Did Jesus really exist?

It's a lot easier than yelling "G. Bernard Shaw".

 

Spoiler

 

You have made an honest attempt with a great subject to get intelligent dialogue.

This problably isn't the best place for that.

First of all I think you are asking the wrong question.

There are two better questions-

1. What is the story of Jesus life and death?
2. Why has his story affected so mnay people and society in the last 2000 yrs?

These questions aren't dependent on whether he existed or not but they will give you a better answer.

 

I don't think there is enough non-biblical evidence to even consider the question. Having said that, I don't think the answer to question really matters to most folks on either side. Christians' faith won't be shaken regardless and non-believers' lack of belief doesn't hinge on the answer

 

The Bible says the earth is 6,000 years old.

Geological dating says the earth is 4.54 billion years old.

Did Jesus exist? I will not debate his existence as a historical figure.

Is he the son of the earth's creator, no.

 

Could an all powerful maker create things that are 'dated' older than they were actually created?

 

Yes...the very tired all-mighty trump card.

 

I don't care if Jesus really existed.

 

This has been an interesting discussion between you and Rhad but I find your view very troubling. I am not remotely a Biblical scholar but it seems almost impossible to rule out textual differences as just copiest errors. It seems to me if such was truly the case then a Council of Nicea would have been not needed.

History is constantly up for interpretation and just consider how much controversy is stirred up by different interpretations of recent events, for instance 9/11 and how the buildings fell. Given that the Gospels were written a century after Jesus (supposedly) died I would find it truly miraculous if they actually were accurate.

 

My journey in Christ has been almost the opposite of yours. I was initially without question in my faith, and yet now I realize that my faith was weaker then than it is now.

The more I studied the bible, the times it was written, and the reading of it, the more I had doubts, but also the more solid and real based my faith was because it was based more on reality instead of a fanciful image I'd had.

 

1. Human consciousness is in conflict with the our animal instincts but we have it within ourselves to choose a more civilized life.

2. The human mind is hardwired for problem solving. The uncertainty of mortal existence, though unknowable, is an overriding preponderance. Religion is the result.

 

Sorry I did not get around to this last night – it was a busy evening. Havoc1, earlier we discussed whether or not Jesus ever claimed to be the Messiah, and I said there were two instances where this appears to be the case. John 4:25-26 certainly seems to be an obvious admission (Jesus telling the Samaritan woman that he is the Messiah “I who speak to you am he.”) except that there are several problems. First, the whole thing presupposes a Samaritan woman would be waiting for the Jewish Davidic Messiah, even though Samaritans specifically rejected this theology in 1 Kings 12:16, and instead expected the Taheb, a return of Moses or Joshua. Secondly, the translation is not clear – it could just as easily be “I am speaking to you now”, as a redirection of the topic back to the present. This is paralleled in other Jesus stories such as John 11:24-26 and Thomas 52 (Thomas is particularly interesting ”His disciples say to him, ‘Twenty four prophets spoke in Israel, and they all spoke of you.’ He says to them, ‘You have ignored the living one who is in front of you and prated about the dead.’”) Lastly, John (as is abundantly evident) makes absolutely no distinction between what Jesus said on Earth and what he supposedly said prophetically through the Paracletos (the mystical aspect of John’s gospel is an enormous topic itself).

The other passage is Mark 14:62, where Jesus blatantly tells the High Priest he is the Christ (“I am”). But in Matthew this is “You have said so” and in Luke it’s the far more ambiguous, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer.” The Luke passage is a rewrite of an earlier spot in Luke (20:1-6) where Jesus refuses to answer a question regarding John the Baptist unless they answer his question first. This chronological blurring of the answer would be nonsensical (as it’s great material for the pro-Christian apologist) unless Matthew and Luke had access to an earlier source. And indeed, several older manuscripts of Mark have Jesus remark “You say” instead of “I am”. A clear case of someone editing back the original to better coincide with the more spectacular variation of the developing Christology – and certainly an example that flies in the face of your claim that none of these alterations impacted the “major Christian doctrine”.

Furthermore, Acts 2:36, 3:20-21 and Romans 1:4 all preserve clear evidence of a doctrine that espoused Jesus became the Christ only upon his resurrection. Such a doctrine would make no sense whatsoever if there was a clear consensus that Jesus had claimed to be the Christ prior to the Crucifixion. As the story developed, the various sects altered the doctrine to get what they wanted from the story. As it regards Jesus’ life, this is also made clear in the doctrine of Davidic succession, which throws a whole new curve on the Messiah aspect period. For the Jewry, the “Messiah” was simply the returning king of a free and independent Israel, presumably the restoration of the Davidic line. Of course, this did not turn out to be all that accurate, since Judah Maccabee (a Levite!) established the Hasmonean dynasty in the 2nd century BCE (ending in Herod). Around that time, suddenly new credentials start to appear exclaiming that the messiah will come from the Levites, and not Judah (ref. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs).

Similarly, Mark 12:35-37 provides a clear instance of “backtracking” on the desire for Davidic origins:

"Then Jesus answered and said, while He taught in the temple, “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Spirit:
‘ The LORD said to my Lord,
“ Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’
Therefore David himself calls Him ‘Lord’; how is He then his Son?”
And the common people heard Him gladly."

