It's fun when eChristians commit the sin of bearing false witness when they claim there's evidence for Jesus outside the Bible, that they mysteriously never post.

>>18581991
hey now that's not true, sometimes they post documents that have been known for centuries to be forgeries

Jesus IS historical evidence.

>>18581971
If Jesus is fictional why does he anger you so much opposed to other fictional characters?

>>18582043
Quiet stupid atheist
The criterion of Embarrassment is incredibly strong proof that Jesus existed

>>18582122
He angers me no more than Shiva or Mary Poppins. Now what?

>>18582129
>not posting evidence

>>18582129
>All of the gospels are dated to have been written around 80-90 AD. But according to Christian tradition, the apostles who are said to have written them died before this time.
>Half of Paul's letters are 2nd century forgeries.
>Josephus' mention of Jesus was edited by later Christian scribes (would Josephus, a literal Pharisee btw, really call Jesus the messiah? At best you can argue he wrote a more neutral and brief mention of Jesus which later Christian scribes edited to affirm Jesus as the messiah).
>King Abgar V's letter is universally considered by scholars a forgery. Even the church admitted it was an apocryphal work centuries ago.

>>18582180
That's weird where are your outrage posts over them and what is it they believe compared the Christ? A good scientist would know the details of what he is trying to measure

>>18581971
Some beliefs cause good, some cause none, and you don't need proof to believe in what will give your people eternal life and dominion over the earth.

>>18581971
If you read the gospels, it's obvious that they are total fiction.

>>18582208
When are Mary Poppins fans posting 100 threads a day about how I'm going to be tortured forever if I don't chimcimineycimcimineychimchimcharee?

>>18582224
This

>>18582225
Penal substitutionary atonement is as fictional as Mary Poppins
The entire Protestant project is an act of heresy in response to the Catholic acts of heresy before it
Christ has only one goal; for you to not be consumed by the disease of death

>>18582284
Is the idea that God is omnipotent also a heresy? Because if he is, it would be unecessary to have a religion, a Bible and a Church to spread it etc. God could just save everyone from death by willing it. It seems like God has to work around some hard rules even he cannot break to get people saved.

>>18582303
Your purpose for which you were made is not to sit blissed out of your gourd for all of eternity doing nothing; you are made in His image to inherit His legacy and are being trained to do so

>>18582284
>Why aren't you angry at followers of Mary Poppins
>This is why.
>NUHHUH YOURE WRONG AND EVIL EVIL EVIL!!!
You gonna post evidence Jesus existed (impossible mode: no lying) or what?

>>18582333
No you are a bad faith actor because I never accused you of evil, so trying to have a rational discussion about Christ would not be possible as no evidence would be acceptable to you as displayed by your biased characterization of our simple interaction

>>18582340
>has no evidence
Got it.

>>18581971
The Clark Kent analogy fails because it assumes the miraculous and the historical are separable in the sources. They are not. The same texts that report the Resurrection report the crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, the baptism by John, the execution of James. You do not get to keep the mundane details as historical and discard the miraculous as fictional without a reason. The reason you have is not historical. It is philosophical.
The criterion of embarrassment is a standard historical tool, not a Christian invention. The crucifixion was a shameful death. The first witnesses to the empty tomb were women, whose testimony was inadmissible in Jewish courts. The disciples are portrayed as cowards and doubters. No one invents a founding story that makes its founders look bad and its central figure die like a criminal.
Josephus mentions Jesus twice. The Testimonium has interpolations but the core reference to Jesus, called the Christ, executed under Pilate, is accepted by most scholars including atheists like Bart Ehrman. The second reference to James, brother of Jesus called the Christ, is undisputed. Tacitus mentions the crucifixion under Pilate in Annals 15.44.
Pauls letters are dated 50-60 AD, within 20 years of the crucifixion. The creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is dated to within 5 years of the event. That is a claim made while the people who could have refuted it were still alive.
The Old Testament is a library written over a thousand years. The Tel Dan Stele references the House of David. The Mesha Stele references Omri. The Cyrus Cylinder references the policy of return in Ezra. These are proofs the kingdoms existed and the texts are rooted in history.
You are not doing history. You are doing philosophy with a historical vocabulary. The evidence is there. You just do not like what it points to.

