Where did Christ go?

Originally posted by jaywill

none of those 19 were contemporaries of jesus, they were all reporting on the existence of christians and sometimes their doctrine.

we are not discussing the historicity of socrates, so do not make any assumptions about double standards.

Before the 18th Century please list the major historians that doubted the existence of the man J ...[text shortened]... ix centuries C.E. doubted that a Jesus of Nazareth ever existed (belief in His claims aside) ?

I wouldn't worry with him anymore. He doesn't know squat.

Originally posted by jaywill

none of those 19 were contemporaries of jesus, they were all reporting on the existence of christians and sometimes their doctrine.

we are not discussing the historicity of socrates, so do not make any assumptions about double standards.

Before the 18th Century please list the major historians that doubted the existence of the man J ...[text shortened]... ix centuries C.E. doubted that a Jesus of Nazareth ever existed (belief in His claims aside) ?

i wouldn't call the scholars of the past 300 years "johnny come latelys," especially considering that anyone who confessed to doubting the existence of christ prior to that would get his head lopped off by the peace loving christians.

if you wish to go the the first few centuries, we have to go by different standards. most of those historians don't even mention jesus since they likely didn't know or believe he existed.

as an interesting note however, there were early christian cults/sects such as the docetists and marcion of synope that considered jesus as purely a "spiritual" being that didn't manifest physically.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Actually, extremely interested. This is one of the biggest questions I have regarding the bible besides what happened in Christ's earlier years and whether or not he knew was God his whole life.

Here is one viable theory: He didn't die on the cross (the bible says he was covered with Aloe and other healing herbs, not embalming fluids as if he died) and they kept him out of sight for three days while he recovered a bit from his ordeal on the cross or whatever it was punishment, then magically reappeared with a silly story of resurrection and such, then knowing he wouldn't last too long if he hung around Jerusalem, lit off down the Silk road where monasteries were founded by unknown persons and perhaps died many years later in Kashmir where a tomb was found with half moon images carved into the body carved on the tomb.

Works for me.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
i wouldn't call the scholars of the past 300 years "johnny come latelys," especially considering that anyone who confessed to doubting the existence of christ prior to that would get his head lopped off by the peace loving christians.

if you wish to go the the first few centuries, we have to go by different standards. most of those historians don't ev ope that considered jesus as purely a "spiritual" being that didn't manifest physically.

i wouldn't call the scholars of the past 300 years "johnny come latelys," especially considering that anyone who confessed to doubting the existence of christ prior to that would get his head lopped off by the peace loving christians.

Two red herring argument excuses:

1.) What to call more recent historians is not that relevant. Except conspiracy theories of the non-existence of an event or a person usually have to happen long after the contemporaries of the questioned event have died.

Ie. No one was taken seriously to suggest the Holocaust didn't happen in the 1950s. Yet today in the 21rst Century, a very small number of pseudo intellectuals would dare to be Holocaust Deniers.


2.) Your second red herring is just your axe to grind about "peace loving Christians". This is just s deflection. I won't bother being deflected trying to defend that Christians did not murder all people outside the faith for 20 some centuries.

if you wish to go the the first few centuries, we have to go by different standards. most of those historians don't even mention jesus since they likely didn't know or believe he existed.

Don't change it to what I "wish". It would be the most powerful evidence to argue for your contention of Jesus never existing in history.

Absence of such arguments would [NOT] edited, necessarily prove Jesus lived. But absence of such arguments sure doesn't do anything for your theory.

And there were in the first centries, non-biblical writers who mentioned Jesus.

Here confessed Agnostic Dr. Bart Ehrman, popular skeptic, corrects Radio Host "The Infidel Guy" about the scholarship agreeing the Jesus DID indeed exist:

That's a skeptic's inner circle Phd. then, saying essentially "of course Jesus existed."

YouTube&feature=related

as an interesting note however, there were early christian cults/sects such as the docetists and marcion of synope that considered jesus as purely a "spiritual" being that didn't manifest physically.

Exactly. The earliest Christian apologetics and defence of the faith that we have were debates about Jesus - NOT that He NEVER existed. Rather the debates were against criticisms that He was TOO good to be materially real.

So thanks for supporting evidence that the fight was over Him being REAL material flesh and blood or a phantasm.

In other words, the earliest recorded critical views of Jesus were along the lines of "This Person was simply TOO GOOD to be a real material person."

In the Gospel of John the writer goes out of his way to assure the readers the he saw blood coming out of the crucified body.

"The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other man who had been crucified with Him. But coming to Jesus, when they saw that He had already died, they did not break His legs ... But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.

