Is 'Historical Jesus' Fictional As Well?

Of course, but that's why I have such a problem with Jesus being treated as a historical certainty. If there aren't any first-hand records or other physical evidence of his existence, then we shouldn't just assume he definitely existed.

I think I have to repeat that if you use standards of proof that high - a lot of other historical figures are going to have to be discounted too. So why focus specifically on Jesus? I don't see what's unlikely about a random guy named Yeshua being born in the region at the time. I bet that happened like every other day.
 
It is historically documented though that scholars have argued over the authenticity of the writings and the various manuscripts from within a hundred years after Jesus' death even from within the accepted canon itself. That humans have spent tens of thousands if not millions of hours arguing over something that did not happen, that which did not happen has kept a lot of humans busy over the years.
 
Let's not start using how long people have argued about something as any sort of indication whether the thing they're arguing about actually exists or not.

I mean, if that's how the universe operates, we're heading into very dangerous territory - do you have any idea what sort of stupid things people argue about on the internet? With more and more people connected to the internet, more and more stupid arguments about all sorts of stupid things are going to become more and more common, and in hundreds of years we're going to have to accept the existence of dragons and talking ponies. And that's not a world I want to live in.
 
...in hundreds of years we're going to have to accept the existence of dragons and talking ponies. And that's not a world I want to live in.
There's this crazy woman on YouTube who accepts it now. She "audits" museums and zoos and prattles on about how dinosaurs were really dragons, but Lucy and evolution are just fantasy because nobody took any video footage to document what happened 470 million years ago.
 
Oh, I missed this thread!

Well, I can tell you the real Gospel. All the proof you needed was in Mary Magdalene's diary, which became a huge best-seller back in the day. All her encounters with men and her earnings was there and the book was copied 1200 times. Of course there is a Jesus in that book, several actually and at least 3 came from the township of Nazareth. It is said to be written on papyrus with lots of drawings in it as well, which made it a great night-reading for men who could read and pay for it.

Unfortunately, the original was stowed away in the Library of Alexandria and it was burnt down at AD48 by the Romans, so we have to be very lucky to find another scroll/book with her writings.

Joke aside, it is things like this that happens when we lose information about the past. Someone claims 40.000 books where burnt in AD48, others claim that as many as 600.000 books and scrolls where destroyed. All that info gone in a blaze of fire, and it happened 3-4 times further down the timeline. So whatever the scribes and scholars tried to save from memory just faded away.

So this doesn't explain if Jesus was real or not, just showing that probable evidence of his or others has disappeared during the ages and that treasure of historic evidence can never be found again, with the exception to find another Red Sea-scroll cave...
 
Wasn't the Library of Alexandria less burned, and more fallen into disrepair?

Maybe at AD48 it wasn't burnt, but it was sacked at least 3-4 times up to AD400, not quite sure what sources to believe.
 
Let's not start using how long people have argued about something as any sort of indication whether the thing they're arguing about actually exists or not.

I mean, if that's how the universe operates, we're heading into very dangerous territory - do you have any idea what sort of stupid things people argue about on the internet? With more and more people connected to the internet, more and more stupid arguments about all sorts of stupid things are going to become more and more common, and in hundreds of years we're going to have to accept the existence of dragons and talking ponies. And that's not a world I want to live in.

They were arguing about dragons and talking ponies ages before Jesus lived on this earth, and neither have caught on as you fear they might, as compared to the fear of a belief in Jesus catching on.
 
Of course, but that's why I have such a problem with Jesus being treated as a historical certainty. If there aren't any first-hand records or other physical evidence of his existence, then we shouldn't just assume he definitely existed.

Why not? You must disregard the multiple first hand sources and extensive corroborative evidence to reach any other conclusion.

J
 
They were arguing about dragons and talking ponies ages before Jesus lived on this earth, and neither have caught on as you fear they might, as compared to the fear of a belief in Jesus catching on.

It's just not a good a gauge of how true a claim is or not. It doesn't work at all at being one.

But I mean, I agree that historical Jesus existed. I was just responding to you saying stuff about people arguing about "things that might or might not have happened" and using that as an indicator that since so many people are arguing about it and have been arguing about for a while, that we should be using that to mean that it's probably true. And that's just not very logical.
 
