reynoldbot
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Post by reynoldbot on Feb 8, 2008 19:16:16 GMT -4
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I have to agree with wdmundt that no such evidence has ever been presented. But proving Jesus existed doesn't really solve anything, or prove he was the Messiah, and in my opinion the search of such proof undermines the fundamental mechanism of religion: faith. Honestly Jason you shouldn't really care if there is or is not direct evidence of Jesus' existence, nor should you care or be surprised that wdmundt therefore is skeptical.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 19:18:28 GMT -4
Reliable evidence would be evidence that could be shown to be accurate or can be shown to have a high likelyhood of being accurate. That's pretty subjective. How can you show that any historical text is accurate? If you didn't witness the events yourself, the best you can do is compare it with other historical texts, and then decide if you find them credible or not.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 19:41:38 GMT -4
Honestly Jason you shouldn't really care if there is or is not direct evidence of Jesus' existence, nor should you care or be surprised that wdmundt therefore is skeptical. I don't as far as my own belief is concerned. I guess what concerns me here is that Wdmundt treats this absence of evidence as suspicious when it really isn't. Why should we expect any non-religious records of Jesus to exist? The reason people took note of him was his religious nature, so that's obviously what people wanted to preserve, and there have been two-thousand years for whatever secular evidences of Jesus that once existed to have been lost. I feel Wdmundt argues this case in part to justify his disdain of Christianity and religion in general, and it annoys me when people attempt to tear down institutions that generally do good in the world and are a help to many people. Especially if it is through ridiculous claims like "Christianity set back the cause of medicine 1000 years by burning witches" or "the lack of secular evidence that Jesus exists means he didn't." I've attempted to prove how hollow the whole argument of a lack of "evidence" is when compared with other, less-controversial historical figures like Alexander the Great, but Wdmundt won't budge on the issue, and I feel that has much more to do with his feelings towards religion than any rational approach to history.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 8, 2008 19:56:03 GMT -4
I can see it now... people 2000 years from now will be debating whether or not Superman really existed. After all, we have written and filmed accounts of his heroic acts (and by that time I'm sure the idea of aliens living on Earth won't seem strange ). Will people in the future understand that Superman is a work of fiction?
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Post by Ginnie on Feb 8, 2008 19:57:17 GMT -4
Well Jason, historians are on your side for the most part.
I think the problem here is that wdmundt's criteria for evidence is much different that yours. What we need here is a moderator that can set the standards for evidence, and judge each person's points.
Their is much extra-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus if the rules for evidence were broad enough. But by wdmundts criteria there is none. I don't think anything can be concluded in this thread.
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Post by Ginnie on Feb 8, 2008 19:58:14 GMT -4
I can see it now... people 2000 years from now will be debating whether or not Superman really existed. After all, we have written and filmed accounts of his heroic acts (and by that time I'm sure the idea of aliens living on Earth won't seem strange ). Will people in the future understand that Superman is a work of fiction? Yes.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 20:34:34 GMT -4
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I have to agree with wdmundt that no such evidence has ever been presented. I would also say that I don't think the historicity of Jesus is an "Extraordinary claim". The idea that "there was a man named Jesus who lived in the Kingdom of Judea in the first century, and he began a religious movement that became Christianity" doesn't seem extraordinary to me. The claims of his actions, sayings, and significance in the Bible certainly are extraordinary, but even from a completely secular viewpoint which is more likely, that Paul created a fictional character whole cloth and built a vibrant religious movement around him, or that he built upon the foundation of a real person?
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 20:35:56 GMT -4
I think the problem here is that wdmundt's criteria for evidence is much different that yours...Their is much extra-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus if the rules for evidence were broad enough. But by wdmundts criteria there is none. I don't think anything can be concluded in this thread. Which is basically what I've been saying. His standards are too high to admit to the existence of the majority of historical figures before about 1700 or so.
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Post by RAF on Feb 8, 2008 22:54:28 GMT -4
Well no, not really. If Jesus wasn't in fact divine then no, it doesn't much matter if he really existed or not. Ya know...there might be some hope for you yet.
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Post by PeterB on Feb 8, 2008 23:19:21 GMT -4
How can you show that any historical text is accurate? If you didn't witness the events yourself, the best you can do is compare it with other historical texts, and then decide if you find them credible or not. Ooh, a bit of an alarm went off there. That sounds a lot like the arguments Biblical creationists use to argue against scientific evidence for the extreme age of the Earth: "How can you say the Earth is old if you weren't there?" It's possible to use archaeological evidence to test the accuracy of historical texts. A classic example is comparing Josephus's account of the siege of Masada with the results of archaeology at the site. Of course, in the case of Jesus, the archaeological evidence is always going to be scant, seeing as he came from a poor family, among tens of thousands of similar poor families in the region. I don't think the case is made for the historical existence of Jesus, but I think it's far more likely that he existed than that he didn't exist. The evidence for me that makes the case is two-fold. Firstly, the belief system of Christianity makes more sense in the context of being built up from the sayings and actions of Jesus than from the writings of Paul. Secondly, the sayings of Jesus are consistent with the life of a poor peasant or artisan in 1st century Judea, the sort of thing which I think would be hard for a city-dwelling Jew like Paul to recreate. In other words, the core of Christian sayings have a solid base in 1st century pre-revolt Galilean peasant life (in my thoroughly unqualified opinion).
