What follows is “overwhelming evidence” for the Biblical Jesus. Or so says Etienne Van Heerden. My response is italicized and indented.
I have an extremely inquiring mind and questioned the religious teachings of my parents by wanting prove which i concluded after logical and scientific consideration of the following undeniable facts :
According to Van Heerden, what follows are undeniable facts for the Biblical Jesus. Van Heerden paints himself as one with an inquiring mind, one who came to these conclusions through logic and science. As readers shall see, Van Heerden skipped numerous shelves of books in his inquiries, coming to conclusions that are little more than apologetical talking points or fanciful thinking.
1) There must have been somebody like Jesus since his birth is still celebrated annually across the globe, by Billions of people.
Why? What actual evidence do you have for this claim? Billions of people worship all sorts of deities that Christians say are false gods. How do we determine your god claims are true, and all others false?
Do you believe Santa Claus is real? Every December 24th and 25th, people across the globe celebrate Christmas and pay homage to Santa. Using your logic, this means Santa is real. The same can be said for the Easter Bunny.
Personally, I believe there was in first-century Palestine a man by the name of Jesus. He lived and died, end of story. You are making claims that are not supported historically, as I shall show in just a minute.
2) He performed numerous well documented, teachings and miracles including curing the blind, feeding thousands of people with 5 loaves of bread and raising the dead including a partially decomposed Lazarus ( SOME EVENTS WITNESSED BY THOUSANDS) hence the reason for his huge following ,with no documented evidence to the contrary.
You are kidding, right? Well documented? Where, exactly? Please provide all this well-documented evidence for the claims you make for Jesus. All you have is the gospels — books written 30-90 years after the death of Jesus by unknown authors. None of the gospel accounts were written by eyewitnesses.
Further, there is little to no extrabiblical evidence for Christ’s existence, let alone the miracles you claim he performed. You would think that if a man had been performing these stupendous miracles in and around Jerusalem that a Jewish or Roman historian would have mentioned it. Yet, history is silent. Why is that? What logical conclusion should we come to?
Have you read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books? Ehrman is a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. His books demolish virtually every claim you make in your email. If you haven’t read his books, I encourage you to do so. You have definitely NOT done your homework if you haven’t read Ehrman’s books. And frankly, I know you haven’t. Had you actually read his books, you would never have made the false claims you make in your email.
3) His cause of death (well documented by numerous historians) was definitely attributed to crucifixion ,prophesied 600 years prior to his birth.
Again, I would love to see this well-documented evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus from NUMEROUS historians. This, my friend, is untrue. You are either ill-informed or delusional. If Jesus was the miracle worker you say he is, was executed on a Roman cross, and rose from the dead three days later, why did contemporary Jewish and Roman historians not write one word about it?
4) He must have been resurrected as the pharisees who hated him and organized for the Roman guards would have left no stone left alone grave stone unturned , to find his body if it was stolen as some might suggest.I live on a farm in South Africa with a fair amount of tracking skills and can conclude that it would have been relitively easy to track the transportation of his body on the gravel roads as it would not be more than a few hours of his body discovered as missing.
You seem to think bald assertions are evidence. Jesus was a flesh and blood human. What do we KNOW about humans? They all eventually die. No exceptions. Jesus was executed because he committed crimes against the Roman state. Whatever the circumstances of his burial, Jesus remains dead to this day. Do you have any actual evidence to the contrary?
Unless you can provide any ancient scriptures or documents to the contrary, one then has to except he was the son of GOD / MIGHTY BEING with the power to perform such miracles.
The burden of proof is yours, not mine. You have provided none, except for boldly asserting the Bible and its second/third/fourth hand testimonials are true. Do you believe NASA landed a spacecraft on the Moon in 1969? Do you know that there are people who believe the moon landing is a hoax, and they have even written books about it? You claim to be a rational man. I suspect you believe the Moon landing really happened, just as described by countless eyewitnesses. Why, then, do you reject the claims of the hoax believers? Evidence, right? Why would you not apply this same methodology to the Biblical Jesus? There’s no verifiable firsthand, eye witness evidence for the claims made for Jesus in the Bible. Yet, you accept what the Bible says as fact. And that’s fine as long as you admit that you believe these things on faith, not scientific, historical evidence.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I think it’s possible that there was a person, some sort of itinerant preacher, who formed the basis of the myth upon which the biblical Jesus is founded. It’s also possible, and is no longer an extreme view, that Jesus was entirely mythical, with no basis in reality whatsoever. What’s beyond reasonable doubt, however, is that the biblical Jesus is entirely fabricated. Not one part of the story (and then you have to decide which of the several contradictory stories you actually mean) stands the least scrutiny. Had even just one of the miracle claims been true there would have been an explosion of contemporary interest, as opposed to the absolute silence there actually is.
Like you GeoffT, I’ve come round to the view Jesus probably didn’t exist. If he did and was so remarkable that he sparked the entire Christian movement, why are the only accounts of him based on Old Testament teaching, Paul’s visions and scraps of other myths?
