The Historical Jesus.

[Cruentus]

We're all entitled to our beliefs, paul, regardless of any evidence to support them. You have demonstrated this time and time again. And are demonstrating it again.

Yup...so I'm entitled to BELIEVE that your an arrogent @$$ who just terribly lost an arguement. Gee...thanks for your permission, however, the "evidence" is in the thread. But...since you've proven your inability to look at evidence objectively outside of your own little world, you'll "make up" your own conclusions as you have been.

So, have fun. I hope reality smacks you in the face someday.

 

[heretic888]

I would like to spend this time to apologize to the other users in the forum for the direction this thread has taken.

This discussion, which began as a free exchange of ideas and historical "facts", has devolved into little more than a mud-slinging contest between paul and myself. Of course, I would contest that most (if not all) of the mud-slinging and character assassination was initiated and engaged by paul. You may notice that his final post did not address the historical Jesus issue at all. In fact, if we observe the thread, the further down we go the more paul's posts seem more concerned validating his "objectivity" and "honesty", and attacking all others who don't agree with his historical conclusions, than with providing any evidence or facts (it is contestable whether he provided any "facts" to begin with). Of course, this is all just my opinion.

In any event, whose fault it was is irrelevant. What's done is done. I would like this discussion to continue in the direction in which the thread began, as an exhange of historical ideas and sources. I would like attention to be refocused on the question of the historicity of "Jesus of Nazareth". Perhaps someone new would like to throw his or her hat on the table??

Anyway, that's all for now. Laterz.

 

[cdhall]

Are you going to start this new Thread in the Study where it may be more closely moderated?

Did you start a new thread already? I haven't looked yet.

I just took part of a class on Apologetics but I do not feel that I'm much qualified to argue this topic beyond reccomending Strobel's The Case for Christ and then perhaps also The Case for Faith, which I probably did in this thread already.

I'll go look for a new thread to start and see if I can find something to say with some documentation to back it up.
:asian:

 

[heretic888]

No, I haven't started a new thread, nor do I plan on doing so. At least not in the near future; a new thread might be more appropriate a little later on down the line.

Please feel free to throw your throughts in the thread. I must ask, however, that people do more than cite an author or a book when presenting their hypotheses and/or theories (although, I admit, time pressures made me guilty of this myself on occassion). Present a factual claim or "evidence" and directly cite the book in support, please.

Laterz.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by heretic888
I would like to spend this time to apologize to the other users in the forum for the direction this thread has taken.

This discussion, which began as a free exchange of ideas and historical "facts", has devolved into little more than a mud-slinging contest between paul and myself. Of course, I would contest that most (if not all) of the mud-slinging and character assassination was initiated and engaged by paul. You may notice that his final post did not address the historical Jesus issue at all. In fact, if we observe the thread, the further down we go the more paul's posts seem more concerned validating his "objectivity" and "honesty", and attacking all others who don't agree with his historical conclusions, than with providing any evidence or facts (it is contestable whether he provided any "facts" to begin with). Of course, this is all just my opinion.

In any event, whose fault it was is irrelevant. What's done is done. I would like this discussion to continue in the direction in which the thread began, as an exhange of historical ideas and sources. I would like attention to be refocused on the question of the historicity of "Jesus of Nazareth". Perhaps someone new would like to throw his or her hat on the table??

Anyway, that's all for now. Laterz.

Your being a pompus d***head again. Don't try to act all innocent as if you just came in for a free exchange of ideas, and I barraded you with insults. You came in to try to put anyone down anyone who disagreed with you...period. You have been mostly very arrogent in almost everyone of your posts. You constantly imply that I am stupid, uneducated, and a liar. You have been doing this from the begining of the discussion, yet you expect MT readers to now buy that I initiated the character assasination!?!?!?

Oh...but your so civil and you want to steer the discussion back in the right direction. That's not what you want...you want to further "character assasinate" me with your last post. That's all that was...you trying to make yourself look better at my expense. And why.....cause you can't handle thhat you LOST this arguement.

My last posts weren't based off of me validating myself, as you would like others to believe. It was me pointing out the simple fact that you lost this arguement, despite your unreasonable and exessive tactics.