It’s a clear excuse, possible influenced by the Hasmonean messianism mentioned above. The line serves no purpose except to “head off” the expectation that Jesus originated from David’s line. This would be an important line to have when the commonly accepted purview was that Jesus indeed was not of David’s line. As we progress through the gospels though, suddenly Matthew and Luke offer us long-winded and grossly inaccurate genealogies placing Jesus firmly in David’s line (Matthew’s is particularly amusing since he includes King Coniah as a descendent even though he clearly did not provide a successor to the throne per Jeremiah 22:30 – oops!). Luke inserts several Levite names, perhaps as a throwback to the Hasmonean purview… So why cludge these fake genealogies into the gospels at all? The obvious answer is that the excuse given in Mark no longer seemed to cut it with the expectations being continually placed into the Jesus mythos. Jesus now had to be the son of David, so the story was altered as the gospels progressed. But we can go a step further than that, since the story was then re-altered (probably to better compete with the fantastic pagan god origination stories) to have a virgin birth with Jesus conceived via the Holy Spirit – making the entire “Davidic line” saga completely moot. Indeed, Matthew and Luke both reference the virgin birth in passing, and then claim a geneology from David a few chapters later! As the story developed, the text was altered, but not consistently, and so we end up with a rather handy historical insight into the developing Jesus cult; the Ebionites for example disavowed the virgin birth leading to passages in that vein being retained (out of place, as it were per current dogma), whereas at some point down the line it was felt necessary to “fulfill” the principle of Davidic origin despite the “corrected” context of a virgin birth.

Sorry for the long-winded post. All of this is gleaned from Price’s book mentioned in my first post in this thread. The book is absolutely chock full of this sort of expose – as I said, highly recommended reading.

 

Thank you for your kind words!

I am sorry that you find my view troubling. The way biblical scholars deal with textual differences is that they compare the many different manuscripts together to find out which information might have been added or possibly subtracted by a scribe, and which information might have been mistakenly copied down. So while some scribes may have tried to add to the text to fit their view, by engaging in textual criticism the scholars can come to a reasonable conclusion as to what the originals said.

I think the problem is that people assume that the Bible (New Testament) was transmitted linearly. Like one person copied it, gave it to another person, and then they copied it and so on. But this is not how it happened. The New Testament was written. Then perhaps five copies were made for five people. Well if each of those people made five copies and gave it to five more people, that is now 25 copies. And as time goes on this number gets exponentially bigger. So with the vast amount of manuscripts we have now, if anyone tried to make changes to the New Testament, they could easily be spotted. This is how scholars know that the adulterous woman scenario in John was probably not part of the original, and it is shown that way in modern Bibles.

I think the council of Nicea has been misunderstood. It's purpose was to stop the division that was present in the church at the time. It affirmed the deity of Christ, but it did not invent it. This was a view that was prevalent in the church, but some people were doubting it. So all the bishops were called together by Constantine, and decided that the original apostolic teaching was that Christ was divine, and the minority view of Him being a created being was abandoned. The books of the Bible weren't officially canonized until the council of Carthage I think, but at that time the canon was already pretty much set, but once again people were trying to claim that other books were canonical that were clearly not (ie.. Gospel of Thomas). So the council officially declared which books were canon, although all they were really doing was confirming the books which the majority of the church already accepted and used as canon.

Also the Gospels were not written a century after Jesus, but closer to 30-60 years. Which is ridiculously close to the time of Jesus for documents of the ancient world. A fragment of the Gospel of John has been dated to around 115-130 AD, and the Gospel of John is generally accepted to be the latest gospel written. On that note their is a creed in one of the Corinthian letters that has been dated to possibly around 3 years after Christ lived, and it affirms that Jesus died and was raised and appeared to many. The history suggests that we have better evidence for Jesus being a true figure than we do for most other figures of antiquity.

 

This is inaccurate and a perfect example of after-the-fact apology. The canon was most certainly not set (it was not even discussed at Nicea), and contrived rationalizations were how the "fourfold" canon came into being at a later date. I mean, you've just simplified an incredibly complex political battle (with Constantine influencing all the decisions) down to "well, what happened was basically already the accepted norm and what they decided was right, clearly".

Debatable to the point of uselessness, but a date of 70CE is the minimum, given the references to the destruction of Jerusalem.

 

Thank you for your post and time. That is definitely some interesting information. However, I must confess I do not have the background knowledge to refute what Price says. I could try, but I am most likely out of my league. I will say that his whole theory seems to hinge on theories that may or may not have been true, and a questionable interpretation of the scriptures he is using. His also has to assume that the texts have been modified in some major way, which as I have laid out above, I don't think is true. However, once again I am not properly prepared to challenge his assertions, but that does not mean that I agree with them. Thanks for the information though! It hopefully will cause me to research the subject matter further.

 

Your theory hinges on the fact that there were not books already being circulated in the church. Once again you are depending on an outstanding theory, which somehow puts Constantine at the middle of some huge conspiracy. I never said the canon was discussed at Nicea, that was implied by the poster I was responding to.

I am starting to see that you seem to gravitate towards these huge conspiracy theories. That is fine, but I do not share your convictions.

You just presupposed naturalism, as well as God not being real, as well as Jesus not being divine in order to make that statement. If Jesus really was divine, and if God does exist, then Jesus foretelling the destruction of the temple was a prophecy. It very well could have been said before the destruction of the temple.