Having read a little bit of Ron L Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, there appears that there were numerous claims made by him and some of his inner circle that have been described as dubious at best. I think this presents an example of how someone could exist (Ron L Hubbard did) but claims about his life and claims about his cures and so forth from his dianetics did not always appear to hold up to scrutiny from what I have read.
So perhaps it’s easy for things to grow arms and legs. Did Jesus exist? Seems like it, can the claims of Jesus’s teachings and works have taken on extra interpretations? Possibly.
I agree, very easy for myths and legends ‘to grow arms and legs.’ I live in a celtic country with oral tradition since the dawn of time. Some folks here love their 6thC celtic saints and their ‘miracles’. I imagine living in a 6thC setting where the storyteller recounted these well-loved tales and probably embellished them to spice them up a bit. I live near St Winefride’s Well. A x-tian, she got her head chopped off by a heathen suitor in that century, it was restored to her head and a spring of water appeared…pilgrims still visit today. Funny how it wasn’t actually written down till the 12thC, all those years of ‘chinese whispers’ making the story more and more fantastic as proof of how god preserved her virginity and rewarded her by putting her head back on!
And those ‘early manuscripts’, they weren’t pristine, vellum scrolls, lovingly and carefully preserved. They were fragments put together like jigsaw pieces, some were blurred by damp,or mold or missing so well-meaning transcribers had to guess at their words. Forgeries were not uncommon as locals saw they could ‘fleece’ rich western archeologists who began to flood their monasteries etc seeking early bible manuscripts in victorian times. I’ve even read – and I can believe this – that some monks would alter a verse they were transcribing if it gave too much prominence to a woman in the story!
Matilda, Biblical verses were altered by scribes for all sorts of reasons, some accidental, some not so much. A tired monk might skip a word, or a whole line, and fail to notice it. The copyist might not actually be literate, only able to form the letters of what he wrote, and miss his errors. Or a literate scribe might seek to “correct” what he thought was a previous scribe’s error, or add his own opinion. Stories did get embroidered, and further from the original texts–of which we have none-for hundreds of years.
Concerning women in the Bible, you’re right. For example, either copyists or translators assumed the woman “Junia” was an error, and turned her into “Junias,” which is not an actual Roman name. Over time, in an increasingly male-dominated religion, women were firmly shoved into the background.
Yes,visiting a scriptorium in a medieval monastery, I thought of monks workng there all day in the poor lighting, the cold of a european winter and before the invention of spectacles, no wonder mistakes were made. I like the true story of victorian sisters who found and translated the Codex Siniaticus, parts were a palimsest and they used a primitive chemical to show up the faded biblical under-text. On top had been written the antics of some early female saints, and some were quite raunchy apparently! As I was deconverting, reading my bible and hearing it read in church, all this began to make me want to laugh at the idea of an authentic, god-breathed, immutable canon of scripture, I was reading myths, legends and lies, not The Word Of God.
Absolutely! The idea that there has ever been an intact, error-free, set of Scriptures, of which we have a perfect copy, despite centuries of hand-copying in less-than-idea conditions, is just silly. They were written by men, for men, over a long time, for a lot of different purposes.
I thought about that when I was questioning my beliefs. But I remembered that there are
millions of Mormons, and that is surely a completely made up religion.
If millions of Mormons can be wrong, then billions of Christians can be wrong.
Dear Bruce
Have you ever considered for one moment, if any history pivots around the birth of any other religion’s god, like around that of Jesus?All of history is referred to as happened AD. or BC.If that does not convince you, then you would probably deny the existence of Napoleon, Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.
The New Testament was written around 250-300 years AC.using the letters and scriptures(written 20-50 AC of some of the apostles like,John or Peter as well as Paul, Mark and Luke who were not part of the 12.These people (according to you) were all compulsive liars, who risked their lives to spread these “lies” (Who on mother earth, would want to risk their lives to spread lies, which, bar minor differences in detail, have more or less similar accounts of events)?If it was exactly the same one could argue that they must have collaborated which is indicative of independent versions of events.
Santa, Ben 10 and the Easter bunny are not exactly ancient historical figures and to suggest this comparison, is a little of the chart don’t you think?
So yeah, the well documented scriptures i am referring to, are the different gospels written by different authors at different times, but what ancient scriptures can you provide to the contrary?As for historians outside the biblical ones, you should do homework before you make claims such as “no extra Biblical evidence for Christ’s existence” as you clearly have not heard of Roman historian senator Tacitus who not only make reference to Jesus but also confirmed his crucifixion by Pontius Pilate as well as Jewish historian Flavius Josephus both in the 1st century AC.
You are right in your assumption that i have never, nor ever will, read any of Dr Bart Eherman’s books. There must be 50 million New Testament Scholars out there with 50 million opinions of which you happen to chose one which promotes your point of view .
Jesus was flesh and blood and was executed via crucifixion but not because of any criminality (as he would have been arrested by the Romans if he was),but on the insistence of the Jewish pharisees.who hated him for the amount of followers he drew away from them.
Pontius Pilate was not even keen on his crucifixion and wanted to release him instead of Barrabas.