AND HE WHO HAS SEEN THIS HAS TESTIFIED, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he says what is true, that you also may believe." (John 19:32 -35, my emphasis)

In other words - " He was not a phantasm. I actually saw blood and water pouring from out of His tortured body. He was real flesh and blood. "

The first century Docetists and Gnostics could not believe such a Person could be material. They did not argue about His never His existence. edited

Originally posted by jaywill

i wouldn't call the scholars of the past 300 years "johnny come latelys," especially considering that anyone who confessed to doubting the existence of christ prior to that would get his head lopped off by the peace loving christians.

Two red herring argument excuses:

1.) What to call more recent historians is not that relevant. Ex ...[text shortened]... ld be material. They did not argue against His never having existed.

Denying the existence of Christ was/is considered blasphemy. Blasphemy was a crime punishable by death here in the UK until 300 years ago, no doubt the same across Christian Europe. That is not a red herring, but a simple fact of history. It's hardly surprising you wouldn't find anyone doubting Christs existence more than 300 years ago.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Denying the existence of Christ was/is considered blasphemy. Blasphemy was a crime punishable by death here in the UK until 300 years ago, no doubt the same across Christian Europe. That is not a red herring, but a simple fact of history. It's hardly surprising you wouldn't find anyone doubting Christs existence more than 300 years ago.

Denying the existence of Christ was/is considered blasphemy. Blasphemy was a crime punishable by death here in the UK until 300 years ago, no doubt the same across Christian Europe. That is not a red herring, but a simple fact of history. It's hardly surprising you wouldn't find anyone doubting Christs existence more than 300 years ago.

So then, your explanation - there WERE many people who denied the historical existence of Jesus. But they were all killed off and their writings, if they left any, were ALL destroyed. So a cover up against the actual non-existence of a historical Jesus has been ruthlessly carried out by murder and destruction. [EDITED]

While I know that religious power structures did some evil things, I don't believe the vast conspiracy theory you suggest is realistic.

Believe what you want. I suggest you listen to this whole video of Agnostic historian Bart Ehrman DISTANCING himself from the lunacy of pop skeptics arguing like some here, that Jesus never existed.

YouTube&feature=related

Did Jesus Exist? A Debate:

Ken Humphreys (atheist) vs J.P. Holding (Christian apologist)

YouTube&feature=related

Originally posted by sonhouse
Here is one viable theory: He didn't die on the cross (the bible says he was covered with Aloe and other healing herbs, not embalming fluids as if he died) and they kept him out of sight for three days while he recovered a bit from his ordeal on the cross or whatever it was punishment, then magically reappeared with a silly story of resurrection and such, t ...[text shortened]... omb was found with half moon images carved into the body carved on the tomb.

Works for me.

It works for me too, although I don’t care if Jesus was an historical person or a fictional one; the Christian religion is a fact just the same. But I always evaluate the religious dogmas, the philosophic systems and the scientific facts and evidence, in order to find out for myself whether they can be used as cornerstones for tenable theories of reality or not.

Since there is no external historical confirmation of the internally contradictory New Testament story and since the miracle of the resurrection turns the story into a myth, I prefer more natural explanations regarding the origin of this religious belief than the hypothesis that it was triggered because "...Jesus was actually risen from the dead". And I built up my opinion taking into account the following principles: the consistency of the miscellaneous accounts, the quality of the accounts (are they based solely on eyewitness testimony?), the known reliability/ unreliability of the eyewitnesses and the confirmation of the story by independent testimony.

The resurrection story was written by scribes who were disciples of Jesus and eager to promote their theological beliefs, therefore it is hard to determine the reliability of their stories as historical documents that are supposed to be accurate. I could overcome my suspicion if the scribes were using documentation that could meet strict historical standards, but they did not.
Furthermore, the NT accounts of the story are inconsistent, and they can be made consistent solely by means of implausible interpretations.

Regarding the eyewitnesses to the event of the resurrection, we have the appearances of the resurrected Jesus and the story of the empty tomb. The appearances of the risen Jesus are known from hearsay testimony and Paul’s testimony alone. Since the reporters to the empty tomb are unknown I dismiss them entirely, keeping in mind too that there were no contemporaneous eyewitness accounts. And I dismiss Paul’s sighting of the risen Jesus due to the fact that it lacks of historical details.

So I do not believe that the eyewitnesses, the reporters and the scribes were reliable, but this is not so important in comparison with the fact that there was not a single eyewitness to the resurrection itself. And there are no eyewitness accounts of the people who claimed that they saw the risen Jesus. We have merely other people’s sketchy accounts of what the eyewitnesses supposedly claimed that they saw, and these sketchy accounts were written many years later after the so called resurrection. And methinks the whole thing is made up, for the original manuscripts of "Mark" end at 16:8 without the story of the resurrected Jesus in 16:9-20 -so the story was added later by "Matthew" and "Luke", probably because of certain theological purposes.