This started out as a discussion, Heretic, and you turned it into an arguement. In an arguement, there are clear winners and losers....and you lost. You can't handle it, so now you want to "steer the thread" to hide the fact that you lost the arguement, back into a discussion (while making me out to be the bad guy in the process).

Heck...I love a discussion. I even love a debate. And...I don't mind if someone has different beliefs then me. I, however, don't really enjoy having to crush an arrogent internet troll- f**k like you who is too close-minded to have a decent discussion. :feedtroll

 

[heretic888]

Thank you, paul, for proving my points.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by heretic888
No, I haven't started a new thread, nor do I plan on doing so. At least not in the near future; a new thread might be more appropriate a little later on down the line.

Please feel free to throw your throughts in the thread. I must ask, however, that people do more than cite an author or a book when presenting their hypotheses and/or theories (although, I admit, time pressures made me guilty of this myself on occassion). Present a factual claim or "evidence" and directly cite the book in support, please.

Laterz.

Why? So you can try to strip apart their claims, while ignoring their sources and valid points? What's the matter...you can't handle it when someone won't let you traunce on them, can you? You can't leave this thread w/o having at least one person to traunce on so you can feel "right" and "superior" to them, eh?

If you want a discussion....start speaking with an open-minded tonge that would be condusive to a discussion.

 

[cdhall]

Ah yes.
I remember now.
I started reading this thread but it took off way too fast.

At this point I would like to say:

A. I misunderstood heretic888 earlier because I thought he said he wanted to start a new thread but he did not;

B. I would have to establish some rules before I begin a debate and I started the Logic thread in the Study after a dead-end discussion with CoolKempoDude I think it was who denied that such a thing as "logic" even existed;

C. I am not going to get into a contentious or long debate with an anonymous member of MT, but I might go find 2-3 bits of well documented evidence (for example, I'm almost positive that Jesus is mentioned in some Roman historical records but I'd have to look) and put them up here;

D. Paul needs to add "Pina Coladas" to his profile if I remember that song correctly.

 

[heretic888]

I am not going to get into a contentious or long debate with an anonymous member of MT, but I might go find 2-3 bits of well documented evidence (for example, I'm almost positive that Jesus is mentioned in some Roman historical records but I'd have to look) and put them up here

I would be interested in seeing what information you have on the subject. If you don't want to get into it on the public forums, then you can email me or pm me.

Laterz.

 

[Shodan]

Howz about we all sit back and sip a nice cool pina colada while discussing the teachings of Jesus and how He would have liked to have seen us treat and act towards one another (whether you believe he existed or not!!)

:asian: :karate:

 

[heretic888]

Howz about we all sit back and sip a nice cool pina colada while discussing the teachings of Jesus and how He would have liked to have seen us treat and act towards one another (whether you believe he existed or not!!)

I think that would be more appropriate in another thread.

 

[cdhall]

Originally posted by Shodan
Howz about we all sit back and sip a nice cool pina colada while discussing the teachings of Jesus and how He would have liked to have seen us treat and act towards one another (whether you believe he existed or not!!)

:asian: :karate:

Yes, that is a great idea. If you don't do it first, I'll PM you and/or start a thread on that topic. Good idea.

 

[cdhall]

Originally posted by heretic888
I would be interested in seeing what information you have on the subject. If you don't want to get into it on the public forums, then you can email me or pm me.

Laterz.

I know I mentioned it several times, but here is an interview with Lee Strobel who wrote The Case for Christ.

http://www.familychristian.com/books/strobel.asp

He should be a pretty credible source. I have not read this yet, but I will try to refrain from posting again until I read this thread and get some original thoughts or evidence to put up so as to limit duplicating what may have already been posted.
:asian:

 

[Cruentus]

Since you like the logic stuff, let me explain some of the logical fallacies that have been occurring on this thread. I won't go into all of them, because I am guilty of some as well as virtually everyone here. Logical fallacy is something that just simply occurs with almost everyone when discussing a subject such as this one.