How can you insist that Jesus is dead until today? Has his body ever been found after the 3 days? Did anybody make mention that his body was dumped/seen anywhere? any contradictory scriptures anywhere?.Do you not think the pharisees would have wanted to show everybody that his prophesy of resurrection was a lie? On the balance of probabilities and logic and written evidence of a number of different people the clear answer is that he was indeed resurrected.
You must be aware that one could be convicted of murder relying on circumstantial evidence alone.Come on Bruce ,have a little faith and have a great day
Got it. You’ve read no books but the Bible. The summation of your position in this: The Bible says . . .
Once again, I encourage you to read several of Bart Ehrman’s books. Until you do so, you are definitely at an intellectual disadvantage, choosing deliberate ignorance.
Dear Bruce
You, and all the commentators, failed to mention any ancient scriptures or parchments contradicting the ones the Bible was assembled from.World renowned scholars like Joseph Ratzinger, Peter Berger ,Gregory Boyd and the list goes on, all have a similar view to Christianity even though i would not base my believes on any writings and opinions written 2000 years later .
I must say i was overwhelmed by the huge amount of intellectual responses from people whom i wouldn’t attempt to humiliate or offend by comparing my own intellect to their’s and therefor humbly ask them to explain in layman’s terms the following:
1)Why would anyone including yourselves, write the date on their contracts,diaries events or schedule meetings referring to the DOB of a “Nobody” ,Somebody that “lived , died end of story” Why did counting not start using the DOB. of a king or world ruler like Napoleon or Julius Caesar or a “real person like Pontius Pilate” ?
2)How ,a small group of people, after seeing their leader die the most painful, horrific death ,with no” plausible ” evidence and under the most extreme persecution proclaim what became by far, the planet’s biggest religion.?
What odds would bookies have given them to achieve what you claim as “bullshit” to achieve this . Seems to me some of you might have lost a lot of money.
3) Why the Romans adopted the Christian faith of a “Criminal” the crucified person who’s bones were rotting somewhere in a mass grave and enforce this religion which became the largest of all. Does that sound logical to anybody?
Grab yourselves a great day
The “A.D.” system was invented circa 525 CE, long after ChristInsanity had polluted the Western world, and it was invented by a Christian monk.
Dear Astreja
And?????? It still reflects and makes reference to the birth date of Jesus.
History pivoting around Jesus is a manmade action. It’s not any kind of proof that Jesus was the son of God. You can’t use suppositions to prove your point. Pointing to non-Christian contemporary sources (during and at the end of Jesus’ life) that Jesus actually healed people, or that he came back from the dead, would be considered some type of evidence. And that evidence doesn’t exist.
‘(Who on mother earth, would want to risk their lives to spread lies, which, bar minor differences in detail, have more or less similar accounts of events)?’
Etiene, keep in mind that many in Ron Hubbard’s inner circle did serious jail time so it sounds like you might be surprised what situations people might find themselves in. Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism was in prison and was killed. His death helped to spur Mormonism into wider acceptance (which could also be said of Jesus, that is that he was martyred in the eyes of his followers).
As for similar accounts in the gospels, there is really very different versions of gospel in each of the four, but the thing about them being similar in some places is that they can easily be re-written. Progressive Christian academics accept the last chapter of John for instance to be written after the rest of John.
If you had read any of the books or studied biblical subjects, one thing that becomes clearer is that the Old Testament was re-written in many places. An example of many is battles in the OT consisting of cavalry hundreds of years before armies used horses this way. Someone or some people just re-wrote it not realising that they still used faxes and not emails (to give a present day analogy). This is similar to NT, with chapters also added at different times.
Etienne, I see you’ve had plenty of pushback from other commenters, but I still want to add my two cents worth. You say that the gospels were written based on the letters and scriptures of the apostles. This is plain wrong. There is no record of anything having been written by the apostles (if they even existed). Anonymous authors, to whom the traditional names of some of the disciples were later attached, penned the gospels, beginning at least some four decades after the purported crucifixion. Mark was clearly the first, with Matthew and Luke copying profusely then embellishing. John was written perhaps a hundred years after the crucifixion, theologically based and introducing the more divine aspects of Jesus. All writings were based on hearsay and lively imaginations with not an eyewitness in sight.
Etienne, it’s trivially easy to make up stories about someone. That someone doesn’t even have to exist, although there’s a possibility that there was a mortal man upon whom the character of Jesus was based. You can even add real people like Pontius Pilate to make the story appear more authentic, even though it’s 100% bullshit.
I believe that resurrection is impossible. Literally impossible. I believe that any real-life Jesus has been dead for nearly 2000 years (and probably now just a pile of bones in a Roman mass grave).
Your delusion is laughable and absolutely unconvincing. Grow the fuck up, already.
Dear Neil
Mormons and Christian believe is very similar so the millions of Mormons are not really wrong
So, you don’t know anything about Mormonism either. By all means, compare the Mormon founding myth to the founding myth of Christianity; compare their core doctrines; compare their histories. Only a person trying to avoid the devastating implications of Neil’s argument would say Christianity and Mormonism are in the same zip code.
