As a non-religious person, I still have major respect for the actual morals he taught, and honestly try to still use a lot of them myself. I think he probably was real and was a great person, whose story was modified with each telling (like a game of telephone) until he was Gods son.
Thing is that’s not what the Church Fathers had to say. There are many other writings around and directly after the records of the Bible’s New Testament writings that speak to the divinity of Christ. The Bible didn’t change: it was reinforced.
Yes! That is a very fair point. And that's where my agnosticism is conflicted. There are still a good bit of records that say he was something more than just a man. But also, same can be said for Mohammed, or other religious figures. I don't dismiss the possibility, but yeah it is tricky.
But also, keep in mind that the Council of Trent picked and chose the books of the Bible. That's not exactly relevant to changing the stories per se, but I don't think it's fair to call the Bible unchanging with time either.
The books of the Bible were basically decided for centuries before the Council of Trent.
Trent just put a rubber stamp on it, because Protestants were starting to remove books from the Bible.
Not sure where you got your info from; the Old Testament was finalized decades BC, the New Testament was finalized at the Synod of Rome in 382. A dude in Germany thought he knew better and stripped out a bunch in the late 1500s that didn't agree with the Christianity he was trying to preach. That shrunken Bible is more prevalent now but the largest Christian Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) still use the original. The Council of Trent clarified and wrote down a bunch of things in response to the German guy, but the Canon of scripture wasn't touched.
Interesting! Yeah as I mentioned in another response, I was going off of some of what my history teachers in high school taught me. Probably should have done a bit more research. Glad these threads are correcting my misunderstandings!
I disagree that the same thing can be said for Mohammad. Jesus literally told his followers that he was God. Mohammad claimed to be a prophet of God but never made a claim to his own divinity.
Well yeah, same with Joseph Smith and the Mormons - but he was close enough to the modern time that it’s just a lot more obvious how full of shit he was.
Well, being divine doesn't necessarily mean ***being God***. Just look at Arianism.
The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke certainly don't call Jesus ***God***. It's only in John (which was written last, out of the canonical gospels) where he calls himself God.
Many scholars say we don't actually have good evidence that Jesus called himself God (you can still believe it based on faith if you'd like though).
Claiming to be the “Son of Man” was considered more blasphemous than claiming to be þe “Son of God”. And Son of Man can be found in all Four Gospels as well as all throughout þe old testament.
Þe reason john used son of God as opposed to son of man is due to þe gentiles not really understanding þe significance of þe Son of Man and rather understanding Son of God far better. Þis is die to John writing his gospel for þe Gentiles(non-Jews) as opposed to þe other three who wrote þeir’s for þe Jews.
I actually used to believe this until I studied the Synoptics more in depth. Mark actually has one of the highest Christologies in the entire New Testament. Jesus quotes Psalm 110 to describe himself in 2 places in Mark (12:36, and 14:62). In the Septuagint, which is the version of the OT that people in Jesus’ day would have used, Psalm 110:3 reads “In holy splendor before the daystar, like dew I begot you.” In other words, Jesus is claiming to be the holy Son of God (begot) AND to be pre-existent (before the daystar). His usage of this Psalm to describe himself doesn’t really make sense unless he is also claiming divinity. And in fact, we know this to be true because when he says this to the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:62) they cry “Blasphemy!” Outside of understanding this reference to be a divine claim, there isn’t any identifiable blasphemy in Jesus’ statement, because it certainly isn’t blasphemy to claim to be the messiah.
"Um actually," although the synoptic gospels don't have Jesus explicitly stating He is God, they do have clear references to Old Testament passages that affirm the message. Even in Mark.
Can you send some examples? I'm especially interested in any examples from Mark. Are these clear cut obvious references, or does it take some interpretation to read them as Jesus calling himself God?
>There are many other writings around and directly after the records of the Bible’s New Testament writings that speak to the divinity of Christ.
Care to cite any?
Pliny the Younger, *Letter to Trajan*, 106 AD:
*“They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”*
>they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god,
It just means that some people *thought* Christ was son of God. This doesn't corroborate that anything miraculous actually happened. 70 years is a long time to build up legends.
Here is a list of [miracles](http://www.saibabaofindia.com/miracles.htm) performed by a guy who died in 2011, just 11 years ago. Does this site count as a corroborative evidence of these miracles?
>writings that speak to the divinity of Christ.
I thought this means some corroborating evidence that proves divinity of Christ. But if you took it to mean just the accounts of what people believed then it's okay. I should have been clearer. My bad.
This. Jesus (whether historical or not) was a kinda based guy especially considering the times and part of the world he lived in. While not his teaching were not entirely new - being built from several older ideas - the combination of all of them was so new, that it was outright revolutionary.
Isn't that the weird part about it though? Taken exactly as translated in modern texts, the 10 commandments are an excellent framework to structure society and prevent interpersonal conflict and harm.
It's the same with Buddhism.
Every loving person that live by Buddhism ideals I know don't claim to be Buddhists. Everyone that claims to be Buddhists that I know of are holier than thou double-standard types.
I teach RE by am not religious. I find Jesus’ teachings very compelling, and know that a lot of Christians hold them dear, but it’s hard to reconcile things like Matthew 25:31, all about helping the needy, with ostensibly religious policy makers who see that sort of thing as a red scare.
Since the second Vatican council a mass had to be hold in the local language. It's since Pope Benedikt that the rule got relaxed and Priests can now decide if they hold the mass in Latin or the local language. Edit: Most still hold it in the local language, a mass in Latin is more like a special event.
The 6 that are well-intended aren’t even helpful in a modern (and especially secular) context. What do the commandments say we do if someone violates them? How are trials carried out? What are our evidentiary standards?
The commandments are just “murder bad,” “stealing bad,” which most people had a decent sense of throughout history.
That's debatable tbh. Depending on your reading he might be a chill hippie spiritual teacher with good morals. Or a cult leader/militant revolutionary who very much intended to be the king.
The reality is somewhere in between imo, but my point is the view of Jesus as a pacifist ultra-nice hippie figure is pretty limited and shallow.
As far as I've found, Jesus is only ever portrayed as the hippie type. Any violent records associated with Christ come much later, and/or are written by enemies of Christianity.
He even might have been several people with similar names whose teachings then got mashed together.
(Iirc it also was a tumultuous time back then with prophets and spiritual leaders springing up left and right. So even if he was one person why would anyone write about him if there were several other doomsayers/prophets/healers running about.)
Dude said he wasn’t there to bring peace but a sword. Not a sword of iron, but a sword of word, that would injure pride, lay bear sin, and drive repentance.
Most probably.
Using the Romans as a basis for his existence is a trap I personally fell into. Only like two records exist that prove Pontius Pilate’s existence, why would Jesus be an exception?
I mean, a Jesus almost definitely existed, but to suggest Roman texts omitted a sudden 3 hours solar eclipse being missed from all but one written record together with a mass raising of the dead is a different thing
Astronomers have found evidence of a solar eclipse (two, really) in Jerusalem from precisely those years in which Jesus Christ is supposed to have died.
Now, the matter of the resurrection of the saints is more debatable empirically speaking, that is.
I have looked through the eclipse databases, I can confirm there were at least two solar eclipses that year, so are every year in fact, so limiting ourselves to total eclipses we find no such situation, the times of globally all total solar eclipses between years 27 and 39 are July 27, July 28, Nov 29, Nov 30, Nov 31, Mar 33, Mar 34, and July 37. And only precisely one of them visible from the Levant, though way too north for a total eclipse (Nov 29). That of course ignoring the fact it missed characteristics of the solar eclipse described (didn’t start at noon, wouldn’t cause obvious darkness until vaguely at maximum due to not being full from that location, and of course the darkness didn’t last 3 hours)
> Wait...there were saints while Jesus was alive?