>>18582360
>The criterion of embarrassment is a standard historical tool, not a Christian invention. The crucifixion was a shameful death. The first witnesses to the empty tomb were women, whose testimony was inadmissible in Jewish courts. The disciples are portrayed as cowards and doubters. No one invents a founding story that makes its founders look bad and its central figure die like a criminal.
Literally none of this bolsters the historicity, it only further shows they were lying because they were using embarrassing stories.
When a person wants to get away with a lie, they make the lie embarrassing and thus easier to believe.

>>18582346
The evidence is the rotting feeling in the center of your sternum that gets worse each day

>>18582372
>the evidence is [made up headcanon]
So no evidence.

>>18582374
I reject your empiricism and regard you as a clown with no concerns of importance
Enjoy your empty skepticism

>>18581971
>no one named clark kent ever existed
>no one named jesus ever existed

>>18581971
I never get why people obsess over Jesus not being real. I feel like a deranged apocalyptic cult leader with a continuous following after his death that greatly overexaggerated his feats isn't unrealistic at all. I see no reason to doubt his existence, only his miracles.

>>18583553
The problem with that is that there is no contemporary source for Jesus which just talks about him as if he was just some ordinary preacher guy. The earliest source for Jesus, which is the Paul letters, never talk about Jesus being a preacher or earthly leader; he is instead treated as a celestial angel who will fulfil old testament prophecies. When you look at the gospels which do give the "biographical" details of Jesus, they contradict each other a lot, but you can see that they follow common mythical hero archetypes (born of a virgin, no childhood details, is called the son of god, etc. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank%E2%80%93Raglan_hero_archetype). Given this, it's more natural to consider that Jesus is completely mythical.

We have more evidence for Jesus (from non-biblical, Jewish, and pagan sources) than we do for Julius Caesar.

sage and hide

>>18583616
>We have more evidence for Jesus (from non-biblical, Jewish, and pagan sources) than we do for Julius Caesar.
List them, this is common vomited sentence yet no one actually bothers to back it up.

>bro prove with archeological evidence the existence of an impoverished nomad that had no worldly power, never wrote anything, and all he did was talk
???????

>>18583598
Sincere question since I am not a mythicist, how do you account for Paul's letters? Obviously he didn't meet the guy but his letters do give us an idea of what sorts of ideas the early church had about him. Obviously Paul didn't make the character up out of whole cloth, he must have existed(the character, not necessarily the man) prior to his letters for Paul to have heard about him. Things like his crucifixion were already established by the time Paul is writing.
I am willing to believe Jesus was mostly mythical, but it seems to me there not being a real guy, or guys, that the Jesus character is partially based off of would create more problems than it would solve.

>>18582204
>>Josephus' mention of Jesus was edited by later Christian scribes (would Josephus, a literal Pharisee btw, really call Jesus the messiah? At best you can argue he wrote a more neutral and brief mention of Jesus which later Christian scribes edited to affirm Jesus as the messiah).
There are many problems with Josephus, for one there is a millenia between his oldest manuscripts and the events it describes, he is a likely a wholly or partially invented figure.
I find it odd that you jews keep claiming that only a portion of his works was fake.

>>18583598
>The problem with that is that there is no contemporary source for Jesus which just talks about him as if he was just some ordinary preacher guy

Why would there be a contemporary source if he was just a preacher? Few rabbis from that period are known by name to us, let alone known in detail by contemporary records. Only the most influential rabbis such as Hillel the Elder are recorded.

>The earliest source for Jesus, which is the Paul letters, never talk about Jesus being a preacher or earthly leader; he is instead treated as a celestial angel who will fulfil old testament prophecies.

Yes, the exaggerations of his feats I referred to.

>When you look at the gospels which do give the "biographical" details of Jesus, they contradict each other a lot

They were written 30-70 years after he died. Not unusual for details to be mixed up if records weren't kept of his life while he was alive. We have conflicting accounts and holes on the life of Muhammad despite there being more solid evidence that he existed, along with extreme exaggerations of him performing miracles such as splitting the moon and ascending into heaven while living. None of this is unusual with pre-modern religious figures, it's all very common in fact. You'll find the same with Lao Tzu, Buddha, Kukai, Nichiren, etc. This even applies to secular figures that we do know for a fact existed such as Alexander The Great, Vespasian, Genghis Khan, Pythagoras etc.