@Etienne
Hey if you think the arguments for Jesus and resurrection are strong then that shows how little you have studied this subject. In fact there is far far more evidence your deity rose people from the dead as vampires and revenants. You should read this article here to add this to your apologetics arsenal. debunking-christianity.com/2020/10/on-vampires-and-revenants-resurrecting.html
Behold your God is great indeed.
Evidence? Really? Huh!
Re “Personally, I believe there was in first-century Palestine a man by the name of Jesus.” This is not much of a claim. Jesus (Yeshua/Joshua) was a very popular name so there had to have been thousands of Jesuses walking around Palestine during the first century. So, a claim that there was an historical person named Jesus (Yeshua/Joshua) that actually existed is irrelevant. Only evidence that there was someone named Jesus who did the things he is claimed to do counts as an historical Jesus.
Thank you for all you do for us, Bruce!
I wrote this article for John Loftus debunking this type of apologetics here-debunking-christianity.com/2020/10/on-vampires-and-revenants-resurrecting.html
Pass it onto him and ask what in blazes is the difference between his apologetics and this argument.
Fascinating ! Fascinating ! Mr. Spock would agree. Well, Etienne, what is your answer to Kris’ links to debunking apologetics for John Loftus ? We’re waiting………..
Etienne van Heerden …..
Go back to your Bible and reread that incident where Jesus was taunted, by a crowd in Palestine to leap off a cliff that He was standing on. He refused. He told the crowd that they would learn nothing by it. He was dead wrong of course. They were more than willing to believe he could change water to wine, but not this ?!? What was so hard ?!? He never turned down a miracle before. Well, it just wasn’t in His bag of gimmicks. This was a random event He just was not prepared for. The crowd caught Him off guard. But it made it into the Bible ….. didn’t it ?!? Surprised you didn’t mention that one. Yes. Here’s a crowd of witnesses you deliberately chose NOT TO MENTION.
OK Etienne, here it is in a nutshell.
Every prophet needs a gimmick. Without that gimmick, they would not be recognized as a prophet. Stands to reason, right ?!? But why ?!? You have to be able to do something extraordinary. The Bible, Etienne, was not written by any one author. Rather, to put it bluntly, the Bible is a collection of “miraculous” events witnessed by the audiences of a magician. Remember ?! ? Gimmick ?!?
It worked right up to the 20th C. In the 1940s – 70s, many Christian evangelicals became world famous due to their “channeling of Christ’s power” “(gimmicks). And you know what ?!? It worked !!!! No one questioned them *except so called unbelievers (scientists).” And you’re not one of those Etienne. How do I know this ?!? Simple. Not one of these guys in your Bible ever let on just how their gimmicks worked. The secrets behind them. And Jesus had lots ! There was a reason for this. The same reason today that magicians also use. It’s part of their livelihood. It’s not difficult to reproduce these biblical “miracles.” Whenever someone tries to sell me something and refers to its properties as “miraculous”, I know I’m listening to a scam. There are no miracles in science, which betrays your “unscientific understanding of anything (including the Bible).”
Quite a few people caught on, even in biblical times. How many times was your Jesus unceremoniously picked up by the scruff of His neck and dragged and thrown out of town by righteous parents trying to protect their children from Him ?!? At least 3 towns !!! So. What did your Jesus do each time ?!? Create a miracle ?!? Brush them aside ?!? NO. Do you know what He did ?!? What anyone of us would have done. Hi-tail it out of there BUT, not before standing up, brushing Himself off (in front of one of His disciples no less), shook His fists in the air (maybe giving them the BIRD), swore a blue streak, while cursing the parents and finally breaking down and cursing even their children to eternal damnation (the little ones He came to so call “save”). I’m with the Bible on this one Etienne !
It’s the Bible, Etienne, that gives us so much evidence against any of its characters possessing so called “Divinity.”
Etienne,
Your arguments don’t pass muster.
You create a strawman argument of the authors of the Bible either sharing truth or lies, but it isn’t lying if you believe what you’ve written. That doesn’t mean you’re necessarily telling the truth. You seem to think that the gospels were all written independently, but scholars have long understood that Matthew and Luke were working from Mark, but reframing the story for different audiences. John, written later, is more a piece of propaganda.
You insist that if a particular crucifixion victim named Yeshua had a dead body that was never found, it must prove he rose from the dead, and yet there is no extra-Biblical evidence that he was even entombed. Often, the Romans deliberately left the bodies of the crucified dead out to be defiled by scavenging animals. Crucifixion was death by torture, and having one’s body devoured by animals was offensive. The whole idea was to convince, say, the followers of a Zionist political group, to go home and not keep up the agitating. While the Bible describes a Jesus who was not, in fact, attempting to overthrow the Roman occupiers, they probably wouldn’t have seen it that way.
A fantastically-successful traveling preacher named Paul had a vision, attached it to a new religious cult in a world full of religious cults, and started the spread of Christianity. Even so, it most likely would have died out like many other such cults if the Roman Empire hadn’t adopted it as the official religion, and spread it at the point of the sword. Christians like to point to Islam as a religion of violence, spread by conquest, but Mohammed had Rome as an example.
