All the historical evidence for Jesus in one room
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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This is just patently untrue.
Now whether Jesus was a divine being, sure that picture depicts the evidence of that. But we "know" that a man named Jesus certainly existed and was crucified.
Thank you. We know that Mohammed existed, yet I don't believe that an angel came to him with the words of the Quran, and I don't believe in islam. Most scholars agree that Jesus existed, so it feels counter productive to try to assert that he didn't exist. His existence is not a threat to my worldview, and besides, I follow the truth wherever it leads, not just where it's convenient.
Is something true because the majority says that it is true or because it is true?
I do as well and I am still waiting for the evidence that he wasn't a myth.
This is pseudo-skeptical nonsense. These scholars have done the research and digging into sources and have the evidence that Jesus, the man, existed in the time that the gospels Bible describes. Until you have evidence that either disproves his existence or disproves all the historical records, this is contrarian nonsense with no basis in how historical research is done.
Consensus does matter when it's a consensus of experts in a specific field. When I look at evolution, I follow the consensus of evolutionary biologists. When I look at the historicity of Jesus, I follow the consensus of historical scholars who study that era. I'm not an expert myself, so I have to trust someone else. I think that's true for everyone outside of their expertise.
Plus I would probably agree with you that if a "scholar" believes that Jesus did miracles, I wouldn't trust that scholar.
All I'm saying is that most likely, some guy named Joshua was baptised and crucified, and in between probably did some preaching that inspired a religion. Given that this is the consensus view by experts on the subject, the onus is on others to provide evidence that this isn't the case. But acknowledging that this is the case doesn't threaten my belief in materialism.
Can experts be wrong, yes or no?
We have evidence of evolution. Evidence that you can gain access to and verify for yourself. Frankly this is theist logic right here. The consensus of people who have studied the Bible is that Jesus was the literal son of god. Do you follow that consensus as well or only the ones that support your view?
You trust, I will verify. Which one of us is being a better skeptic here, the person who puts faith in others to tell them what happened or the person looking at the actual evidence?
I am a specialized worker and if you came to my work I can show you exactly the evidence that went into every single decision I made. There is no magic, nothing up my sleeve, no demands of trust. Just evidence.
But the ones that confirmed what you already believed you would trust and not verify? Do you know what expert shopping is?
What evidence did you use to make that determination?
Again. I am not interested in consensus, I am interested in what is true.
In that case every atheist should give up now because the consensus is that there is a god and it is up to us to disprove it, which we can't do. The burder of proof is always on the person making the claim how common the claim is does not remove that burden.
Alright? Does that make the claim true?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Simply because we lack proper primary sources concerning Jesus from during his lifetime does not mean that he never existed. Additionally, those who would care most about the existence of Jesus couldn't care less about historical proof; they've already accepted everything on faith. You are free to be technically correct (the best kind of correct), but it's a meaningless hill to die on.
Very well. You must believe in ghosts.
It also means that we can't assert that he did. We do have evidence however that he didn't exist. The accounts all differ and are convenient for those spreading it. So while I can't disprove him or ghosts I can point to the people making money off ghost hunting shows.
If you mean modern people: Just because other people have a low bar doesn't mean we have to.
If you mean people at the time: that is convenient. Suspiciously so.
I disagree.
Bro you should sue whatever educational institution you went to. They fucking duped you lmao
You are in a bad spot here.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
It doesn't even take that long to find credible sources to demonstrate that denying the historicity of Jesus is the fringe theory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
This is a meaningless hill to die on. You are simply wrong and you should move on to things that are actually valuable.
Edit: and the first comment even linked how you are wrong and you still want to fight this battle???
The problem with all of this "evidence" is that Christians don't want to officially recognize any of it because it proves Jesus or Joseph as he was probably called. Was just a normal guy.
I am still waiting for the evidence. We have Paul who didn't see anything, despite being in the area when it all supposedly went down, we have him call into question the credibility of the eyewitnesses, and despite spend decades with Christians only seems to know 11 facts about Jesus. Then we get complete silence for 50 years and an off-hand mention of the some hearsay by a man who believed in a literal Adam and Eve as historical fact.
Meanwhile every single part of the Jesus con is found in the stories and history that was around at the time. It is a hacky unoriginal derivative work with all of the evidence conveniently missing.
That wiki article presents zero historical evidence and is full of references to biblical scholars claiming there was s areal historical Jesus because the bible says so. Pure garbage source.
This argument is like saying “some guy named john did in fact live and was sentenced to life in prison in Louisiana”.
There was, in fact, lots of jeshua’s and Jehoshua’s that were alive at the time- and many of them executed. That’s not credible evidence for the existence of the biblical Jesus. It was a very common name, after all.