>Given this, it's more natural to consider that Jesus is completely mythical.

Natural to consider, yes. More natural to consider, no. It's just as likely that he was a small scale cult leader whose followers intentionally exaggerated his story to spread his message. We have no way of knowing for sure either way.

>>18583553
Not OP, but in my case it's a conclusion from reading the new testament in closer to the estimated chronological order, with lots of the epistles (Paul's letters except the pastorals, Hebrews, 1 Peter) before Mark, and then Mark before any of the other gospels. It makes it easier to get a sense for the possibility that Mark has actually built his gospel in large part as a sort of allegory for the ideas in the epistles, and that he's even winking and nudging at you about the overwhelmingly symbolic nature of his story in several places.

He provides the principle for allegorical interpretation in Mark 4 with the parables, and then in Mark 8:17-21 he seems to heavily imply that the miraculous feedings, though superficially presented as real events, actually have undisclosed symbolic meanings. This is immediately followed by the miraculous two-part healing of a blind man, a miracle that could, if you've already been put on the track of thinking in this manner, even be read as an allegory for allegories.

And beyond that there are elements that seem plain silly unless interpreted as wholly symbolic, like the cursing of the fig tree when figs weren't in season (wrapped around the cleansing of the temple), a story that the author of Luke is comfortable replacing entirely with a matching parable. Or maybe the mention of the naked young man fleeing gethsemane, which seems really random to throw out with no elaboration if you think Mark is writing history, but which works perfectly well within the symbolic language of the epistles associating death with the baptism ritual as well as with putting off one set of clothes so you can putting on another, especially when you pair the unclothed young man in gethsemane with the young man wearing a fancy white robe at Jesus' tomb.

>>18583724
Or, for one example of specific story in Mark corresponding to a whole passage in the epistles rather than isolated ideas, I would suggest that the incident of the disciples struggling to keep awake in Gethsemane on the night of Jesus' betrayal is intended as a representation of what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, advising his readers to metaphorically stay awake because the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

>>18583646
Paul himself says where him and the other apostles are getting "knowledge" of the celestial angel Jesus from - visions and revelations and scripture. He even specifically denies that he knows about this through human teachings.

If you look at the book of Hebrews, you can get an idea of how the Jesus myth was being created through reinterpreting the Old Testament. This was not even very unusual since there was a messianic craze back then, where many Jews expected the messiah would soon arrive for real this time and give the Jews their kingdom back once and for all, as God promised in the Old Testament several times.

For example, Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9 talk about a savior who will suffer and die (Isaiah 53.5 even says "pierced through for our transgressions") and then be rewarded by God for it. These are of course failed prophecies but they were reinterpreted to become part of the standard messianic lore. Daniel 9 even gives a timetable for when this messiah will die which some were reinterpreting to be around the year 30AD. So, all the parts of the Jesus myth were already in place by that time.

>>18583674
>Why would there be a contemporary source if he was just a preacher?
If there's no real source for him being a preacher, there's no reason to assume that he was.
>Yes, the exaggerations of his feats I referred to.
Note that unlike the gospels, Paul is not exaggerating events in Jesus' earthly life as a preacher (he never talks about Jesus that way). He is talking about what the celestial angel Jesus was like before he came to Earth and what it will be like when he comes again.
>. Not unusual for details to be mixed up if records weren't kept of his life while he was alive.
That there are contradictions is not the point I'm making. The point is that the similarity of the gospel Jesus to the common mythical hero archetypes. In other words, the gospel writers are making up the biography of Jesus using these common mythical tropes.

>>18583650
We literally have records from church fathers mentioning him. Acknowledging a specific Jew existed does not make me Jewish you goddamn retard.

>>18583650
Josephus is literally viewed as a race traitor by Jews due to his pro-Roman stance, what are you babbling about?