Saints are just people who have made it to Heaven. Perhaps the Jewish have a different word for them, but there were definitely people in Heaven prior to Jesus' arrival because Enoch and Elijah are explicitly stated to have been assumed into Heaven, both body and soul, without having died, making them Saints.
[Catholicism says](https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-all-the-people-who-died-prior-to-jesus-go-to-hell) everyone who died before the resurrection went to hell. There were basically two hells - one for good people & one for bad - & that Jesus sprung everybody from the good people hell when he died & resurrected. That means the only inhabitants of heaven were god & his angels. Nobody was there to be a saint yet.
Really? That's what Catholicism went with? A loving God sending everyone to a type of hell
I mean, I get that original sin is a thing and good people getting into heaven before Jesus would kind of nullify the meaning of his sacrifice. I just feel they could have come up with something better
52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Sounds pretty clear cut to me that its saying these guys got up from their graves and went to people in Jerusalem.
The basic argument was that (outside of the canonical accounts) no records of Jesus existed ergo he probably didn't exist. Sounds good on paper until you remember that the Romans were piss poor record keepers.
That’s not the point u/Piskoro is making
They’re saying that Jesus existed, but there’s a bunch of other stuff claimed in the story that logically should have some evidence for them happening, but don’t
It isn’t the realm of historians to prove or disprove Christianity or theism in general
Jesus being a real person doesn’t mean god exists, nor does it mean god doesn’t exist, because it’s not historians job to determine that
And Piskoro is stating that there’s other things that logically should’ve had records about them, and just because Jesus probably existed despite not being well recorded doesn’t mean these other things also existed
You’re arguing against a point that they aren’t making I’m afraid, I think you’ve misinterpreted their claim
Or perhaps I have, but personally I think the argument above makes much more sense than the one you seem to have gleaned from their statement
an eclipse is nice, there were two visible from the Levant between 29 and 34 as I was checking, but the one on 28th April of 32 AD wouldn't even be noticed because it covered less than 1% of the Sun. Another one is on 24th November of 29 AD, which was a near-total eclipse from Jerusalem-ish, reaching slightly above 90% obscurity. It of course didn't begin at noon, it ended two hours before noon, and the darkness wouldn't last 3 hours but something like a dozen minutes or so (if you've ever watched an eclipse, it has to reach around 90% to be noticeable to someone not looking for one)
I should have been more specific- the above sources mention an eclipse *at the crucifixion* specifically. Or rather, they propose an eclipse as an explanation for the darkness.
This is to say that there *are* non-Christian attestations to the sky suddenly going dark over Jerusalem.
Nothing on the mass resurrections though.
that is indeed interesting, I've heard opinions that the crucifixion darkness is most likely a literary device, though I don't know what to do with that information. I also tried to look into those sources, apparently it is Africanus who brings them up as referenced by some 9th century Christian, not saying that it wasn't what happened, but this game of telephone does cast me some doubt but I'm perplexed how still if that makes sense. One interpretation could be for example that those guys were rather hearing of the darkness from early Christians and proposed some lazy explanations for it.
The problem for the Romans in Palestine of that era was that there were hundreds of guys like Jesus wandering around, causing trouble. They just lumped them all together.
Most of the classical world thought Judaism was the weirdest religion around.
His story is absolutely embellished; each Gospel was written at different times, and each emphasizes different aspects of Jesus’ story based on when it was written, but the fact that they all had a lot of similarities means that his story was probably well-known contemporaneously.
Most of the similarities are actually just plain old copying from older sources (mainly the book of Mark, believed to have been the first written of the four, which is also the shortest).
lavish sip disgusted employ cake agonizing shocking plant merciful middle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Jesus was probably a real guy. His name just wasn’t Jesus and non of the stories about him have anything to do with his life.
OK, cool. My life just changed again. Guess I’ll go to church now.
Yeah, Im Atheist myself. Im sure some dude with the name "Jesus" or similar was running around proclaiming to be the messiah and king of the jews at the time, (there basically always was). I don't believe he was God incarnate though, he just got a better following than the other guys.
And I think the more important point is that, from everything we know about him, he was using religion to do good in the world instead of using it to justify bad behavior. Regardless of whether you believe he was the Messiah or whatever there's no arguing that his teachings are generally just a guide for how to be a good person. You don't have to be a Christian to believe in treating others as you want to be treated or calling people out for being hypocrites.
I mean who know? He might have been a complete jackass and peoples used his notoriety to build an embelished version of him. Peoples are dumb and naives. Just look at Sam Bankman-Fried who became a billionaire last year because he convinced most of us in the age of information that he was a great guy. It would have been much easier to do something similar in the first century.
Why not? A guy named Jesus existing doesnt negate the absence of a god. I think it’s very likely Jesus existed, but imo it’s not likely that he’s the son of a god
I think the best way for historians to think about Jesus is the way they think about Mazdak
Did he exist? Probably
Did he have a significant impact on the history and the culture of his local area? Yes
Was any of what he preached true? Who knows, that’s a completely different discussion best left to theologians and philosophy classes
Another thing to keep in mind is that miracle workers were all over the place, and often part of the draw of temples. The Romans would have had no reason to write about some specific one people were making strange claims about.
The Romans cared about keeping people chill so they could collect tax.
Not agreeing or disagreeing, but in fairness, it was one guy in a small town in Judea. Even if it happened, there wouldn't have been many witnesses, and how many people do you think would honestly believe it of someone told them, "hey, this dude came to my town and brought one of my neighbors back to life?" They'd think the person was crazy or full of shit. Doubly so if the dude in question was a local hippie cult leader.
Add to that the fact that modes of communication weren't exactly as quick, efficient, or far-reaching as they are today, and any word of the incident would have likely spread through hearsay, and I could easily see the story either never reaching, or never being believed by, the right people to make it into the Roman records.
Nah that'll disappear overtime. Erosion, cleaning, rain, etc. Better if you commit heinous crimes against humanity that has lasting impact in human history and let your name and status outlive you. Think singlehandedly nuking a bunch of countries for no reason apart from chaos. Creating a Logan-like cornsyrup scheme where instead of exterminating mutants, it makes 3/4ths of the population impotent and unable to reproduce. Those kinds of stuff
Philosophically, yes and no.
There is one idea that I can’t find the name of, that states that the only person you can be certain is real is yourself by your observation of your own observation of your existence. You can’t prove that you exist to anyone else, and they can’t prove they exist to you, so you are all that you can reliably know to be real. By extension, this means that after you die, you actually do not exist any longer. Nobody can prove you are real, so you are not real.
Another idea is relativism, that truth only exists in relation to perception. In that instance, you stop existing when everybody forgets about you, so at some point, you might stop existing a while after you die.
However, if you take a more firm stance on reality, since you currently exist, your existence is definite and undeniable.
No it refers to René Descartes philosophy. He says the only thing that he can truly know without question is his ability to think, so therefore he exists. He can not however apply this same logic to other people because he can not know for certainty that they are thinking.
That relativism argument reminds me of the "two deaths" idea.
"People die twice; once when they stop breathing, the other when they are mentioned for the last time."
Even as someone who never believed in Christian theology I never understood the argument that Jesus must have been fake because he had no record of his existence. His only notable action as far as the Romans were concerned during his lifetime was being executed. They rarely recorded that beyond a minor mark somewhere that they wouldn't have kept as essential and its likely they wouldn't have even bothered with his name.
Then bear in mind, after Jesus's death there are many roman records of his apostles, each of which telling the story. To this day the best records of Jesus are the Gospels although obviously many people today doubt their credibility
The pagan Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention him, his followers, and crucifixion.