What I will address is some of the fallacies that Heretic888 had presented from the beginning that complicated the argument to a degree where no one else wanted to participate. I am not trying to attack Heretic here; I just want to state what happened here. I will address some mistakes that I have made here myself as well.

I think that many people outside of Heretic and myself started reading this thread, but when it digressed way in the beginning, people stopped reading, or they were too afraid to even get involved in a time consuming mess of a discussion. Since hindsight is 20-20, I would like to analyze quickly what had occurred, so MT readers will understand.

Logical Fallacy #1: Argumentum Ad Nauseam - Basically, this is if you repeat yourself over and over again, and in this case, write incredibly LONG posts with MANY different assumptions, supposed facts, etc., people get tired of hearing about it, so they tend to shut down. It then appears as if you've won the argument, especially on the net, because people will stop responding so it will LOOK like no one can refute your argument. This usually isn't the case, the case usually is that you've overloaded the issue so badly, and you've repeated yourself over and over again so much, that people just don't want to get involved. But...of course just because people don't want to get involved, this doesn't mean that your argument is correct.

Upon looking backwards, BOTH Heretic and myself are guilty of this one. Now, my posts are long a lot, so I have to be careful of doing this. Although, when I do this, I am not doing it intentionally. I just have a lot to say. It becomes a more serious problem when this is done intentionally to try to deter anyone from taking part in the argument so that you look like the winner. I feel that in Heretic's case this was intentional at times. A perfect example is page 8 where he rattles off a slew of info (much of it not directly applying to the argument) and 19 different questions. It then seems that I either have to answer all 19 questions in detail, which could take pages, or I don't answer them all, and I am insulted for not addressing all his points. The fact is he didn't want any of these points addressed really, he just wanted to post up SO MUCH junk that it would deter the average person from wanting to respond, thus making him feel undisputed.

Point is...posting a ton of info doesn't make the info itself, or the argument correct. I need to remember this when I post as well, because we were both guilty of this, I believe.

Logical Fallacy #2: Argumentum Ad Logicam - it is when you make a conclusion based off of false evidence, but the evidence is not proven to be true. This is tough to deal with and very frustrating because IF the evidence was true then the conclusions might indeed be true; people easily lose sight of the fact that the evidence hasn't been proven, so they assume the evidence is true, thus giving the conclusion the appearance of truth. Then the arguer who is not committing the fallacy often gets caught into the trap of either ignoring the fact that the evidence presented isn’t necessarily true (thus hurting his argument) or he argues every little piece of evidence, thus dealing with TOO MUCH info that further clouds the argument. Here are some examples from Heretics 1st post:

- "And, also, even among those that do swear there was a historical 'Jesus' (even that name in its original form, Iesous, gives little credence to this claim) have absolutely no historical documentation or proof to back this up."

He expects us to conclude that there is NO historical documentation to back up his claim, but has yet to provide proof of "No historical documentation."

- "On the other hand, there are many many reasons to believe there was no historical Jesus, including the multitude of parallels between the Jesus story and various 'Pagan' myths"

Fails to prove that a pagan myth comparison disproves the historical Jesus in any way.

- "The 'Jesus references' among Josephus's works are largely discredited as forgeries of the 2nd and 3rd centuries"

Makes a claim that these are forgeries, with no proof to back the claim.

- "The 'Jesus references' among Josephus's works are largely discredited as forgeries of the 2nd and 3rd centuries"

Largely...by who. Who says they are correct? Obviously there are scholars who would disagree, but we are instead supposed to believe yet another conclusion based off evidence which has not been proven to be true.

I could go on and on, but this is just in the 1st post. Now I know it is difficult to cite everything, but I am not talking about just citing sources here. It goes beyond that. What I am talking about is listing unproven evidence to support a claim, but doing it SO MUCH and with SUCH AUTHORITY, that the audience either A. Believes it to be true, or B. falls into the trap of the above fallacy, where there is too much stuff to address, so they shut down. In either case, this is a major fallacy that is not conducive to a good discussion. Mainly because the person performing this fallacy (heretic in this case) entraps the opposing arguers into taking part in the fallacy. Either the opposing party addresses every little side issue (as I tried to do) which leads to ad nauseum, too much info, and extremely long posts, or the opposing party shuts down and ignores the issue, so it appears that the person performing the fallacy won the argument.