The reduction Jesus doesn't even work. Even if you reduce him down to some guy named Jesus who pissed the Romans off you wouldn't be able to account for the community that popped up. Additionally you still can't prove that this diet Jesus event happened, you just lowered the claim so much that it is not plausible instead of impossible.
What does explain the the community would be deliberate fraud. A cult lead by James and Peter about an mythical being.
It's a lot easier to convince people you're the successor to the of some kind of deity rather being some kind of deity yourself. A LOT easier. Also... sets up plausible deniability if things get caught out. "I DIDN"T KNOW, HONEST....! he duped me too!"
Yeps. Even Tacticus mentions how weird it was that the leader was dead but yet the movement continued. If the leader is very much alive and making up stories about his dead brother for decades it makes more sense.
Also had a precedent in Jewish history. When the temple was closed the leader of the revolt died and his son (so many references to Peter being the successor to Jesus) took over and eventually did restore the temple.
Show me the evidence, not what theist apologists argued later via tampered hearsay decades removed from the facts.
Ok, Pompeii. Less than a century later, before Constantine reskinned the Roman religion with the Christian label, we've found hidden shrines and symbols used by followers of Jesus. And uncovered very recently - not much room for it to be falsified. There's also contemporary accounts that spread extremely fast throughout the Roman empire and beyond, but those weren't buried under ash until the modern era.
That's a long way to go in very little time - that's only maybe 3-4 degrees away from the original source. Not nearly long enough for a mythical figure to develop organically
You can dispute the details, but someone must've been the figurehead at the very least. The gospels themselves hint at the events being staged to some extent by a small group spreading an ideology according to a literal plan - the public events literally start with Jesus's cousin gathering support for the movement, and then Jesus goes around recruiting specific people as apostles
The Romans also kept records - there's a lot of corroborating evidence for certain events spread too far and wide for a pre-information age society to fabricate. Even things like his birthdate - I think they've been able to narrow it down to a few days in July, during the census, where we had accounts of a temporary new star in the sky
Even the papers that are given clickbait-y headlines like "historians dispute the existence of Jesus" generally dispute certain aspects, there was almost certainly a historical figure named Jesus who was killed by the Romans for inciting a resistance movement
It went down in 79AD, a fully 43-46 years after the supposed events and at least 41.5 to 39 years after Paul began his missionary trips across the Roman Empire. To be clear you are arguing a strawman. I believe Paul was real and I believe James was real. I think it was a con job. This wasn't a myth that organically made itself, this was centuries of Jewish legends/stories/culture that was hijacked.
Also I asked for contemporary source not hearsay "3-4" times removed.
Sure they had a mythical figurehead. It would explain why the Romans left them alone for decades after the supposed events. They were running a mystery-cult / charity organization and were saying that their leader had already been killed. Also would explain why Paul didn't know pretty much anything about the details.
Could be. I admit I hadn't thought of that. I promise to look into it. I assumed that they were sorta reverse engineering the "known" events. Building a narrative after the fact, a retrocon.
And those records don't show anyone by that name in that city or being crucified. As for the star thing keep in mind the Gospel writers were multiple decades later well enough time to fit the data to the narrative. The census is a classic example of this. It was known that a census had been done around that time it was also "known" that Jesus was from Nazareth but was supposed to be from Bethlehem so the census is given for the reason.
I don't care about consensus or other writers. I care about evidence. Please present it. You gave me evidence that there were Christians decades later, which is not what I asked for.
That is just wrong. There isn’t any evidence anything he said was true, but we know that the guy that the Bible was written about existed and was crucified and taught what would become christianity. Now the evidence is essentially that the book exists about him, and that he is referenced in other adjacent religious texts, but that evidence is still more than the evidence that it was made up, and is still enough that it’s widely believed that he was a real guy. If what he taught was true or not is another story.
We actually don't know any of that, and that is not what the historical consensus is either.
I am always curious about how the Jesus was real crowd explains all these things Jesus supposedly taught that no one seems to know about until about fifty years later. And why these things he taught just happen to be from a subset of the Greek OT that was popular at the time. Strange how an Aramaic speaking rabbi, in an area with a 1% literacy rate, would only quote from a book written in Greek. And no one is aware of these parables and sayings.
According to Paul these are all the things that Jesus taught:
Don't get divorced and if you do the woman is never to marry someone else
Pay your preacher
The second one is debatable as well.
Yeah i mean sure, but that's like saying a guy named Chris existed and died in a car accident. That doesn't mean he had superpowers and can turn into Optimus prime
but the meme is saying the opposite of what you're saying.
Not really. There isn't any contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus. The historical consensus that he was likely real was constructed from later sources.
There isn't even any evidence of the reduction version of Jesus.
Just let us have fun with memes.
I don't believe in magical books either. I do think a dude had a god-complex and was murdered by the Roman state. Just enjoy the ride. And now for the real reason I came to this thread:
But I saw that guy selling an autographed copy of His book yesterday on Lemmy!