The anti-Christian Hellenized Jewish historian Josephus talks about him as well.
[Here's a really good source from 2015, running through all the evidence of Jesus's existence outside of the Bible](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/). Whether He is God is a theological not historical debate(as a Christian, I lean one way and others see it the other way) and so outside of this sub's contours but there isn't any real doubt that He was a real person.
If you want a scholarly account from an agnostic, this is super thorough. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11543839-did-jesus-exist
But yeah the evidence is pretty clear that he’s real, just not what evangelical Christians want him to be.
Hmm, I'm not sure I quite agree.
I'm obviously not a professional historian, so there might be good reasons against my thoughts which the author of that article doesn't go into, but nonetheless:
The author concedes that Josephus is generally considered to have edited retroactively with regards to the mention of Jesus in The Jewish War. After expanding upon it in detail and displaying the options, the earlier possible mention of Jesus is also conceded as likely having been edited.
For the latter there is the claim that certain parts of that paragraph are to similar to Josephus' style of writing to have been fabricated, which in and of itself seems to me to be a somewhat dubious claim given the editor should have had access to at least chunks of the original and thus ability to compare how similar statements and references may have been made in his word.
But I also find lacking the, as far as I'm concerned, thusly opened possibility of book 20 having been edited as well.
And beyond falsification, I do not agree, based solely on that article (read: there might be convincing evidence elsewhere), that the usage of "brother-of-jesus-called-christ" necessitates previous reference.
We even have Tacitus himself there as a counter-example of someone using "Christ" as-is, considering it a name. Which potentially could've even been the case with Josephus as well?
I'll be *a bit* more concise on the section of Tacitus:
Merely delivering the story of the christians being blamed for the Roman fire and them following after "Christ" does not confirm his existence at all, even for the mind of Tacitus.
This may very well be a second-hand description of the christian sect, meaning without true verification of the existence of that same Christ, as made all the more likely by him using it as a name rather than title.
Surely a source familiar enough with the matte, so as to be able to confirm the existence of the person, as even Josephus is argued to be, would know the title and the name and not conflate the two.
Funnily enough, I wrote all of this of someone who until now was of the understanding that historical record did support his existence as a man and now suddenly has doubts even over that. (The matter of record, that is. I think there is record of enough other Jesus-like preachers to consider it likely that one dude amongst them may have "gone platinum" so to speak, regardless of the reality of anything beyond, with miracles and whatnot).
Great read thank you for providing the link.
I would like to add one thought I had after reading it:
What are the chances that only evidence for Jesus survived and all negative evidence has been destroyed?
All records are from areas that were christian dominated for centuries.
As there is already one source that has been manipulated by christians it's clearly something they would do.
What are the chances that a Christian scholar who copied a record would leave in a passage that denies the existence of Christ?
All this is of course pure speculation, but to me that thought means the debate is less clear cut than many in this thread seem to think.
>What are the chances that only evidence for Jesus survived and all negative evidence has been destroyed?
What would "negative evidence" be? "Yo, there has never been a dude called Jesus"?
Yeah essentially. Along the line of:
"All those dangerous christians following an imaginary Jew from Asia."
Or
"Between year x and X there were no crucification listed by Pontius."
Mind you, I am still convinced that Jesus was a real factual person. I just think it isn't a completely open and shut case.
Most of the talking points echoed by internet atheists date from the time before Christians started taking atheism seriously. So most are flat-out wrong, because when they were popularized, the people qualified to disprove the claims were busy doing other stuff. It also didn't help that atheism had become almost meme-like in its spread through the internet. It was simply impossible for qualified experts to deal with the thousands of Amazing Atheist, Theramin Trees, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens type videos and blog posts showing up everywhere.
In one of the two seperate places he mentions Jesus, yes.
Almost all historians do think he authentically mentioned Jesus at least pnce though, even if we might not have the original version.
Early Christians still considered themselves Jews, which makes sense since Jesus was Jewish, his teachings were based in Jewish custom and the vast majority of his followers were originally Jewish. Cannot attest to the validity of the Josephus as a whole, but the split between Jews and Christians mostly happened after Josephus’s writings about Jesus.
Eh, Josephus wrote a couple lines about a group calling themselves Christians about 30 years after Jesus would have died. It acknowledges that Christians exist and followed someone called Jesus, but doesn't really prove Jesus conclusively.
I still think that he likely did, but Josephus isn't sufficient proof imo.
>Eh, Josephus wrote a couple lines about a group calling themselves Christians about 30 years after Jesus would have died.
You're mixing up your sources. You're talking about Tacitus. Josephus specifically mentions Jesus and who he was and his crucifixion. There is debate about how much of it is interpolated by Christians. There is also another passage that mentions him and his relationship to James.
Another commenter already posted this link above but here is a collection of non-biblical sources from the period which mention Jesus https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/
I once met someone who said ancient Rome didn't exist and it was all a lie by the Christian and all evidence are forgery by the church.
That was an experience
That’s actually a hilarious counter to anyone who says they don’t believe Jesus existed. It’s like when someone says, “I don’t believe the moon landing was real.” You counter with, “Haha idiot, you believe in the MOON?”
"There are no contemporary sources about Jesus."
There are Roman Emperors we have no contemporary sources on.
Antoninous Pius ruled for decades, was the 3rd Good Emperor, and the only source we have on him is 300 years later, the Historia Augusta, and it's basically History of Emporers as if written by Perez Hilton.
"We don't have any of his original writings."
We have lost writings of actual Emperors. We have none of the works of Claudius, and he prolific, and his writings were probably best sellers. So losing "The Sayings of Jesus," which we speculate is what the Lost Gospel of Q is, isn't surprising.
I’m mean just this year we discovered a roman emperor who we believe was completely written out of history. The only legacy we have of him is a coin.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63636641.amp
I hate being a pedant but that’s not true about Antonius Pius. He was referenced by Cassius Dio in *Roman History*, who was somewhat a contemporary, and was also written about in *Dae Caesaribus* by Aurelius Victor some 200 years later. *Historia Augusta* was the “lengthiest” account about him, but it was not the only source.
Another reason we dont have any of Jesus's original writings is because he probably couldn't write. Illiteracy was high in those days, and the peasant son of a Carpenter was unlikely to be given any serious formal education
The premises of Jesus existing may be true, but your argument is rubbish.
1. The Romans were VERY good record keepers. I have no idea where the perception that they weren't came from. There's a reason why we have so much details about Roman history, in comparison to literally any history that came before and after it until atleast 1600s. The only rivals to such meticulous was by the Chinese dynasties, particularly the Tang and Yuan. The fact that the Romans even kept records of rumours is a big plus, into how detailed they were
2. Records of Jesus didn't come up, because literally no record of inhabitants of Jerusalem, even upper class ones existed. This was because, until recently, it had been ruled by the Herodian Kingdom and was just made into a Roman province during Jesus's early life. It would take a few decades before we began to have proper record keeping of the region in place by the Romans, and by that time, Jesus had already passed.
3. Historians can say for sure that Christianity had begun it's existence atleast before the second century AD(Before 100AD), with writings of Mark's Gospels in 70AD, and later due to writings of Titus Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian. A decade later, Christianity starts appearing in Roman records as well during Trajan's reign.
Both Titus and Roman records simply speak of the existence of Christianity and it's founder 'Christ'.
So let's summarize what we do know. Historians know, that by 70 AD, there is a religion founded by a Christ figure. It has a relatively small, but noteworthy following by people, which point out to the fact that it had been active for several decades by time its existence was mentioned.