>>18583743
Paul does also claim to have met and spoken to Jesus' brother though. I suppose it is possible one or both of them did not mean "brother" in a familial sense(the same word is used in 1 Corinthians 15:6 where Paul is obviously not claiming Jesus had 500 actual siblings). Would you posit then that when Mark refers to James as Jesus' brother, that its author is taking from Paul's letter and giving Jesus a brother he didn't actually have?

>Jesus was a small cult leader
Ok can you provide another example of a small cult leader that inspired billions by not being real?
If he was fake, then he could only tell them things they already knew; only a real being could deliver new revelations to a people stuck in cultural stagnation.
You cannot derive new information from a vacuum; a new philosophy had to be introduced from a source.
If Jesus was not the Christ, what was the source of his information? No vague skepticism: I want the exact source of Christ's philosophy

>>18583758
>Would you posit then that when Mark refers to James as Jesus' brother, that its author is taking from Paul's letter and giving Jesus a brother he didn't actually have?
I doubt it. He refers to multiple brothers - James, Judas, Simon, Joses. He's probably just making up family members of Jesus who have no importance in the story other than to say that the earthly family of Jesus wasn't very important to him.

>>18583760
>If he was fake, then he could only tell them things they already knew; only a real being could deliver new revelations to a people stuck in cultural stagnation.
You could make this same argument about Muhammad.
>No vague skepticism: I want the exact source of Christ's philosophy
Second Temple period Judaism.

>>18583760
>>18583767
If you know that James is just an odd English version of the name Jacob, and Joses is a nickname for Joseph, then the collection of names might be interpreted as symbolically representing Israel (specifically Paul's "Israel according to the flesh," which isn't perfectly aligned with the true spiritual Israel), via the patriarch also named Israel (Jacob) and three of his significant children (Judah, Simeon, Joseph) who fathered three of the twelve tribes. How likely it is for that connection to be intended vs parallelomania depends on how common the names were though, and since there are additional people with each of those names even in Mark alone, it's admittedly a stretch.

>>18583771
>Second Temple period Judaism.
Yes, the large tradition in which the book of Isaiah foretold the Christ and was fulfilled through the life and death of Jesus
What was not foretold was the Messiah being God himself and so it was the Pharisees themselves that killed him for heresy
If the entire story was made up, who wrote it? Because it sure wasn't the scribes of the second temple

>>18583790
>What was not foretold was the Messiah being God himself
Jesus didn't actually claim this

>>18583783
>the collection of names might be interpreted as symbolically representing Israel (specifically Paul's "Israel according to the flesh," which isn't perfectly aligned with the true spiritual Israel), via the patriarch also named Israel (Jacob) and three of his significant children (Judah, Simeon, Joseph) who fathered three of the twelve tribes.
Good catch

>>18583743
>If there's no real source for him being a preacher, there's no reason to assume that he was.

The earliest letter of Paul that we have is from around 20–30 years after the death of Jesus, where he is writing to a community of Christians in Greece. The fact that Jesus had a following that had already grown shortly after his death points to him having been a preacher or teacher in his lifetime.

And if he wasn't, then it just raises more questions than if he was, because then what exactly was he? Where did the early churches and Paul get the message they were spreading if not from Jesus himself? Why would they be centered around a man who had never taught or gathered followers? Occam's razor points toward Jesus having just been some kind of maverick religious leader that gained a following that deified him (be it in his lifetime or after his death), and for him to have been a religious leader, he most certainly would have been a preacher and teacher of his beliefs.

>The point is that the similarity of the gospel Jesus to the common mythical hero archetypes. In other words, the gospel writers are making up the biography of Jesus using these common mythical tropes.

I have said several times now that his followers certainly exaggerated his life and feats, because of course if they didn't, then he was either truly the son of God or a real life sorcerer. Perhaps they were following the classic myths in their embellishments. The point remains that it is still very likely that there was a preacher named Jesus who spread his religious ideals and whose followers exaggerated his life and feats in order to deify him. The likelihood that he never existed is no greater than if he did, but it certainly does raise more complexities regarding the emergence of the faith around him than if he did. One way or the other, it is mere speculation. I simply prefer the view that seems the most reasonable, that he was a real preacher who was just deify at some point.