It's just not a good a gauge of how true a claim is or not. It doesn't work at all at being one.

But I mean, I agree that historical Jesus existed. I was just responding to you saying stuff about people arguing about "things that might or might not have happened" and using that as an indicator that since so many people are arguing about it and have been arguing about for a while, that we should be using that to mean that it's probably true. And that's just not very logical.

My point is logical in as much as we; even today, get inundated with stories and articles on actual events. We interact and give our own opinions on the matter. If it was something that was just made up, it would die off or perhaps return every now and then. We have thousands of manuscripts from within 100+ years and they multiplied every couple of hundred years after that, and yet will still have a central document that humans attest held true throughout it all. That fact cannot be denied, even if it cannot be explained. It does not seem that the story was embellished and grew over time. The biggest problem in settling on a canon was narrowing down what to put in it and what to leave out. There was no single manuscript that was copied and sent out in various and sometimes corrupted form that was retained for future use. It took decades to compile the cannon that would be considered "Scripture" and what would not, because there were so many different variants to choose from. Each group of converts would have had their own leader and their own version of the details, and probably not the whole, but only parts and bits depending on the availability of sources or the lack of them.

IMO, there was a falling out between Paul who wrote a major part, and Mark who was probably the one who felt the need to have a central accounting of the life of Jesus. Mark was not even considered an eye witness and yet he saw the need to write a book on the topic. Paul was content in conveying the meaning of Jesus' life, and not really the details that would be biographical and historically sound. Most of what was written was done from memory; though, 70 years after the facts, and the ability to refute them, but they were written about. The main point of what the Christ was about was conveyed in writing although tainted with the thousands of opinions as shown in the thousands of manuscripts that vary from each other in the details and not the point of contention. The whole point is that some need an actual selfie taken back then, when taking selfies was an unheard of concept. But there were only people writing down their thoughts and opinions which has always been in vogue. Actually the rulers of the day did take selfies and set themselves up to be worshipped. The message of the Christ was different in that all men were created equal and no one was any different than the rest, except this man Jesus.

Even if we have lost the actual selfies, if they ever existed, we still have the thousands of opinions. And even if those opinions are still wrong they are what was on the minds of those writing them. Up until recently with the advent of capturing video that is all we have had to build history on, and as noted by skeptics, all history may never have happened outside of the minds of those people who put such thoughts and opinions in written form. That is the only reason that some need concrete archeological proof.

There is an internal method on ruling out what is true and what is false, but it goes against the grain of the material method that is based on observable and irrefutable evidence. This internal method can also be "observed" internally between people even with the absence of an agreed upon external physical proof. If humans only get their confirmations in material ways, they may overlook the ability to do so internally. This is one of the differences between the way eastern methodology works and western thought process that developed from philosophical logic and the scientific method. I am sure that there are some who think the western way is the only way. However, they will only see the universe in a materialistic fashion.
 
If humans only get their confirmations in material ways, they may overlook the ability to do so internally. This is one of the differences between the way eastern methodology works and western thought process that developed from philosophical logic and the scientific method. I am sure that there are some who think the western way is the only way. However, they will only see the universe in a materialistic fashion.
Y'know, it really is inconvenient at times to have to depend on material evidence for proof as to what did or did not happen. For example, think of how many crimes the police could solve if they'd stop looking for material evidence and just pray for the answers.
 
There are some questions you can't solve by observations. The police may be tell you whether Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread by observation, but no amount of observation will allow them to say whether he should have stolen it.
 
There are some questions you can't solve by observations. The police may be tell you whether Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread by observation, but no amount of observation will allow them to say whether he should have stolen it.
Sorry, but I have never read the novel, nor seen the musical, or any other media presentation of the story you are referencing.

Are you seriously suggesting that law enforcement throw out the whole concept of collecting evidence and the police just have a prayer meeting to figure out what happened at crime scenes and who to arrest?
 
No, because they're not charged with asking questions of 'why' or 'ought', they're charged with asking 'what' happened. The jury, on the other hand, has to do more than simply consider the evidence. Two juries could be faced with precisely the same evidence and come to different conclusions about whether the accused was guilty - that is, whether the accused deserved to be punished - even if they both observed it perfectly.