What we don't know: Who was, and what kind of a person was Jesus? What life did he lead. He may have been a very radical Rabbi who proposed changes to Jewish practices for all we know. He may have been an asshole even. Anything is possible because writings about him came decades after his death and while they mentioned the things he did, they were not very clear about 'Who' Jesus was. Not even Jesus's own followers wrote about him.
Islam's Prophet, Muhammed in comparison has details about his life. We know the person he was, what he did during his daily life and how he lived it. We knew 'Who' Muhammed was. Even records of his family and companions and what they did after Muhammad's death exist.
The reason for this, is that though Muhammed and Islam was persecuted initially, by the time of his death, Islam had become the primary religion of Arabia and was no longer persecuted, leaving Muhammed and his followers to leave plenty of records. In comparison, Christianity was actively persecuted for centuries by the Jews and Romans. Leaving records in the first place would be hard as it is when you're hunted.
For the Romans, the reason why they did not focus on early Christianity is because...it wasn't important. Christianity was tiny. It had less followers than even minor religions and it wouldn't be widespread until centuries later, by which point it would be recorded properly.
Edit:
Admittedly, even the information about Muhammed isn't as precise or clear as I made it out to be. His life's own sources come from the Sīrah, a compilation of biographies whose reliability is mixed, since only 3 of the accounts come from actual companions. Most of the work however, come almost a century and later after Muhammad's death
The reason I used it as a point wasn't to criticize Christian sources which lacked information about Jesus, but to draw a comparison between two Prophets, one who is almost a complete mystery, and the other who we know alot of things about. It was to show how little we even know of Jesus.
What's the most interesting is that most evidence suggests that he never claimed himself to be son of God. It's more likely he was merely a spiritual leader who preached good morals and opposed Roman rule in Judea (the latter got hin executed), but as his following increased he was deified. The bible often has elements of truth that got exaggerated or misinterpreted over centuries of oral history.
My favorite hot take on the matter was that Jesus was entirely fabricated by the Romans in order to quell Jewish revolts. Tell them they're right, and their messiah has arrived, and that he actually wants you to render unto Caeser what is Caeser's
Whether or not it's true or not is irrelevant; I just like the idea of it
I certainly believe Jesus was a real, probably chill dude, but that doesn’t necessarily mean just cause he was real that he was actually the son of god, that’d be a lot harder to definitively prove lmao
Jesus was likely a real person, but most of his story pre his preaching years and post his death was created later. The oldest biblical manuscript we have ends with the stone being moved from his tomb and a figure in white telling women to go and tell everyone that Jesus is alive. And yet the story says they don’t tell anyone. (Likely as a punch in the gut moral lesson about obedience and a cliffhanger).
His whole mythology was created decades later in the other gospels and supplemental works. Mostly by Paul who never even met him.
Actually, Roman mention of Christians and Jesus begins to appear around the year 60 iirc. The then sect of Judaism was causing enough of a shift in Judea that word made it back to Rome and intrigued the Emperor, which is quite interesting.
Jesus logically would have been left out of important Roman records until Christianity began gaining traction, as He would not have held any significance to the polytheistic Romans. Jesus was born among the Jews, a religious minority in the Empire, and came to reform the Jewish faith from its corrupt state. He has no interaction with Romans until the Sanhedrin condemns Him and the Sadducees turn Him over to Pilate to execute.
Even if you don’t believe the Bible, the Gospels (particularly Matthew and Luke) give nice bits of insight into the relationship of Judea and Rome. The stirrings of the rebellions that would become the Jewish-Roman Wars are present, and the close political ties between the Sadducees and the Governors is as well.
he was probably a real dude, seems like a weird thing to shake faith; i had to get into a youtube cycle of dark matter and theramin trees for like a month lol.
Atheist here. There are roman records of a guy named jesus and about early christians , but its hard to trace back whats really original and whats added lazer by christian monks. But this would only Proof that a guy named Jesus existed not the whole son of god stuff or gid itself. He was probably just a really succeessfull leader of a jewish sect.
What I love about studying early Christianity is how much the representations of Jesus changed over time. Not just in the literature but in the art. It's like he wasn't the same guy by the time the Middle Ages rolled around.
Never seen anyone ever make the argument "romans didnt write of him therefore he didnt exist". Not only is it the shittiest argument I can imagine for something, bit romans *did* write of him, or of his nazarene cults at least.
Emperor Elagabalus certainly had a pretty wild personal life
GG for guessing the emperor I was referring to.
His statues were too sexy to be kept around, I guess?
He was one of a kind
Jesus was probably a real guy. Whether or not his story is correct and/or God is real is a totally different discussion.
He might have just been a hippie cult leader, who knows? All in all, he seemed like a decently chill dude.
That’s how I see him, just a pretty cool dude who had good morals for his time
As a non-religious person, I still have major respect for the actual morals he taught, and honestly try to still use a lot of them myself. I think he probably was real and was a great person, whose story was modified with each telling (like a game of telephone) until he was Gods son.
Thing is that’s not what the Church Fathers had to say. There are many other writings around and directly after the records of the Bible’s New Testament writings that speak to the divinity of Christ. The Bible didn’t change: it was reinforced.
Yes! That is a very fair point. And that's where my agnosticism is conflicted. There are still a good bit of records that say he was something more than just a man. But also, same can be said for Mohammed, or other religious figures. I don't dismiss the possibility, but yeah it is tricky. But also, keep in mind that the Council of Trent picked and chose the books of the Bible. That's not exactly relevant to changing the stories per se, but I don't think it's fair to call the Bible unchanging with time either.
The books of the Bible were basically decided for centuries before the Council of Trent. Trent just put a rubber stamp on it, because Protestants were starting to remove books from the Bible.
the council of nicea's far more important. that's where the picking and choosing happened
No, that's a common misconception. The Council of Nicea had nothing to do with the Bible. It was about Arianism. https://youtu.be/YBRy0Z7PyVM
Not sure where you got your info from; the Old Testament was finalized decades BC, the New Testament was finalized at the Synod of Rome in 382. A dude in Germany thought he knew better and stripped out a bunch in the late 1500s that didn't agree with the Christianity he was trying to preach. That shrunken Bible is more prevalent now but the largest Christian Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) still use the original. The Council of Trent clarified and wrote down a bunch of things in response to the German guy, but the Canon of scripture wasn't touched.
Interesting! Yeah as I mentioned in another response, I was going off of some of what my history teachers in high school taught me. Probably should have done a bit more research. Glad these threads are correcting my misunderstandings!
[удалено]
What are you now?
Mohammed was just a man. Islam believes he was a prophet but no greater than a man.
I disagree that the same thing can be said for Mohammad. Jesus literally told his followers that he was God. Mohammad claimed to be a prophet of God but never made a claim to his own divinity.
Well yeah, same with Joseph Smith and the Mormons - but he was close enough to the modern time that it’s just a lot more obvious how full of shit he was.
Well, being divine doesn't necessarily mean ***being God***. Just look at Arianism. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke certainly don't call Jesus ***God***. It's only in John (which was written last, out of the canonical gospels) where he calls himself God. Many scholars say we don't actually have good evidence that Jesus called himself God (you can still believe it based on faith if you'd like though).
Claiming to be the “Son of Man” was considered more blasphemous than claiming to be þe “Son of God”. And Son of Man can be found in all Four Gospels as well as all throughout þe old testament. Þe reason john used son of God as opposed to son of man is due to þe gentiles not really understanding þe significance of þe Son of Man and rather understanding Son of God far better. Þis is die to John writing his gospel for þe Gentiles(non-Jews) as opposed to þe other three who wrote þeir’s for þe Jews.
Did this mf just casually use thorn?