This is a very frustrating fallacy because you can get sucked right into this trap (as I did) if your not paying attention. Then, you find yourself arguing over every little word and nuance, and losing site of the original argument in the first place.

#3: Argumentum Ad Hominum - or "argument against the man."
Heretic has done this right from the start, and this is what caused me to get extremely pissed off. Here were some common comments by heretic towards me:

"I suggest you study the history of the Hellenistic Roman Empire in more depth."

"*cough* Actually, if you reread my post..."

"Actually, I suggest you do more research."

"*chuckles* That depends on how much weight you give to pseudo-science."

"Ahem. It's spelled 'empirical' and I can assure you it is a real word (look up 'empiricism' in the dictionary if you don't believe me)."

All this stuff is an attempted attack on my character. There is a lot more, but you catch my drift. All this implies that I either haven't read enough on the subject, so my argument must be wrong. Or, I don't read thoroughly, or I have horrible spelling, implying that I am "stupid." I have also been called "ignorant" by him as well, as well as "Liar".

This was done as an attempt to win an argument through an attack to my character by implying that I am stupid, uneducated, and a liar. This is really low. Fallacy #1 and #2 was frustrating enough to have to deal with, but this put me over the edge.

I responded by calling things as I saw them. Some of these things were personal attacks on heretic. This made the thread digress further, which is my fault. However, I did not attack his character in order to win an argument. I used evidence and logic to win the argument. My "attacks" were my attempt to merely address what he had been doing to me all along on this thread, and how he had been acting.


SOOOOO.... these are the logical fallacies that caused this thread to digress the way it did. I hope everyone now understands. I am partially guilty, as I could have handled the situation better. Heretic, however, is the person who initiated this digression through these 3 tactics. This is worth mentioning because he is now trying to save face by trying to look like he is coming from an open-minded perspective, when that could not be further from the way he first came into this thread. The implication was also that I am "to blame" for this digression because I am not afraid to call things as I see them, even if it means being 'insulting'.

So...if heretic can refrain from performing these three fallacies, then I would vow to refrain from being ‘insulting’, and some constructive conversation could happen. Until then, I don't expect anything constructive to come out of talking to him.

 

[Klondike93]

Originally posted by cdhall
I know I mentioned it several times, but here is an interview with Lee Strobel who wrote The Case for Christ.

http://www.familychristian.com/books/strobel.asp

He should be a pretty credible source. I have not read this yet, but I will try to refrain from posting again until I read this thread and get some original thoughts or evidence to put up so as to limit duplicating what may have already been posted.
:asian:

I read that article and wasn't impressed with it at all. The only facts the guy talked about was what he read about in the bible. Where's the evidence other than in the bible? Also, how are things dated, by using the bible? How accurate can that be?

 

[arnisador]

Please, keep the discussion polite and respectful.

-Arnisador
-MT Admin-

 

[MA-Caver]

I still shake my head in wonder and ponder why there are folks trying to prove that this ONE MAN never existed when millions believe that he did and millions more devote their whole lives to his teachings.

I mean, what is it that makes people want to say "he never existed" ? Jealousy? Envy? Fear? Shame? Bitterness from a bad experience related to beliefs? Something I tell ya. I dunno. But the alterior motive to try and DISPROVE one man's entire existence goes a lot deeper than one may want to admit.
The evidence lies in one book (two, if you're LDS); the Bible. Also funny/strange that no-one disputes the existence of anyone else mentioned in the bible, i.e. Moses, Noah, Adam, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, John, Peter, Mark, Luke, etc. etc. etc. etc.... Just Jesus.

I'll stand behind my original statements made much earlier in this thread... Jesus was born, had lived and died and was resurrected... and he did it for the remission of my sins. ... and for anyone else who chooses to believe that.

Jesus said: I will come again.
:asian:

p.s. read Og Mandino's Christ Commission... at least this author is trying to prove that Jesus didn't rose from the dead. THAT should be the focus of an argu--err discussion about the man.