All in all, due to the above mentioned reasons, in my opinion the story of resurrection for the time being is not a historically accepted fact but a religious myth😵

Originally posted by sonhouse
Here is one viable theory: He didn't die on the cross (the bible says he was covered with Aloe and other healing herbs, not embalming fluids as if he died) and they kept him out of sight for three days while he recovered a bit from his ordeal on the cross or whatever it was punishment, then magically reappeared with a silly story of resurrection and such, t ...[text shortened]... omb was found with half moon images carved into the body carved on the tomb.

Works for me.

And... how about your wounded knee? Your scalp is still at its place??
😵

A Great Debate: Worth the Time to hear the entire program.
Just finished it.

Humphreys vs Holding - "Did Jesus Exist?"

YouTube&feature=related

Originally posted by jaywill

Denying the existence of Christ was/is considered blasphemy. Blasphemy was a crime punishable by death here in the UK until 300 years ago, no doubt the same across Christian Europe. That is not a red herring, but a simple fact of history. It's hardly surprising you wouldn't find anyone doubting Christs existence more than 300 years ago.

...[text shortened]... ere, that Jesus never existed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w&feature=related

There probably weren't many people who did doubt the existence of Jesus 300+ years ago, and those that did weren't going to be stupid enough to let anyone know, let alone write anything down. Look at the trouble Galileo got into for daring to suggest a heliocentric view of our solar system and let's not forget Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake for opposing the Catholic Church.

A look at the wiki page on the UK's blasphemy laws reveals the case of James Nayler, convicted of blasphemy -

Narrowly escaping execution, he was pilloried and whipped through the streets of London, was branded with the letter B on his forehead, had his tongue pierced with a hot iron, and was then transported back to Bristol to be whipped through its streets too, before enduring two years imprisonment at hard labour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naylor

After watching that horror, people who had views which were to be considered blasphemous might keep them to themselves.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
There probably weren't many people who did doubt the existence of Jesus 300+ years ago, and those that did weren't going to be stupid enough to let anyone know, let alone write anything down. Look at the trouble Galileo got into for daring to suggest a heliocentric view of our solar system and let's not forget Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake fo people who had views which were to be considered blasphemous might keep them to themselves.

There probably weren't many people who did doubt the existence of Jesus 300+ years ago, and those that did weren't going to be stupid enough to let anyone know, let alone write anything down. Look at the trouble Galileo got into for daring to suggest a heliocentric view of our solar system and let's not forget Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake for opposing the Catholic Church.

How do you know Galileo ever existed ?

History says that some church officials encouraged Galalio in his heliocentricism. So not all Catholics opposed his science.

A look at the wiki page on the UK's blasphemy laws reveals the case of James Nayler, convicted of blasphemy -

Guilt by association is not enough to assume nobody in history to question the historicity of Jesus survived.

I don't think you yourself seriously doubt that Jesus ever lived. I think you are a career skeptic just accustomed to throwing various and sundry issues out there to keep the Christians scrambling around.

Be commital for once. Do you SERIOUSLY believe that there was not a Jesus at all in history? And I do not mean that there was no one who ever carried the name.

Are you seriously commited to that view ? If so you can dismiss probably most other characters of note in ancient history.

Take people LIKE Jesus - spiritual or philosophical teachers with disciples.

Do you believe that Confucius ever lived ? Why?

Do you believe that Socrates ever lived ? Why ?

Narrowly escaping execution, he was pilloried and whipped through the streets of London, was branded with the letter B on his forehead, had his tongue pierced with a hot iron, and was then transported back to Bristol to be whipped through its streets too, before enduring two years imprisonment at hard labour.

An appeal to emotions mostly. Not evidence that in 20 centries all non-believers in a historical Jesus were murdered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naylor

After watching that horror, people who had views which were to be considered blasphemous might keep them to themselves.

Probaby interesting. But guilt by association and appeals to emotion will not strengthen your conspiracy theory to cover 20 centries .

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote] There probably weren't many people who did doubt the existence of Jesus 300+ years ago, and those that did weren't going to be stupid enough to let anyone know, let alone write anything down. Look at the trouble Galileo got into for daring to suggest a heliocentric view of our solar system and let's not forget Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake for o ...[text shortened]... on and appeals to emotion will not strengthen your conspiracy theory to cover 20 centries .

These guys will believe anything but the truth it seems. A little exaggeration there, of course.

Originally posted by jaywill

i wouldn't call the scholars of the past 300 years "johnny come latelys," especially considering that anyone who confessed to doubting the existence of christ prior to that would get his head lopped off by the peace loving christians.