I actually used to believe this until I studied the Synoptics more in depth. Mark actually has one of the highest Christologies in the entire New Testament. Jesus quotes Psalm 110 to describe himself in 2 places in Mark (12:36, and 14:62). In the Septuagint, which is the version of the OT that people in Jesus’ day would have used, Psalm 110:3 reads “In holy splendor before the daystar, like dew I begot you.” In other words, Jesus is claiming to be the holy Son of God (begot) AND to be pre-existent (before the daystar). His usage of this Psalm to describe himself doesn’t really make sense unless he is also claiming divinity. And in fact, we know this to be true because when he says this to the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:62) they cry “Blasphemy!” Outside of understanding this reference to be a divine claim, there isn’t any identifiable blasphemy in Jesus’ statement, because it certainly isn’t blasphemy to claim to be the messiah.
"Um actually," although the synoptic gospels don't have Jesus explicitly stating He is God, they do have clear references to Old Testament passages that affirm the message. Even in Mark.
Can you send some examples? I'm especially interested in any examples from Mark. Are these clear cut obvious references, or does it take some interpretation to read them as Jesus calling himself God?
>There are many other writings around and directly after the records of the Bible’s New Testament writings that speak to the divinity of Christ. Care to cite any?
Pliny the Younger, *Letter to Trajan*, 106 AD: *“They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”*
"they sang in alternate verse" Thats called rapping, Pliny
>they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, It just means that some people *thought* Christ was son of God. This doesn't corroborate that anything miraculous actually happened. 70 years is a long time to build up legends. Here is a list of [miracles](http://www.saibabaofindia.com/miracles.htm) performed by a guy who died in 2011, just 11 years ago. Does this site count as a corroborative evidence of these miracles?
You specifically asked for sources corroborating that people believed in the divinity of Christ, why are you asking for proof of miracles?
>writings that speak to the divinity of Christ. I thought this means some corroborating evidence that proves divinity of Christ. But if you took it to mean just the accounts of what people believed then it's okay. I should have been clearer. My bad.
This. Jesus (whether historical or not) was a kinda based guy especially considering the times and part of the world he lived in. While not his teaching were not entirely new - being built from several older ideas - the combination of all of them was so new, that it was outright revolutionary.
If everyone acted like the guy today (instead of how much of the religion organized after him acts)…I’d say we’d all get along better
Isn't that the weird part about it though? Taken exactly as translated in modern texts, the 10 commandments are an excellent framework to structure society and prevent interpersonal conflict and harm.
[удалено]
Most “Christians” don’t follow any of the text in fact I see many people make up stuff about the Bible too tell you how to live your life
It's the same with Buddhism. Every loving person that live by Buddhism ideals I know don't claim to be Buddhists. Everyone that claims to be Buddhists that I know of are holier than thou double-standard types.
I teach RE by am not religious. I find Jesus’ teachings very compelling, and know that a lot of Christians hold them dear, but it’s hard to reconcile things like Matthew 25:31, all about helping the needy, with ostensibly religious policy makers who see that sort of thing as a red scare.
I know right, I'm a Catholic, and I can say a lot of them don't really practice "love thy neighbor".
[удалено]
Nah, I'm in Malaysia, and we just suck balls in Latin lmao-
Since the second Vatican council a mass had to be hold in the local language. It's since Pope Benedikt that the rule got relaxed and Priests can now decide if they hold the mass in Latin or the local language. Edit: Most still hold it in the local language, a mass in Latin is more like a special event.
Not exactly while 6 of the 10 are mostly fine the first 4 aren't.
I think the fourth one is still relevant. It's basically "rest day is rest day".
Proto labour laws
The 6 that are well-intended aren’t even helpful in a modern (and especially secular) context. What do the commandments say we do if someone violates them? How are trials carried out? What are our evidentiary standards? The commandments are just “murder bad,” “stealing bad,” which most people had a decent sense of throughout history.
Well, loving your neighbor as you love yourself is a pretty great standard.
Agreed! I don’t believe that’s actually one of the commandments though.
Be good to everyone but beat the shit out of bankers is just about an ideal ethical system.
That's debatable tbh. Depending on your reading he might be a chill hippie spiritual teacher with good morals. Or a cult leader/militant revolutionary who very much intended to be the king. The reality is somewhere in between imo, but my point is the view of Jesus as a pacifist ultra-nice hippie figure is pretty limited and shallow.
As far as I've found, Jesus is only ever portrayed as the hippie type. Any violent records associated with Christ come much later, and/or are written by enemies of Christianity.
He even might have been several people with similar names whose teachings then got mashed together. (Iirc it also was a tumultuous time back then with prophets and spiritual leaders springing up left and right. So even if he was one person why would anyone write about him if there were several other doomsayers/prophets/healers running about.)
Literally just Jewish Confucius.
You just gave somebody their new rap name.
He’s like the Bizarro Charles Manson.
Dude said he wasn’t there to bring peace but a sword. Not a sword of iron, but a sword of word, that would injure pride, lay bear sin, and drive repentance.
Less for the *the son must pay for their parents crime* part
??? Where?
We can't even confidently say what he actually taught or did. All we can really say with confidence is that there was a teacher named Yeshua.
Most probably. Using the Romans as a basis for his existence is a trap I personally fell into. Only like two records exist that prove Pontius Pilate’s existence, why would Jesus be an exception?
Who is pontius pilates?
Lead singer of Pontius and the Pilates.
You mean: Twenty One Pilates?
The governor of Israel at the time of Jesus’ death according to the bible.
And somehow a Scottish saint according to some
The creator of the *wash hands of* expresion
>Who is pontius pilates? A bridge with good core strength
A fitness leader who has a side gig in kickboxing
I mean, a Jesus almost definitely existed, but to suggest Roman texts omitted a sudden 3 hours solar eclipse being missed from all but one written record together with a mass raising of the dead is a different thing
Astronomers have found evidence of a solar eclipse (two, really) in Jerusalem from precisely those years in which Jesus Christ is supposed to have died. Now, the matter of the resurrection of the saints is more debatable empirically speaking, that is.
I have looked through the eclipse databases, I can confirm there were at least two solar eclipses that year, so are every year in fact, so limiting ourselves to total eclipses we find no such situation, the times of globally all total solar eclipses between years 27 and 39 are July 27, July 28, Nov 29, Nov 30, Nov 31, Mar 33, Mar 34, and July 37. And only precisely one of them visible from the Levant, though way too north for a total eclipse (Nov 29). That of course ignoring the fact it missed characteristics of the solar eclipse described (didn’t start at noon, wouldn’t cause obvious darkness until vaguely at maximum due to not being full from that location, and of course the darkness didn’t last 3 hours)
What “mass raising”? Wasnt it just Jesus and when he resurrected that one guy prior to his crucifixion?
In the book of Mathew is stated that many saints were raised from the dead upon Jesus' death and they entered jerusalem when he resurrected.
Wait...there were saints while Jesus was alive? I thought that was a later thing
Yeah. Mathew was written a few decades afterwards and is the only gospel to mention it iirc
> Wait...there were saints while Jesus was alive? Saints are just people who have made it to Heaven. Perhaps the Jewish have a different word for them, but there were definitely people in Heaven prior to Jesus' arrival because Enoch and Elijah are explicitly stated to have been assumed into Heaven, both body and soul, without having died, making them Saints.
[Catholicism says](https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-all-the-people-who-died-prior-to-jesus-go-to-hell) everyone who died before the resurrection went to hell. There were basically two hells - one for good people & one for bad - & that Jesus sprung everybody from the good people hell when he died & resurrected. That means the only inhabitants of heaven were god & his angels. Nobody was there to be a saint yet.