 

[Nightingale]

One of the things about christianity I've always wondered about...

why do christians use the bible and only the bible to justify their belief in the bible?

A conversation I had with a friend last week:

Me: how do you know Jesus is God?
Fred: Because the Bible says so.
Me: How do you know the Bible is correct when it says this?
Fred: Because the Bible is the word of God, and divinely inspired.
Me: how do you know this?
Fred: Because the Bible says so!

I changed his wording around a bit to try to get him to see exactly what he was saying...

Me: How do you know that Jethro Tull is an alien?
Him: because his fan club manual says so.
Me: How do you know the manual is correct?
Him: because it was written by people guided by aliens.
Me: How do you know this?
Him: because it says so on page 53 of the manual!

He chuckled a bit at this and did admit the flaw in his reasoning there... basically, he believed a book because the book itself claimed it was correct. he could come up with absolutely nothing besides the book to justify his position.

 

[cdhall]

OK. I did not want to muddy the waters, but it may be useless now.

But first, Klondike93, I'll bet you $100 that Lee Strobel has done more research and has more interviews and reasoning behind his opinons than you do.

If you write a book comparable to The Case for Christ and get it published I'll pay you $100 for doing it no matter what side of the fence you come down on.

I'll look at the article later, but my offer will stand for until December 31, 2005 to give you time to get it done.

Secondly, regarding MACaver, when I was a "pagan" or whatever the proper word is for a non-Christian, reading the Iliad in college, I was struck by the fact that in the book it Aeneas is given the choice to go home and live a long, long time or kill Hector and die quickly but also become the most famous Greek that ever lived.

I was Awestruck that sitting in that literature class some 2500+ years after the "fact" that Aeneas was the most famous Greek to ever live. At least you could argue that he was. Seemed like a prophesy fullfilled to me. And then I learned later that Troy was actually found and the Trojan War quit being a pure myth.

So in a similar fashion I wonder how could Jesus not have existed but yet had this profound effect on World history, philosophy and religion?

The most significant event in the history of the world was the life of Jesus Christ. The Crusades were fought because of it; the United States was founded largely because of it; the World Trade Center was recently bombed because of it. Not just God in general but the works and teaching of Jesus created Christianity as distinct from Judaism and history took a different course.

Could all this have happened from a lie someone made up near a desert in a small province on the outskirts of the largest, most modern empire on Earth?

Maybe. I guess that really is a totally separate question, but again, I'll try to read this thread and stick to the topic which I think is

What non-Christian/Biblical evidence is there that Jesus existed?

Right now it looks to me like there may be none. Too bad I didn't finish that class recently at my Church. I am going to go back to the teacher of that class for some evidence. He should be able to tell me by Monday what evidence there is even if there is none.

Then a separate thread can done on the validity of any/all the evidence for Jesus' existence but I think that would only rehash the book The Case for Christ but perhaps we shall see.

By the way, has everyone here seen the movie "Contact?" I think it is very relevant to this thread and that it is worth $1 to rent.

And since I brought that up, yes I know this whole post is WAAY
:-offtopic

Does anyone find it odd that the description of the beginning of the Universe in the Bible (written long ago by a bunch of primitives) http://www.biblegateway.com/


"Genesis 1

The Beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. "


matches up very well with the assertion of the Big Bang theory (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bb1.html)

"The Big Bang Model is a broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe. It postulates that 12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across. It has since expanded from this hot dense state into the vast and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit."

Who told this to the author of Genesis? This should be an uncomfortable realization for anyone wanting to discredit the Bible as a reliable source of information I would think. I think I recall from a class I took at UT that the Greek mentioned "void" as being the beginning and this was the word for "nothing" which seems very close in my opinion to being the same thing as a expansive Universe (or Universes) being compressed to just a few millimeters across.

I'll try to shut up until I read this whole thread and get something to say to directly address the topic.

 

[MA-Caver]

The book of Genesis was written by Moses and passed to Joshua. According to beliefs God explained the "Big-Bang" to Moses and thus we have the accounting there of the origins.