Two red herring argument excuses:

1.) What to call more recent historians is not that relevant. Excep ...[text shortened]... e 21rst Century, a very small number of pseudo intellectuals would dare to be Holocaust Deniers.

you falsely accuse me of using a red herring while using a red herring yourself. we are not discussing holocaust history. that's a red herring you just introduced.

2.) Your second red herring is just your axe to grind about "peace loving Christians". This is just s deflection. I won't bother being deflected trying to defend that Christians did not murder all people outside the faith for 20 some centuries.

nevertheless, it is true. christians murdered unbelievers, especially outspoken ones. so it's not surprising that we don't see historians committing suicide by arguing for his non-existence until the enlightenment era.

Don't change it to what I "wish". It would be the most powerful evidence to argue for your contention of Jesus never existing in history.

i have not made that argument. the argument i have made is that there is no historical evidence for the existence of jesus. this argument remains uncontested.

Absence of such arguments would [NOT] edited, necessarily prove Jesus lived. But absence of such arguments sure doesn't do anything for your theory.

the absence of such histories is very damaging to your case, contemporary historians discussed other alleged messiahs, just nothing about jesus.

And there were in the first centries, non-biblical writers who mentioned Jesus.

no contemporaries. sorry, all you have are people reporting on the various christian cults. no argument is being made against the existence of early christian cults.

Here confessed Agnostic Dr. Bart Ehrman, popular skeptic, corrects Radio Host "The Infidel Guy" about the scholarship agreeing the Jesus DID indeed exist:

yes, and like i said, he has a book to sell. big deal. other historians disagree. they are no more or less credible or serious than him, despite his claims.

Exactly. The earliest Christian apologetics and defence of the faith that we have were debates about Jesus - NOT that He NEVER existed. Rather the debates were against criticisms that He was TOO good to be materially real.

an early debate about jesus not existing in the flesh is a very important point. it would mean that he only appeared to people as visions (such as paul's vision), rather than ever having a physical ministry. that would make him historically nonexistent.

So thanks for supporting evidence that the fight was over Him being REAL material flesh and blood or a phantasm.

thanks for realizing that his historicity was in question even in the early centuries since ghosts aren't historical figures.

In the Gospel of John the writer goes out of his way to assure the readers the he saw blood coming out of the crucified body.

unknown author using unknown sources written long after jesus alleged ministry and death.

The first century Docetists and Gnostics could not believe such a Person could be material. They did not argue about His never His existence. edited

being non-material means being non-existent in the physical plane, ergo, not a historical figure who had a historical ministry. he was a phantasm, figments of people's imaginations.

that would explain why no single contemporary historian mentioned jesus.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
you falsely accuse me of using a red herring while using a red herring yourself. we are not discussing holocaust history. that's a red herring you just introduced.


[quote] 2.) Your second red herring is just your axe to grind about "peace loving Christians". This is just s deflection. I won't bother being deflected trying to defend that Christians ions.

that would explain why no single contemporary historian mentioned jesus.

you falsely accuse me of using a red herring while using a red herring yourself. we are not discussing holocaust history. that's a red herring you just introduced.

A brief comparison is pertinent and should be allowed.
Otherwise everything that does not agree with your argument you may dismiss with "we are not discussing that".

2.) Your second red herring is just your axe to grind about "peace loving Christians". This is just s deflection. I won't bother being deflected trying to defend that Christians did not murder all people outside the faith for 20 some centuries.


nevertheless, it is true. christians murdered unbelievers, especially outspoken ones. so it's not surprising that we don't see historians committing suicide by arguing for his non-existence until the enlightenment era.

You are just relying on a mass ad-hom.

Claiming Jesus never existed is a recent complaint. What was mostly argued by skeptics in the past is that Jesus did not rise from the dead or was born a virgin, or was Son of God.

YouTube&feature=related

Don't change it to what I "wish". It would be the most powerful evidence to argue for your contention of Jesus never existing in history.


i have not made that argument. the argument i have made is that there is no historical evidence for the existence of jesus. this argument remains uncontested.

YouTube&feature=related

Absence of such arguments would [NOT] edited, necessarily prove Jesus lived. But absence of such arguments sure doesn't do anything for your theory.


the absence of such histories is very damaging to your case, contemporary historians discussed other alleged messiahs, just nothing about jesus.

As I said - only a rather recent argument that Jesus never existed.
You never gave me a list of Jesus denyers on a historical bases. what you gave me was that they were probably all murdered because, you know, Christians do bad things.

A mass ad hom.

That's good enough for this post. And I am pretty sure that the criteria you are setting for the historicity of Jesus you do not use for other notable figures of the ancient world.

You're probably selectively critical.