>>18583767
That Mark might make up family members wouldn't surprise me(Matthew and Luke both make up entire genealogies which aren't mentioned anywhere else and which potentially contradict each other). I just don't know then what Paul is talking about in Galatians 1:19

>>18583813
NTA, but one thing that can be safely said is that, from Paul's understanding, ordinary Christians could be rightly called "brothers of the Lord." See, for example, Romans 8:15-16;29. And very often when Paul means to refer to blood relations, he uses the phrase "according to flesh" as already mentioned here >>18583783 But, in the case of "James, the brother of the Lord," he noticeably refrains from doing that. So it naturally invites an interpretation where what he means is that James is an ordinary Christian as opposed to an apostle.

The only obstacles to that interpretation are that the exact phrase is uncommon in Paul, and the only other occurrence of it refers to a group in 1 Corinthians 9, where it may or may not be an obstacle depending on whether you read Paul as saying that the brothers of the Lord have the privilege of refraining from working for a living (which seems like it shouldn't apply to all Christians) or only that they have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, which should of course be available to anyone. But even if you read it saying the brothers of the Lord also have the privilege of not working for a living, you can still save the idea of it meaning ordinary Christians just by supposing that in this case it's implied to be a specific group of ordinary Christians who accompanied the apostles in their traveling evangelism efforts, not all Christians everywhere.

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>>18583792
any more copes Muhammet?

>>18583859
One reason Paul might've given the full title "brother of the Lord" in James' case instead of keeping it to his usual "brother" by itself to refer to fellow Christians is that he didn't want to be mistaken for claiming to have spoken with a literal brother of Peter.

>>18583804
>Why would they be centered around a man who had never taught or gathered followers?
Which Paul never mentions for some reason. Surely if there was a preacher called Jesus, Paul would reference some of his well-known quotes at some point, right?
>then it just raises more questions than if he was, because then what exactly was he?
For Paul, he was a celestial being known through revelations and scripture. He says as much and says that others knew of him that way too.
>Where did the early churches and Paul get the message they were spreading if not from Jesus himself?
Definitely not from any preacher called Jesus. They are constructing it from reinterpreting prophecies in the Old Testament like Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, Psalm 22 (from which Jesus' last words on the cross are taken verbatim). This is not even controversial even if you believe Jesus existed. Even if you look at the gospels, Jesus isn't preaching Christian theology. He's just going around doing miracles and speaking in parables which his twelve disciples (and everyone else) are portrayed as being too stupid and/or NPC to understand.
>Why would they be centered around a man who had never taught or gathered followers?
That's not really that much of an uncommon phenomenon.

Socrates didn’t exist either.

>>18583924
Plato and Xenophon and Aristophanes were all very clever in avoiding the temptation to fill Socrates' life to the brim with miracles that might raise our suspicions about his nonexistence. A real (not real) Sherlock Holmes of the ancient world.

>>18583938
That is why the Gospels are believable, because they do not attempt to deceive but prevent a mess of miracles and mysteries alongside conflicting witnesses
Either the author was an extreme genius who was able to simulate the perspectives of a dozen different people, having them converge and conflict, or they are genuine flawed testimonies from real people

>>18583898
>Which Paul never mentions for some reason. Surely if there was a preacher called Jesus, Paul would reference some of his well-known quotes

No. For starters, we have no evidence that the writings of Paul within the Bible are complete. Paul specifically mentions letters sent that do not appear within the Bible and we also lack the letters sent to Paul as well, with the full context behind why he specifically wrote what he did to those churches being a mystery. Whether he ever intended to write a biography or complete summary on Jesus is unknown but highly unlikely and unsupported by any evidence. Implying that because Paul did not write about Jesus in full detail, that he must not have believed in anything beyond what he did write, or better yet, what we still have of his writings, is just a textbook argument from silence.

Second, Paul specifically refers to Jesus as a man many times. He mentions how Jesus is descended from David, the betrayal at the last supper, his crucifiction, his death, and his resurrection. All revealing that Paul did in fact believe that Jesus was a man who walked this Earth, died, and rose again, along with Jesus also being the son of God.