You can make all these “self-evidential” arguments from the Bible all you like, invoke all the evidence-free arguments you can think of, and then accuse people who contradict you of just finding some scholar who agrees with them. I, and most everyone here, need evidence. Furthermore, accusing Bruce of finding a scholar who agrees with him merely points out that you are not a scholar at all.
What could we conclude about the real Jesus? Was it not really Paul’s idea to pass on his interpretation of this Jewish teacher to gentiles? As a former Christian Jesus was always there to give me a hug and was a friend, but maybe the real Jesus would think my concerns trivial and wonder why a Gentile would be reading parts of the OT.
Thousand of people saw that, no big deal. Take a look at this case from the 18th century.
In a letter to Calmet by L. de Beloz, ci-devant Captain in the Regiment of his Serene Highness the late Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, 1733.
He reported the following about a vampire case of a person who has been deceased for several years
Appearances to the living – The vampire dispatched three nieces and nephews and his brother. Sucked the daughter of his niece. People who had their blood sucked found themselves in pitiable state of lanquor, weakness and lassitude.
Addendum – The author of the letter swears to the truth of these accounts. These cases were investigated by Duke Charles Alexander of Wirtemberg. The truthfulness of this case was attested by Duke Charles Alexander of Wirtemberg. Twenty four grenadiers of the regiment supported this case. The corpse within the grave was life like and heart was beating. The corpse was staked and beheaded and then it was covered in quicklime. 1,300 people, all worthy of belief, can attest to this case.
Surely our Etienne wouldn’t deny this evidence would he. Amazing indeed what thousands of people can see. I wonder if he will be consistent in his logic.
The problem with so much apologetics is it simply assumes the accuracy of the Biblical text instead of seeking to demonstrate it. When pressed for evidence the text is accurate they offer at best evidence that suggests some of it is. Most skeptics of Christianity would not deny that the Bible has some history and accuracy to it. Some does not prove complete accuracy though.
Now if the Synoptics, John and 1st Corinthians 15 are accurate then yes Jesus rose from the dead and this is the best explanations for the origins of Christianity. If all those sources I used in my article on vampires are accurate then yes vampires exist. If all the accounts of the Ghost Ship the Flying Dutchman are accurate then the Ocean’s at one time had a true ghost ship on them. All of these are might big IFS though and no apologist has ever found a way to turn those IFS into facts.
As it is the apologetics method of simply assuming the accuracy of the claims of the text can be used to prove almost any not normal claim and is therefore worthless.
Another issue with apologetics is what I call the USS Tang problem:
Basically sometimes real unlikely things happen. For example in World War II the USS Tang was a US submarine and it’s crew had the best combat record of any submarine crew in the war. The Tang was sunk however and it was sunk by its own torpedo which was the last torpedo on the submarine. This was really unlikely but we know this happened based on survivors accounts who used momsen lungs to surface. This is the only use of momsen lungs in history to survive a sunk submarine. Again all of this was very unlikely and if we did not have survivors this explanation for the loss of the Tang would not have even been considered by the US Navy as it completely violates the concept of Occam’s Razor in every meaningful way.
Apologist seem to think if they can show how a naturalistic account of events is improbable or not probable it demonstrates their argument. That is hardly true. Odd things happen.
Christians would really be better off trying to live an ethical live and create ethical communities as an advertisement for their views instead of trying to prove the unprovable.
One of the things that gets me about this argument is the assumption that the religious authorities or the Roman’s would have cared one way or another to get the body of Jesus.
1.) Maybe they thought the claim was too stupid to deal with, the same way no one digs up Elvis’ grave.
2.) Jesus was more than likely buried in a criminals mass grave so recovering his body would have been both difficult and taboo.
3.) By the time the rumor might have begun to stick the body of Jesus would have decayed beyond recognition so again producing it would be impossible.
4.) The earliest claim about Jesus’ resurrection can be found in 1st Corinthians 15 where it teaches his body was spiritually resurrected. If they produced some decayed corpse the Apostles simply would deny that was the body of Jesus as it was transformed into a spirit and was in Heaven.
5.) Perhaps they simply believed the Apostles and thought Jesus had been raised based on their testimony the same way some people thought John the Baptist had been risen from the dead.
6.) The Roman’s had less reasons to care enough to dig up a corpse but if they heard the claims about Jesus resurrecting they would have considered it to be local nonsense and ignored it. If they heard he was spiritually resurrected they might think he was a ghost and leave it at that.
People like this utterly baffle me. Why is it so hard to understand that the gospels are not first person documents? IIRC, scholars (including possibly Ehrman, it’s been a while since I’ve read him) posit that of the four, Mark is possibly based on a doc which has earmarks of being contemporaneous with Jesus. Matt and Luke both draw on the Q gospel which itself post-dates Jesus considerably, and John likely dates from around 90CE and has the least relationship with anything we’d call “historical.” Doesn’t Josephus also obliquely mention somebody (or several somebodies) making trouble for the Pharisees in his histories, who might or might not be Jesus or someone like him? Either way, we have ZERO contemporary evidence for JC being an important or prominent figure in Jewish history until at least a century after his death. Even the Pauline letters don’t tell us much other than that Paul himself was an enthusiastic convert who founded a lot of small Christian communities after Christ’s death and then harassed them incessantly through the mail after the fact. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU HISTORY, PEOPLE.