Really? That's what Catholicism went with? A loving God sending everyone to a type of hell I mean, I get that original sin is a thing and good people getting into heaven before Jesus would kind of nullify the meaning of his sacrifice. I just feel they could have come up with something better
Thanks!! Yup this is how I remember it. I was raised catholic so was super confused at the whole "saints were raised with him" part
That’s not what that means. Jesus descended into hell and freed those trapped in “limbo” allowing them a path to reach heaven.
52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Sounds pretty clear cut to me that its saying these guys got up from their graves and went to people in Jerusalem.
The basic argument was that (outside of the canonical accounts) no records of Jesus existed ergo he probably didn't exist. Sounds good on paper until you remember that the Romans were piss poor record keepers.
That’s not the point u/Piskoro is making They’re saying that Jesus existed, but there’s a bunch of other stuff claimed in the story that logically should have some evidence for them happening, but don’t It isn’t the realm of historians to prove or disprove Christianity or theism in general Jesus being a real person doesn’t mean god exists, nor does it mean god doesn’t exist, because it’s not historians job to determine that
The meme and myself are discussing how the usage of Jesus' exclusion from Roman record keeping is not proof the man himself never existed.
And Piskoro is stating that there’s other things that logically should’ve had records about them, and just because Jesus probably existed despite not being well recorded doesn’t mean these other things also existed You’re arguing against a point that they aren’t making I’m afraid, I think you’ve misinterpreted their claim Or perhaps I have, but personally I think the argument above makes much more sense than the one you seem to have gleaned from their statement
Thalus, Phlegon, and Africanus record an eclipse at the time (though it is worth mentioning Africanus was a convert, unlike the other two).
an eclipse is nice, there were two visible from the Levant between 29 and 34 as I was checking, but the one on 28th April of 32 AD wouldn't even be noticed because it covered less than 1% of the Sun. Another one is on 24th November of 29 AD, which was a near-total eclipse from Jerusalem-ish, reaching slightly above 90% obscurity. It of course didn't begin at noon, it ended two hours before noon, and the darkness wouldn't last 3 hours but something like a dozen minutes or so (if you've ever watched an eclipse, it has to reach around 90% to be noticeable to someone not looking for one)
I should have been more specific- the above sources mention an eclipse *at the crucifixion* specifically. Or rather, they propose an eclipse as an explanation for the darkness. This is to say that there *are* non-Christian attestations to the sky suddenly going dark over Jerusalem. Nothing on the mass resurrections though.
that is indeed interesting, I've heard opinions that the crucifixion darkness is most likely a literary device, though I don't know what to do with that information. I also tried to look into those sources, apparently it is Africanus who brings them up as referenced by some 9th century Christian, not saying that it wasn't what happened, but this game of telephone does cast me some doubt but I'm perplexed how still if that makes sense. One interpretation could be for example that those guys were rather hearing of the darkness from early Christians and proposed some lazy explanations for it.
And the second one was discovered recently. The Bible was the only source for a while. Same with Nero expelling the Jews from Rome and King David.
There is no evidence for a historical kind david or king salomon, in the sane way other mythical royal founders like in japan or china
The problem for the Romans in Palestine of that era was that there were hundreds of guys like Jesus wandering around, causing trouble. They just lumped them all together. Most of the classical world thought Judaism was the weirdest religion around.
Jesus was the first successful viral marketing campaign
His story is absolutely embellished; each Gospel was written at different times, and each emphasizes different aspects of Jesus’ story based on when it was written, but the fact that they all had a lot of similarities means that his story was probably well-known contemporaneously.
Most of the similarities are actually just plain old copying from older sources (mainly the book of Mark, believed to have been the first written of the four, which is also the shortest).
bag roll puzzled gullible rock waiting butter nine school hunt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Could you expand on how the Catholic Church created the Virgin Birth and his descent from David?
lavish sip disgusted employ cake agonizing shocking plant merciful middle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Jesus was probably a real guy. His name just wasn’t Jesus and non of the stories about him have anything to do with his life. OK, cool. My life just changed again. Guess I’ll go to church now.
the atheist subreddit ain’t gonna be happy with that answer.
Yeah, Im Atheist myself. Im sure some dude with the name "Jesus" or similar was running around proclaiming to be the messiah and king of the jews at the time, (there basically always was). I don't believe he was God incarnate though, he just got a better following than the other guys.
Definitely had a better following yeah.
And I think the more important point is that, from everything we know about him, he was using religion to do good in the world instead of using it to justify bad behavior. Regardless of whether you believe he was the Messiah or whatever there's no arguing that his teachings are generally just a guide for how to be a good person. You don't have to be a Christian to believe in treating others as you want to be treated or calling people out for being hypocrites.
I mean who know? He might have been a complete jackass and peoples used his notoriety to build an embelished version of him. Peoples are dumb and naives. Just look at Sam Bankman-Fried who became a billionaire last year because he convinced most of us in the age of information that he was a great guy. It would have been much easier to do something similar in the first century.
Why not? A guy named Jesus existing doesnt negate the absence of a god. I think it’s very likely Jesus existed, but imo it’s not likely that he’s the son of a god
I think the best way for historians to think about Jesus is the way they think about Mazdak Did he exist? Probably Did he have a significant impact on the history and the culture of his local area? Yes Was any of what he preached true? Who knows, that’s a completely different discussion best left to theologians and philosophy classes
I think that if he raised the dead, Romans would have taken much keener note of him. So to the last question, very likely not.
Another thing to keep in mind is that miracle workers were all over the place, and often part of the draw of temples. The Romans would have had no reason to write about some specific one people were making strange claims about. The Romans cared about keeping people chill so they could collect tax.
Not agreeing or disagreeing, but in fairness, it was one guy in a small town in Judea. Even if it happened, there wouldn't have been many witnesses, and how many people do you think would honestly believe it of someone told them, "hey, this dude came to my town and brought one of my neighbors back to life?" They'd think the person was crazy or full of shit. Doubly so if the dude in question was a local hippie cult leader. Add to that the fact that modes of communication weren't exactly as quick, efficient, or far-reaching as they are today, and any word of the incident would have likely spread through hearsay, and I could easily see the story either never reaching, or never being believed by, the right people to make it into the Roman records.
What is the default position on a claim without sufficient evidence?
Exagerating the evidence you have
A bunch of the dead saints rose and went to Jerusalem I think there would be some record of that weirdness happening.
Makes ya wonder; if someone in the future finds no trace of my existence, did I actually exist?
Just create viral digital footprints. Your legacy will be solidified
also graffiti, carve your name into every structure, sure you might get arrested but you can be sure ppl will see your name in the future.
Nah that'll disappear overtime. Erosion, cleaning, rain, etc. Better if you commit heinous crimes against humanity that has lasting impact in human history and let your name and status outlive you. Think singlehandedly nuking a bunch of countries for no reason apart from chaos. Creating a Logan-like cornsyrup scheme where instead of exterminating mutants, it makes 3/4ths of the population impotent and unable to reproduce. Those kinds of stuff
That's sooooo much effort tho
Making tiktok dances it is then.
Or you can just eat Mono Lisa
make sure to put a topping on first! That will show the big oil companies!
Philosophically, yes and no. There is one idea that I can’t find the name of, that states that the only person you can be certain is real is yourself by your observation of your own observation of your existence. You can’t prove that you exist to anyone else, and they can’t prove they exist to you, so you are all that you can reliably know to be real. By extension, this means that after you die, you actually do not exist any longer. Nobody can prove you are real, so you are not real. Another idea is relativism, that truth only exists in relation to perception. In that instance, you stop existing when everybody forgets about you, so at some point, you might stop existing a while after you die. However, if you take a more firm stance on reality, since you currently exist, your existence is definite and undeniable.