>Definitely not from any preacher called Jesus

You have no evidence to back this as any firm conclusion. And no, argument from silence and hasty generalization are not evidence. Once again, we simply do not know if he did exist or not.

>They are constructing it from reinterpreting prophecies in the Old Testament

Whether they are quoting for embellishment, completely making it up based on these passages, or sincerely quoting Jesus who himself had quoted these passages, is completely unknown and there is no evidence for any of these conclusions.

Your absolutist position on Jesus never having existed is just based solely on speculation which you irrationally elevate to fact

>>18583963
>Jesus is descended from David
The descendant of David (or seed of David) is a reference to 2 Samuel 7 where it originally referred to God making Solomon from the sperm taken from David's bowels and establishing him and his descendants as the rulers of Israel forever. Obviously, that didn't happen because Israel lost its kingdom, so it was reinterpreted as being about a future messiah who will rule forever (Jesus).

> the betrayal at the last supper
Paul doesn't mention a "last supper" in 1 Corinthians 11. In 11.23, he uses the word παρεδίδετο, which is sometimes translated as betrayal, but it also means surrendered to or given up or delivered to. He uses a conjugate of the same word (παρέδωκεν) in Romans 8.32 to say that God gave Jesus up for "all of us" and also in other places. See for various uses of the word: https://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_3860.htm

Paul also clearly says at the beginning of the same verse (1 Corinthians 11.23) that he received this knowledge from the Lord (from visions of the celestial Jesus), he doesn't mention that it happened in an actual meal among any disciples.

>what we still have of his writings, is just a textbook argument from silence.
Not really, it's just very improbable for Paul to never quote any well-known sayings of this alleged preacher to settle any theological issue. He doesn't need to write a biography of the guy in order to quote him. Under the mythicist view that knowledge of Jesus comes only from the scriptures, revelations and visions, this is completely natural.

>>18583963
>>18584219
>his crucifiction, his death, and his resurrection.
>Paul did in fact believe that Jesus was a man who [...], died, and rose again, along with Jesus also being the son of God.
You don't understand the mythicist view (as explained by Richard Carrier and others). The death (by getting pierced) and resurrection are all part of the reinterpreted Old Testament prophecies mentioned earlier. Of course even in the mythicist view the early Christians like Peter (who probably is the official founder of the Jesus cult) and Paul believed these things happened, but they didn't need it to have happened on the surface of the Earth. It's enough if it occurred anywhere in the realm ruled by Satan. This includes the Earth but also the lower heavens (such as the parts of space below the Moon).

The point of the myth is for Jesus (the High Priest of God) to descend from the upper heavens in a flesh body prepared from the sperm of David so that he could trick Satan and his coworkers into killing him. It is explicitly explained in Hebrews 9 that when the flesh body wearing Jesus dies, that activates a new, permanent, powerful, blood magic ritual covenant been God and his followers which replaces the old annual blood magic rituals which just used goat blood and was thus much weaker than the new one.

All of this also occurs in standard Christianity, but they're just placed as events on the surface of the earth, which doesn't really add anything substantive to the core theological story.

>>18581971
op is a goat fucking mooooslime
>kek

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>>18581971
>>18581991
>that they mysteriously never post
>>18582122
>If Jesus is fictional why does he anger you so much opposed to other fictional characters?
Jesus angers people because of how obvious he becomes once you look into his real parentage.
Jesus is like your father dressed up as Santa Claus.
Retards will say santa doesn't exist.
Biblethumpers will say the fathers disappearance is irrelevant to the legitimacy of santa.
"Grownups" will say that daddy simply dressed up as santa.
Pedantics will say that daddy dressed up as Saint Nicholas.
Traditionalists will say daddy recreated the hospitality tradition of old winter customs.
Everyone made a fool of themselves by partaking in stupid arguments instead of teaching the next generation or adding fun to the lesson.
Jesus was controversial because he was safe and effective in a time and place when priesthoods like Pharisees buried people like Lazarus before they even had died,- because they had outlawed medicine and physician orders like the essenes for political reasons.

>>18582365
(((You))) are an expert on lies? Huh? Who could’ve guessed that?