Poor, silly, deluded Christianist
You’re a saint for putting up with this dross, Bruce.
one more Liar for Christ(tm).
1)Why would anyone including yourselves, write the date on their contracts,diaries events or schedule meetings referring to the DOB of a “Nobody” ,Somebody that “lived , died end of story” Why did counting not start using the DOB. of a king or world ruler like Napoleon or Julius Caesar or a “real person like Pontius Pilate” ?
Kris- Because we live in Western Society and this is the convention. Why do you use days named after Norse Gods and Months named after Pagan Roman Emperors?
2)How ,a small group of people, after seeing their leader die the most painful, horrific death ,with no” plausible ” evidence and under the most extreme persecution proclaim what became by far, the planet’s biggest religion.?
Kris- What is any evidence they were seriously persecuted. After all Jesus was crucified, but they were largely left alone. If they were being so persecuted why didn’t the Roman’s simply crucify them too. Perhaps the Roman’s and Jewish authorities didn’t care all that much.
Look up cognitive dissonance and look up visionary encounters with the dead.
What odds would bookies have given them to achieve what you claim as “bullshit” to achieve this . Seems to me some of you might have lost a lot of money.
Kris- Odd things happen, what is the odds someone would claim an Angel was talking with him and revealed a New Scripture. Then he created a new Religion which became successful. We call that religion Mormonism
3) Why the Romans adopted the Christian faith of a “Criminal” the crucified person who’s bones were rotting somewhere in a mass grave and enforce this religion which became the largest of all. Does that sound logical to anybody?
Kris- They didn’t for over three hundred years. Their population slowly converted over centuries and then they adopted new views.
The fact you consider these to be some sort of knock out questions speaks volumes on how poorly informed you are.
Dear Kris
Because we live in a western world really ?????? Is that the best you can do What are the conventions based on? SAY IT !!!! Everybody reading this platform knows the answer but will not be bold /honest enough to acknowledge since this would mean they have to retract the garbage quoted for the existence of Jesus.
Days of the week were actually named after the 5 known planetary bodies and the sun and moon by the Babylonians and years after adopted by the Romans.Months were named after Roman gods and leaders and events.
It was the Jews not the Romans that persecuted the disciples.
The Mormons you are referring to were not remotely as vigorously persecuted as the disciples
But you still have not answered WHY the Romans adopted the Christian religion of a “crucified Criminal” even after 313 years.
The fact that you cannot/will not answer these questions properly /honestly speaks volumes about your inability to do so or alternatively, you are in denial.
Rome took on Christianity as their official religion. Our society is based on Roman tradition even down to our roads. As you point out, days of the week, months, all have their names rooted in the names of pagan gods. Does the day Tuesday having its roots in the God of war mean that the pagan god Mars must exist? Of course not. just like the dates for Christmas and Easter are based on ancient pagan holidays. There’s no mystery here.
You believe in someone coming back from the dead and you accuse us of dishonesty?
Heeheeheeheehee! Good one, Etienne.
Dear Astreja
1)There was an empty grave
2) There were Roman guards to prevent the body to be removed.
3) If for some reason somebody managed to move His body without the guards noticing/approval, the pharisees would have left no stone unturned to find his body which would easily have been identified via amongst other things,the nail marks through his hands/wrists and feet if it was “dumped”anywhere. Tracking the transportation of his body would have been relatively easy.
4)He appeared, apart from his disciples to more than 500 witnesses after his death.
5) No ancient literature to the contrary anywhere.
Good enough reasons for me to believe !!!!!!!
1) Bible stories are not proof
2) romans crucified many people. Evidence of crucifixtion only shows you had yet another Roman execution.
3) lack of ancient literature to the contrary is not proof of fact
But, maybe your game is to use bad logic to prove gods exist
Etienne,
Look, no one is objecting to you “believing” whatever it is you want to believe. You, however, are trying to argue for your beliefs using the Bible, saying it is historically and scientifically infallible. Your bald assertions have been repeatedly discredited. Yet, as you do in this comment, you continue quoting the Bible. It should be clear to you by now that I, along with many of the readers of this blog, reject your claims. Unlike you, we’ve actually read books (along with the Bible) on this subject. Please stop repeating the same Biblical nonsense over and over and over again. If you have verifiable non-Biblical evidence for your claims, please provide it. If not, this discussion is over.
Again, I encourage you to read several of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. If you are a sincere seeker of truth, surely you would want to know what Ehrman, a renowned NT scholar, has to say. Surely your faith will withstand reading a couple of books, right? I will even buy you one of his books and have it sent to you.
I hope I have made myself clear.
Bruce
1) There was a story about an empty grave.
