or reasonable historical fact?

Yes he existed. Yes he was nailed to a chunck of wood.

The rest....welll....artistic liberty....

Originally posted by no1marauder
LOL! The arguments on the website "seemed weak"??? Here's WEAK:

As the web site indicated the prophesies that were not fulfilled will be in the second coming. No scripture was given to prove that this is not possible. No where in the Bible does it say that the Messiah can only come once. It only talks about him coming once. In fact, there is ...[text shortened]... he's actually put some study into it and you are simply parroting what somebody told you.

What? No more arguements about him breaking the Sabbath? Crucify him, crucify him!!! No scripture references to back up the rest of their claims?

BTW, it seems you have single handedly outsmarted the billions of followers of Christ in one thread. Ever thought about writing a book? Perhaps you could even become a Rabbi.

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
No one historically denies the existance of Jesus of Nazereth, but there is a debate on 'who' or 'what' he was.............

You'd be wrong about that.

Originally posted by whodey
What? No more arguements about him breaking the Sabbath? Crucify him, crucify him!!! No scripture references to back up the rest of their claims?

BTW, it seems you have single handedly outsmarted the billions of followers of Christ in one thread. Ever thought about writing a book? Perhaps you could even become a Rabbi.

YOU just argued that it doesn't matter what Scripture says unless it directly contradicts what YOU say. A Christian is supposed to work from Scripture, not come up with an idea and then say it must be true because Scripture doesn't contradict it! That's plain bizarre.

YOU claimed that ALL the Messianic prophecies (save 1) were fulfilled in Jesus. You were clearly wrong and have fallen back on "Well the ones that weren't fulfilled WILL be fulfilled ..... just later". You've failed to present any Scriptural evidence that the OT ever said there would be a Second Coming. I don't believe there is any. I think the claim that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the OT is simply untenable, though it is quite possible that the writers of the Gospels thought he was and embellished or believed embellished stories that might be argued to meet a few of the prophecies. But the big ones were clearly unfulfilled.

You get quite nasty when your arguments are shown to be wrong, don't you?

Originally posted by David C
You'd be wrong about that.

We're quite sure that Haile Selassie existed, though.