The name was purely a stand-in, by the way, but the cut-and-thrust of the story in question is that Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread as a young man, and spent 19 years in prison for it, despite arguing that he only stole to save his family from starvation. No amount of observation can tell you if his argument should be accepted.
 
No, because they're not charged with asking questions of 'why' or 'ought', they're charged with asking 'what' happened.
Exactly. I don't ever recall reading any police reports that include a mention of "Officers prayed for an hour and came up with the identity of Person X, who they then arrested." I certainly don't remember Lennie Brisco praying while trying to catch murderers, or Jack McCoy praying while prosecuting the accused (Law & Order reference).
 
I don't think that's what Tim was saying, and it's certainly not what I'm saying. You will definitely get reports to the effect of 'officers collated an awful lot of evidence, sat down and had a think about it, made judgements as to which was reliable, which was unreliable, which leads were more and less important, and then arrested X, Y and Z, whom they interrogated, made a judgement as to how likely it was that each committed the crime, thought that X was sufficiently likely to be the culprit as to put him to trial, and charged him, whereupon a jury in court weighed up the arguments presented by his lawyer and that of the CPS, and concluded that it was likely, beyond reasonable doubt, that he was indeed guilty.'

With hindsight my point isn't particularly clear, so let me write it out again:

'officers collated an awful lot of evidence, made judgements as to which was reliable, which was unreliable, which leads were more and less important, and then arrested X, Y and Z, whom they interrogated, made a judgement as to how likely it was that each committed the crime, thought that X was sufficiently likely to be the culprit as to put him to trial, and charged him, whereupon a jury in court weighed up the arguments presented by his lawyer and that of the CPS, and concluded that it was likely, beyond reasonable doubt, that he was indeed guilty.'

The parts in bold are absolutely essential to getting the legal process to work, but they don't just depend on observable and irrefutable evidence. Relying solely on the latter only equips you to answer questions of mathematics.
 
If it was something that was just made up, it would die off or perhaps return every now and then. We have thousands of manuscripts from within 100+ years and they multiplied every couple of hundred years after that, and yet will still have a central document that humans attest held true throughout it all.

Yes, because historical Jesus most likely existed AND he ended up becoming the main prophet and even God of a major world religion - in fact the biggest one on the planet.

What you propose is a logical fallacy either way and it doesn't impact at all what we're discussing about historical Jesus either.
 
Yes, because historical Jesus most likely existed AND he ended up becoming the main prophet and even God of a major world religion - in fact the biggest one on the planet.

What you propose is a logical fallacy either way and it doesn't impact at all what we're discussing about historical Jesus either.

I do not believe that Jesus is a prophet, nor that Jesus ended up becoming the God of Christianity. I have to accept that Christianity is a religion, because some humans classify it as such. What I believe obviously does not square with what others have accepted as you so noted. Neither have I attempted to argue a point by pointing out what seems to have actually historically happened. If we remove all the physical evidence we do have, then the historical Jesus had a life, but not the life that humans wrote about throughout history.

The point I was attempting to make is not that an embellishment was or was not being made. My point was there is more than likely no physical evidence to prove that what was written was an embellishment, because it will never be found to rule on such a judgment. Even the Dead Sea scrolls were alleged to offer such a form of proof. That proof never materialized after thousands of hours of scholars attempting to do so.

It would seem to me that what was written was laid out as a physical witness. Neither do I have a problem if when writing down their thoughts some of those writers made extraordinary claims that some will only accept with physical evidence that is hard to convey via a written record. As pointed out by Valka D'Ur and Flying Pig, there is physical evidence and personal judgment, and they both are important and necessary in coming to the confirmation of the truth.
 
If we remove all the physical evidence we do have, then the historical Jesus had a life, but not the life that humans wrote about throughout history.

That's the difference between historical Jesus and Christian "son of God" Jesus, assuming that by "physical evidence" you mean "religious texts written about him".

Religious Jesus doesn't really figure into the discussion though, if we're talking about historical standards of existence and so on - the only thing that matters here is historical Jesus, and you're right - he might not have done most of the things written about him. And that's fine - he's historical Jesus, not religious Jesus.
 
Back
Top Bottom