2) There was a story about Roman guards being posted at the tomb, something vanishingly unlikely — Why would the Romans bother to guard a tomb?
3) A bunch of silly what-if scenarios. Why would the Pharisees go looking for a body?
4) There was a story about Jesus appearing to 500 {unnamed} witnesses.
5) There is also no ancient literature to contradict the possibility that I am an actual Goddess with the power to slip into your dreams and cause you to commit the Unforgivable Sin in your sleep.
Likewise, if I assert that there’s a six-foot-long teal dragon named Glori sitting beside My desk, dressed like Humphrey Bogart and snacking on donuts while he watches Casablanca for the 5,017th time, there is no ancient literature to the contrary.
Seriously, Etienne, you’re in thrall to a very, very silly story and your reasons to believe are very weak indeed. I say again: Grow up, and stop assuming that every story you hear is true.
Entienne, debating a question then claiming that someone “cannot/will not answer these questions properly /honestly” is nothing less than willful ignorance. You, like many other Christians, claim to have the only truth, and cannot entertain any answer that you or your church or you book deem improper. The fact that you call all answer here improper says a lot about you and your openness.
You would do well to read those resources you so glibly reject. Most people here are very well informed, very well read, have a strong knowledge of the bible and Christianity, they have arrived at their viewpoint through careful analysis of all information, unlike you who ignores information you deem improper. Maybe you are afraid that reading other non Christian material will cause you to lose faith? I know this is a common Christian fear. After all, it’s better to remain ignorant and avoid any chance of pissing off god. You wouldn’t want to risk that Pascal Wager, just in case..
I will also point out that trying to prove god exists is a pointless endeavor you will never achieve,The entire New Testament makes it clear that faith is required. Even as an 8 year old I wondered why people worked so hard to prove god exists when the Bible clearly says that faith is required to believe, and there is no hard proof. Why would faith be needed if god could be proven? Now I understand that many people desperately try to prove gods existence because they have their own doubts and feel faith is not enough.
But I will answer your questions, at the risk of being called dishonest and with the understanding that you really don’t want my factual answers, you just want fix the heathens on this blog.
Calendars:
the name of days and months are based on the Julian calendar – a roman invention before Jesus time. Since the names of days are based on gods, this was carried on through other languages. English days are based on Germanic/Norse gods. Chinese names are based on Chinese gods. I believe that is called language translation.
The years were redefined in the 6th century by some monk whose name I do not recall. This is why we had BC/AD. It was created and propagated under the domineering influence of the Catholic church.
The Julian calendar (another Roman invention) is the basis of today’s calendar, which was tweaked in the 16th century by Pope Gregory to improve accuracy. This Gregorian calendar was adopted worldwide over the next several centuries, largely due to WESTERN influence in the colonial expansion period of European powers, as Kris pointed out.
Persecution:
not a lot of evidence of Jews persecuting Christians. In fact the disciples and leadership of the early church were based in Jerusalem until Paul wrested control from the disciples. It hardly seems likely the disciples would stay there if they were persecuted. However, there is ample evidence of Romans persecuting Christians, both in the bible and in historical resources. Did you research this at all?
For the record, Christians have heavily persecuted Jews, and still do. Many historical facts attest to this and Christian hatred of Jews is well known and well documented. Stories of Jewish persecution (or dominance) of Christians is often just typical anti-Semitic trope.
Mormons:
You obviously have zero knowledge of Mormonism. I suspect Mormons would vehemently disagree with your assertion they they were not vigorously persecuted. I am no expert on this faith, but I know enough to know you are completely wrong. Google is your friend. Or learn from an actual Mormon.
Rome adopting Christianity:
In its most simplistic form, this was a marriage of convenience, Constantine needed many people to him without question, and Christianity had many fully committed followers. The Pope needed a benefactor to strengthen and protect the church, and improve the power and influence of the Pope..I mean the church. This union achieved goals for all involved. Admittedly it did lead to a lot of power struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, but it did give Christianity the support it needed to grow. You might want to spend some time studying the politics of the early Roman Catholic Church.
Again the pathetic thing is Etienne thinks he is some sort of intellectual much less brilliant apologists.
He seemingly thinks it is somehow profound that Western Culture uses a calendar system that revolves around Christianity ( but it doesn’t) and other Institutions. Next Etienne will be amazed much of India uses conventions which revolve around Hinduism. I am sure it floors him to no end that the Islamic World uses a system that revolves around Islam.
Let’s look at the days:
Monday-Roman Day of the Moon
Tuesday- named for the Norse God Tyre
Wednesday- Norse Woden’s Day
Thursday- Norse Thor’s Day
Friday- Germanic Day of Frigg
Saturday- Roman Saturn’s day
Sunday- Hellenistic Day of the Sun
Not a single day in the calendar has anything to do with Christianity. And no we do not use Babylonian names for our days and even if we did what would that prove for Etienne as that would not be Christian convention.
The Months of the Calendar are Roman in Origin. We used a 365 Day Solar calendar because of Julius Caesar.