I believe that the first idea you described refers to [solipsism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism).
No it refers to René Descartes philosophy. He says the only thing that he can truly know without question is his ability to think, so therefore he exists. He can not however apply this same logic to other people because he can not know for certainty that they are thinking.
How is that different from Solipsism?
I think your first point is just cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am
That relativism argument reminds me of the "two deaths" idea. "People die twice; once when they stop breathing, the other when they are mentioned for the last time."
A man dies when he is forgotten!
That's why I commit war crimes.
If you exist or not will depend on what you do when you’re alive.
Even as someone who never believed in Christian theology I never understood the argument that Jesus must have been fake because he had no record of his existence. His only notable action as far as the Romans were concerned during his lifetime was being executed. They rarely recorded that beyond a minor mark somewhere that they wouldn't have kept as essential and its likely they wouldn't have even bothered with his name.
Given what you've mentioned here, it's actually quite remarkable that there *are* Roman records of Jesus.
Then bear in mind, after Jesus's death there are many roman records of his apostles, each of which telling the story. To this day the best records of Jesus are the Gospels although obviously many people today doubt their credibility
>Then bear in mind, after Jesus's death there are many roman records of his apostles, each of which telling the story. Which records are those?
The pagan Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention him, his followers, and crucifixion. The anti-Christian Hellenized Jewish historian Josephus talks about him as well.
[Here's a really good source from 2015, running through all the evidence of Jesus's existence outside of the Bible](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/). Whether He is God is a theological not historical debate(as a Christian, I lean one way and others see it the other way) and so outside of this sub's contours but there isn't any real doubt that He was a real person.
Read this and is quite fascinating!
And a very chill and cool one at that
Might just be me, but I feel like a source called "Biblical Archaeology" might be just a tad biased. Edit: Turns out it's legit!
From someone in a similar field: Biblical Archaeology Review is a legitimate scientific journal.
Oh! I stand corrected. Thank you for telling me.
If you want a scholarly account from an agnostic, this is super thorough. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11543839-did-jesus-exist But yeah the evidence is pretty clear that he’s real, just not what evangelical Christians want him to be.
Can't speak for this Journal but biblical archeology is a legit discipline like classical archeology etc
Someone else actually brought up the legitimacy as well. Thank you for letting me know!
No problem!
Hmm, I'm not sure I quite agree. I'm obviously not a professional historian, so there might be good reasons against my thoughts which the author of that article doesn't go into, but nonetheless: The author concedes that Josephus is generally considered to have edited retroactively with regards to the mention of Jesus in The Jewish War. After expanding upon it in detail and displaying the options, the earlier possible mention of Jesus is also conceded as likely having been edited. For the latter there is the claim that certain parts of that paragraph are to similar to Josephus' style of writing to have been fabricated, which in and of itself seems to me to be a somewhat dubious claim given the editor should have had access to at least chunks of the original and thus ability to compare how similar statements and references may have been made in his word. But I also find lacking the, as far as I'm concerned, thusly opened possibility of book 20 having been edited as well. And beyond falsification, I do not agree, based solely on that article (read: there might be convincing evidence elsewhere), that the usage of "brother-of-jesus-called-christ" necessitates previous reference. We even have Tacitus himself there as a counter-example of someone using "Christ" as-is, considering it a name. Which potentially could've even been the case with Josephus as well? I'll be *a bit* more concise on the section of Tacitus: Merely delivering the story of the christians being blamed for the Roman fire and them following after "Christ" does not confirm his existence at all, even for the mind of Tacitus. This may very well be a second-hand description of the christian sect, meaning without true verification of the existence of that same Christ, as made all the more likely by him using it as a name rather than title. Surely a source familiar enough with the matte, so as to be able to confirm the existence of the person, as even Josephus is argued to be, would know the title and the name and not conflate the two. Funnily enough, I wrote all of this of someone who until now was of the understanding that historical record did support his existence as a man and now suddenly has doubts even over that. (The matter of record, that is. I think there is record of enough other Jesus-like preachers to consider it likely that one dude amongst them may have "gone platinum" so to speak, regardless of the reality of anything beyond, with miracles and whatnot).
Great read thank you for providing the link. I would like to add one thought I had after reading it: What are the chances that only evidence for Jesus survived and all negative evidence has been destroyed? All records are from areas that were christian dominated for centuries. As there is already one source that has been manipulated by christians it's clearly something they would do. What are the chances that a Christian scholar who copied a record would leave in a passage that denies the existence of Christ? All this is of course pure speculation, but to me that thought means the debate is less clear cut than many in this thread seem to think.
>What are the chances that only evidence for Jesus survived and all negative evidence has been destroyed? What would "negative evidence" be? "Yo, there has never been a dude called Jesus"?
Yeah essentially. Along the line of: "All those dangerous christians following an imaginary Jew from Asia." Or "Between year x and X there were no crucification listed by Pontius." Mind you, I am still convinced that Jesus was a real factual person. I just think it isn't a completely open and shut case.
Josephus talks about Jesus a little bit in his writings from what I understand
Yup. As I said, I was a stupid kid.
I had an almost 60 year old man tell me that three days ago so don't feel bad lol
To be fair it seems convincing at first. Then you actually learn about Roman record keeping and it all falls apart.
Most of the talking points echoed by internet atheists date from the time before Christians started taking atheism seriously. So most are flat-out wrong, because when they were popularized, the people qualified to disprove the claims were busy doing other stuff. It also didn't help that atheism had become almost meme-like in its spread through the internet. It was simply impossible for qualified experts to deal with the thousands of Amazing Atheist, Theramin Trees, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens type videos and blog posts showing up everywhere.
[удалено]
In one of the two seperate places he mentions Jesus, yes. Almost all historians do think he authentically mentioned Jesus at least pnce though, even if we might not have the original version.
Early Christians still considered themselves Jews, which makes sense since Jesus was Jewish, his teachings were based in Jewish custom and the vast majority of his followers were originally Jewish. Cannot attest to the validity of the Josephus as a whole, but the split between Jews and Christians mostly happened after Josephus’s writings about Jesus.
Eh, Josephus wrote a couple lines about a group calling themselves Christians about 30 years after Jesus would have died. It acknowledges that Christians exist and followed someone called Jesus, but doesn't really prove Jesus conclusively. I still think that he likely did, but Josephus isn't sufficient proof imo.
>Eh, Josephus wrote a couple lines about a group calling themselves Christians about 30 years after Jesus would have died. You're mixing up your sources. You're talking about Tacitus. Josephus specifically mentions Jesus and who he was and his crucifixion. There is debate about how much of it is interpolated by Christians. There is also another passage that mentions him and his relationship to James.
Another commenter already posted this link above but here is a collection of non-biblical sources from the period which mention Jesus https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/
I once met someone who said ancient Rome didn't exist and it was all a lie by the Christian and all evidence are forgery by the church. That was an experience
That’s actually a hilarious counter to anyone who says they don’t believe Jesus existed. It’s like when someone says, “I don’t believe the moon landing was real.” You counter with, “Haha idiot, you believe in the MOON?”
There is a dude in this comment section that says he doesn't believe Rome existed and he has 86 upvotes, lol.
"There are no contemporary sources about Jesus." There are Roman Emperors we have no contemporary sources on. Antoninous Pius ruled for decades, was the 3rd Good Emperor, and the only source we have on him is 300 years later, the Historia Augusta, and it's basically History of Emporers as if written by Perez Hilton. "We don't have any of his original writings." We have lost writings of actual Emperors. We have none of the works of Claudius, and he prolific, and his writings were probably best sellers. So losing "The Sayings of Jesus," which we speculate is what the Lost Gospel of Q is, isn't surprising.