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Post by echnaton on Feb 9, 2008 0:30:42 GMT -4
Jason, I am interested to see if you have any historical evidence to present in this discussion. Historians make judgments about writings like those of Josephus all the time. That is their job. Can you cite a source that claims that the passage related to Jesus is original to Josephus?
To me it seems that the actual existence of Jesus must be inferred from the consequences immediately following his death, the rise of Christianity. Clearly this is not the kind of evidence that wdmundt is looking for. His point has some validity because the inference is not evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ’s, but evidence for the existence of something happening. As far as extra biblical evidence is concerned, that something is a mystery.
For modern Christians, we must live with the ambiguity and focus on our faith in the message of Christ. Whose primary focus was on forgiveness, love and redemption. Things all people need whether they believe in His divinity or not.
edited for clarity
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reynoldbot
Jupiter
A paper-white mask of evil.
Posts: 790
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Post by reynoldbot on Feb 9, 2008 6:08:45 GMT -4
My point exactly. The actual physical embodiment of Jesus is not nearly as important as the messages he represents.
All I'm saying is that from a skeptic's point of view, the answer here has to be that there is not enough evidence to prove Jesus physically existed. I in fact believe he did exist but as of yet there is nothing to prove that.
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Post by echnaton on Feb 9, 2008 10:29:50 GMT -4
My point exactly. The actual physical embodiment of Jesus is not nearly as important as the messages he represents. Agreed. The focus on resolving the ambiguity between history and the biblical account of Jesus or the disparity between history and much of the Old Testament is a real problem for Christianity. Attempts to prove the Bible historically or scientifically typically lead to an unsatisfactory end, making the proponents look foolish. Yes, there are historical references to be found in the OT but there are many things that are simply hard to swallow, if viewed as historical fact. This starts with Genesis. We simply cannot view these events and the entire OT as a literal history because too many things do not line up with what people have discovered about history and nature. Science has liberated Christianity from the need to see the Bible as a literal history and allowed us to view it as a spiritual history, of sorts. We do not have to try to reconcile the OT to historical and scientific accounts. We need to reconcile it to human nature. To the development of the knowledge of God leading up to the birth of the Messiah. It is a story of both great power and great warnings. Christians would be wise to heed the OT warnings lest we too abandon God. There are more ways to abandon God than to engage in the outright worship of Baal.
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Post by gillianren on Feb 9, 2008 15:20:47 GMT -4
All I'm saying is that from a skeptic's point of view, the answer here has to be that there is not enough evidence to prove Jesus physically existed. I in fact believe he did exist but as of yet there is nothing to prove that. I think there is a reasonable historical inference that there was a historical Jesus. The actual evidence isn't satisfactory, but the existence of the Catholic Church--and the Orthodox, since I don't want to get into the argument of which is the true church*--is a reasonable indicator of the historical Jesus, simply because the books were written so closely to the time he was supposed to have existed. That's an awful lot of momentum to build up that quickly without something to base it on. Honestly, I think that, for some Christians, the search for a historical Jesus is more about proving something about their religion in the hopes that people will think, therefore, that it's all true. As if, for instance, a historical Jesus will somehow prove that there was a divine Jesus. This, obviously, is complete nonsense. I do, however, also believe that some believe that the search for a historical Jesus will give them a closer insight into their own faith without worrying what it does for other people. The more they know about a historical Jesus, the more they can know how to live their own lives. Obviously, I have a great deal more respect for this particular reason for searching, even though I believe that it, too, is ultimately futile. As has been mentioned, there's just not enough to be found out about the historical Jesus (in whom I do believe, despite my disbelief in the divine Jesus**) to teach much of anybody about much of anything except how hard it is to find anything out about an individual Galilean peasant from 2000 years ago. *The reason I don't count the various Protestant churches when mentioning the whole true church thing is because they split of from the Catholic Church and would therefore consider the Catholic Church to be closer to the true church than the Orthodox Churches, which itself split into sects as well, whereas the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church pretty much split off from each other 1700 or so years ago. **My beliefs on the subject are actually more complicated than that. I can go into detail if anyone wants me to, but I don't think anyone cares all that much about my religious beliefs. Actually, I don't think anyone's religious beliefs are all that important to anyone but them, though clearly, there are a lot of people who disagree with me on that one.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 9, 2008 16:45:29 GMT -4
It's possible to use archaeological evidence to test the accuracy of historical texts. A classic example is comparing Josephus's account of the siege of Masada with the results of archaeology at the site. True, but unless you are yourself an archaelogist, and go and perform work on the site, you're still relying on the writings and work of others. I believe most of us on this forum are not archaeologists, so again it's a choice between who you feel is most credible.
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