None of this has anything whatsoever to do with Christianity. It comes from the Romans, Norse and Germanic civilizations.
And again so what, why not use these conventions as they work quite fine.
Seeing Jesus was crucified and this was a Roman Punishment we know it was the Roman’s who executed him, specifically for being an insurgent ( proclaiming the coming Kingdom of God and causing an issue in the Temple was not good for his health). Again your ignorance of these things is appalling for someone who fancies himself some sort of apologist.
Be that as it may though my point remains; the same forces that persecuted and crucified Jesus did not do that to the Apostles so it seems they hardly viewed them as a big deal. Why should they consider them a big deal? Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob, and Mormons were driven out of communities again and again until they settled in Utah. And again this has what to do with what? The point remains though that neither the Romans or the Jews executed the Apostles for decades while they were proselytizing despite the fact they could have. The only reasonable explanation for this is they did not consider the Apostles to be a big deal.
The Romans slowly became Christian basically because of demographic changes that happened over centuries. You can read more about this in books written by Ehrman and Stark. Why is Modern Europe slowly becoming indifferent to religion or Islamic? Again changing demographics.
Seriously this is among the weakest arguments I have ever seen for Christianity yet Etienne thinks he is brilliant.
Oh well ignorance is bliss and not a crime. Etienne should be thankful for both
Dear Kris
It is the years in the date that i am referring to which has every bit to do with Christianity as this reflects on the year Jesus was born although actual calculations shows that he was born 4 years prior to year zero.
The doctrines of the apostles were more of a threat to the Jews who were the ones doing the persecution and from who’s priests Paul aquired authorization to persecute the apostles before his own conversion.
So the Romans slowly became Christians due to demographic changes (just stop for a minute and think about this logically) It’s like saying to your family, we are moving from Colorado to Arizona,let us change our religion because the”Criminal” Pontius crucified,and who’s bones are rotting somewhere in a mass grave ,is the one to worship ” . You cannot really believe that??????
You seem like quite an intellectual individual and if i offended you in any way due to what seems like callousness, i humbly apologise.
Have a nice day
I think people get more exasperated than offended by posts like yours Etienne. Because they get a lot of them on here (although until recently I’d noticed a little less that there used to be), and they regularly proport to contain ACTUAL EVIDENCE that the biblical story of Christ is true. But then, through the back-&-forth of e-mails that follows, it always – and I mean ALWAYS – comes down to the same thing. The Christian apologist does NOT in fact have any proof of the biblical Christian story of any kind of standard that would bear cross-examination in a modern-day court of law. What they (and you) DO have though – as you said yourself in one of your early e-mails above – is FAITH.
And I’m afraid that arguments based on faith are going to convince the square root of no one at all on this particular blog.
Come on Etienne, have a little rational objectivity and have a great day.
I have heard arguments like Eitenne’s. A common one is that the earth is just the right distance from the sun and the moon to support life and this proves God. It doesn’t, it just means the conditions were right for life to begin.
Just because I get off a train doesn’t mean I came from the town it began its journey. There are plenty of stations along the way.
Dear Bruce
You and other commentators on a number of occasions discredit The gospels and Biblical text sighting lack of eye witnesses yet you insist on the factuality of the books of modern day scholars who can hardly be discribed as eye witnesses 2000 years later.Sounds like a case for bias to me!!
In NONE of the answers presented did anybody quote any scriptures other than modern day scholars books, who thumb sucked conclusions due to limited information available.
One of my questions that remains unanswered is of all the religions…….. Why would the Romans adopt the one based on the person they crucified as criminal and who’s bones have long decomposed in a mass grave?
But i get the point I will stop asking ny more questions which makes your commentators and yourself uncomfortable .
For purpose of conversation let us assume you are wright and i am wrong, then according to you when we die we will both become dust and that is the end of that BUT………….. what happens to you on the “remote” chance of me being wright?Bear in mind that your life on earth is just a dot on the infinity line.
I WILL READ ANY RESPONSES BUT NOT REPLY EVEN IF I DISAGREE.
Once again i apologise to everybody that i offended
May you and all the commentators have a great day
Pascal’s Wager is an awful argument. I won’t educate you on why this is so. Look it up, and hopefully you will never use it again.
Etienne, I don’t know that you’ve offended by your beliefs. But you keep telling us to rely on claims from the Bible, which can only be done on faith. We, on the other hand, want cold hard proof. And I’m not an atheist. I don’t worship YOUR god because (most) Christians are fine with the majority of humans being tortured forever in hell. No matter how heinous any human has been, there is nothing that merits endless torture forever. A loving god would fix flawed humans, not torture them.
Etienne, I am strongly of the opinion that the likelihood of you being right about an afterlife is infinitesimally small and therefore simply not worth worrying about.
I’m genuinely not offended by anything you say. Just bored.
It’s been an awful lot of words for –
Etienne: I have faith, so evidence is ultimately not that important here.
Bruce and the rest of the commenters on here: We don’t have faith, so evidence that would stand up in a modern secular court is going to be required if any of us are going to consider changing our minds here.
So what’s the point in persisting with it all?