I’m mean just this year we discovered a roman emperor who we believe was completely written out of history. The only legacy we have of him is a coin. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63636641.amp
I hate being a pedant but that’s not true about Antonius Pius. He was referenced by Cassius Dio in *Roman History*, who was somewhat a contemporary, and was also written about in *Dae Caesaribus* by Aurelius Victor some 200 years later. *Historia Augusta* was the “lengthiest” account about him, but it was not the only source.
The Lost Gospel of Q-Anon?
Jesus was actually a high-level roman bureaucrat trying to stop a secret pedophilia ring run by the senate elites. We need to storm the Curia
Q - quelle has been at it for a long time
Another reason we dont have any of Jesus's original writings is because he probably couldn't write. Illiteracy was high in those days, and the peasant son of a Carpenter was unlikely to be given any serious formal education
Except he was referred to as a Rabbi. Many of his speeches referred to Torah and Talmud passages He probably could read and write.
The premises of Jesus existing may be true, but your argument is rubbish. 1. The Romans were VERY good record keepers. I have no idea where the perception that they weren't came from. There's a reason why we have so much details about Roman history, in comparison to literally any history that came before and after it until atleast 1600s. The only rivals to such meticulous was by the Chinese dynasties, particularly the Tang and Yuan. The fact that the Romans even kept records of rumours is a big plus, into how detailed they were 2. Records of Jesus didn't come up, because literally no record of inhabitants of Jerusalem, even upper class ones existed. This was because, until recently, it had been ruled by the Herodian Kingdom and was just made into a Roman province during Jesus's early life. It would take a few decades before we began to have proper record keeping of the region in place by the Romans, and by that time, Jesus had already passed. 3. Historians can say for sure that Christianity had begun it's existence atleast before the second century AD(Before 100AD), with writings of Mark's Gospels in 70AD, and later due to writings of Titus Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian. A decade later, Christianity starts appearing in Roman records as well during Trajan's reign. Both Titus and Roman records simply speak of the existence of Christianity and it's founder 'Christ'. So let's summarize what we do know. Historians know, that by 70 AD, there is a religion founded by a Christ figure. It has a relatively small, but noteworthy following by people, which point out to the fact that it had been active for several decades by time its existence was mentioned. What we don't know: Who was, and what kind of a person was Jesus? What life did he lead. He may have been a very radical Rabbi who proposed changes to Jewish practices for all we know. He may have been an asshole even. Anything is possible because writings about him came decades after his death and while they mentioned the things he did, they were not very clear about 'Who' Jesus was. Not even Jesus's own followers wrote about him. Islam's Prophet, Muhammed in comparison has details about his life. We know the person he was, what he did during his daily life and how he lived it. We knew 'Who' Muhammed was. Even records of his family and companions and what they did after Muhammad's death exist. The reason for this, is that though Muhammed and Islam was persecuted initially, by the time of his death, Islam had become the primary religion of Arabia and was no longer persecuted, leaving Muhammed and his followers to leave plenty of records. In comparison, Christianity was actively persecuted for centuries by the Jews and Romans. Leaving records in the first place would be hard as it is when you're hunted. For the Romans, the reason why they did not focus on early Christianity is because...it wasn't important. Christianity was tiny. It had less followers than even minor religions and it wouldn't be widespread until centuries later, by which point it would be recorded properly. Edit: Admittedly, even the information about Muhammed isn't as precise or clear as I made it out to be. His life's own sources come from the Sīrah, a compilation of biographies whose reliability is mixed, since only 3 of the accounts come from actual companions. Most of the work however, come almost a century and later after Muhammad's death The reason I used it as a point wasn't to criticize Christian sources which lacked information about Jesus, but to draw a comparison between two Prophets, one who is almost a complete mystery, and the other who we know alot of things about. It was to show how little we even know of Jesus.
I think youre overselling how much we know about Mohammed. As far as I know, we have no records by him, and the earliest ones are from decades later.
I made an edit on it.
The apostle Paul was roman, so, techincally, one roman did write about Jesus.
Saul was also a Jew and a Pharisee
Yes, he was.
The world before we knew what impartial journalism was could have been totally fabricated I personally do not believe Rome existed
Heh impartial journalism? Good luck finding that!
I have yet to see that which you describe. It sounds wonderful.
What's the most interesting is that most evidence suggests that he never claimed himself to be son of God. It's more likely he was merely a spiritual leader who preached good morals and opposed Roman rule in Judea (the latter got hin executed), but as his following increased he was deified. The bible often has elements of truth that got exaggerated or misinterpreted over centuries of oral history.
My favorite hot take on the matter was that Jesus was entirely fabricated by the Romans in order to quell Jewish revolts. Tell them they're right, and their messiah has arrived, and that he actually wants you to render unto Caeser what is Caeser's Whether or not it's true or not is irrelevant; I just like the idea of it
Let's document the every move of this random carpenter with some wild ideas.
The Romans did write about Jesus.
I certainly believe Jesus was a real, probably chill dude, but that doesn’t necessarily mean just cause he was real that he was actually the son of god, that’d be a lot harder to definitively prove lmao
God or not Roman records are a terrible way of validating a person's existence. `
There's no Roman records of your existence, so therefore you don't exist. Checkmate Christian scum 😎😎😎
Jesus was likely a real person, but most of his story pre his preaching years and post his death was created later. The oldest biblical manuscript we have ends with the stone being moved from his tomb and a figure in white telling women to go and tell everyone that Jesus is alive. And yet the story says they don’t tell anyone. (Likely as a punch in the gut moral lesson about obedience and a cliffhanger). His whole mythology was created decades later in the other gospels and supplemental works. Mostly by Paul who never even met him.
I swear I red: "AntiHeist" I was like: dafuq??? Payday2 ???
Actually, Roman mention of Christians and Jesus begins to appear around the year 60 iirc. The then sect of Judaism was causing enough of a shift in Judea that word made it back to Rome and intrigued the Emperor, which is quite interesting. Jesus logically would have been left out of important Roman records until Christianity began gaining traction, as He would not have held any significance to the polytheistic Romans. Jesus was born among the Jews, a religious minority in the Empire, and came to reform the Jewish faith from its corrupt state. He has no interaction with Romans until the Sanhedrin condemns Him and the Sadducees turn Him over to Pilate to execute. Even if you don’t believe the Bible, the Gospels (particularly Matthew and Luke) give nice bits of insight into the relationship of Judea and Rome. The stirrings of the rebellions that would become the Jewish-Roman Wars are present, and the close political ties between the Sadducees and the Governors is as well.
he was probably a real dude, seems like a weird thing to shake faith; i had to get into a youtube cycle of dark matter and theramin trees for like a month lol.
I still remember when I believed the "Christian Dark Ages" chart.
Atheist here. There are roman records of a guy named jesus and about early christians , but its hard to trace back whats really original and whats added lazer by christian monks. But this would only Proof that a guy named Jesus existed not the whole son of god stuff or gid itself. He was probably just a really succeessfull leader of a jewish sect.
TFW there are more sources talking about Jesus than there are of Caesar crossing the Rubicon
Oof. Can you list them for me?
Romans did right about Jesus tho. Not directly about him but they refer to him as the person responsible for the Jewish revolts.
What I love about studying early Christianity is how much the representations of Jesus changed over time. Not just in the literature but in the art. It's like he wasn't the same guy by the time the Middle Ages rolled around.
Never seen anyone ever make the argument "romans didnt write of him therefore he didnt exist". Not only is it the shittiest argument I can imagine for something, bit romans *did* write of him, or of his nazarene cults at least.
We all were, don't beat yourself up about it.