Religion
Related: About this forumAn Atheist’s Defense of the Historicity of Jesus
September 4, 2014
by Neil Carter
I cant believe Im feeling the need to do this, but today Id like to write a brief defense of the historicity of Jesus.
When climate change deniers want to insist that our actions have no impact on global temperatures, they display a remarkable disdain for an entire discipline populated by credentialed professionals in that field who say otherwise. It doesnt seem to bother the deniers that they themselves have no specialization in the academic field they disparage because in any field of study there will always be at least some small contingent who go against the consensus. The existence of those outliers is justification enough for the deniers to say, This business is far from certain, you know. Just look at these four people who disagree!
Thats how I feel when people in the skeptic community argue that Jesus never existed. They are dismissing a large body of work for which they have insufficient appreciation, most often due to the fact that they themselves have never formally studied the subject. And yes, I know that the study of religon and of antiquity is a far softer field of study than climatology (and therefore more subject to personal bias). But that doesnt mean we cant reasonably conclude anything at all about the distant past. There are at least a handful of things about the origins of the Christian religion which we can reasonably conclude based on the things that we know. Among them are that there was most likely a guy named Jesus who preached and was killed outside Jerusalem, and that after his death a diverse following emerged which built around that event a narrative which grew to become the Christian faith.
The existence of two or three professionals within the study of antiquity claiming that Jesus never existed does not signal a sea change in that field. There havent been any new discoveries in the past few years which signal any significant changes in that discipline. The only thing I see thats changed is public opinion.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/09/04/an-atheists-defense-of-the-historicity-of-jesus/
meti57b
(3,584 posts)The Romans apparently did not like insurrectionists so they gave Jesus their worst form of punishment .... the cross.
When they (Romans) asked the crowd, that attended the execution, which of the three, (Jesus and two thieves), to forgive and let go, the crowd knew it would be curtains for whomever chose to let Jesus go free. So they asked for one of the thieves to go free.
That's my theory.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Do they think it totally invalidates christianity? Even if the person Jesus didn't exist, it wouldn't change a thing. Like all enormously important historical figures, there is no doubt that things have been distorted over time.
But what does it really matter, anyway.
edhopper
(33,585 posts)that are the very basis for Christianity, especially the crucifixion and resurrection, not to mention the man himself ever were real, it doesn't invalidate any of the precepts of that religion?
The logic of this is truly mind boggling.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)with convincing evidence either way.
After all these years of both sides trying to prove or disprove this, it seems highly unlikely that it will ever happen.
So what is the point of arguing it? Just so someone thinks they win?
The logic of that is truly mind boggling.
edhopper
(33,585 posts)the way you phrased it was even if we knew Jesus did not exist, it would not invalidate Christianity.
You seem to mean we can never really know.
I don't agree with that, but it makes more sense as far as your opinion.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I don't think there will ever be definitive evidence, so even if someone makes a strong claim, it really makes no difference.
rug
(82,333 posts)He makes a good point about the quality of arguments against it and the eagerness with which many are willing to give them a pass.
But it does matter to Christianity. Had he not existed it would simply be a philosophy with a gloss, one of many.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)IMO, there will never be a definitive case for the lack of existence, so even if people make that claim, it makes not difference. It changes nothing about Christianity.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)It matters a great deal to Christians. I know MANY Christians that would drop the whole thing if you could even prove that the resurrection didn't happen.
C.S. Lewis's 'Trilemma' and countless other opinion pieces were authored to counter just such a contingency.
Now, I don't think they would necessarily just start being atheists, they would, in my estimate, by and large immediately seek refuge in some other religion. But they would drop Christianity like a hot potato, you bet.
(Which I would personally probably not like overmuch, because at least some of them would embrace much more regressive religious doctrines along the way.)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I don't think you will ever be able to prove anything, so that is why I don't think it matters.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I think I walked away from the PC, after I saw that post and hit reply. I didn't read the rest of the thread, and I should have before I responded. You did indeed address that.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)If you are an addicted smoker and your brand starts to taste bad, you'll probably just switch brands. I canrelate. I smoked American Spirit for a while, before giving up the whole tobacco thing.
Silent3
(15,220 posts)Mainly what I've been hearing lately is that the evidence for the historicity of Jesus isn't quite so solid as many would have you believe, especially when you take into account how much of the research has been conducted, and data interpreted, by those with a strong Christian bias. Further doubt is cast by how long after the supposed time of Jesus many of the purported supporting documents have been written, and whether or not more recent copies of supposedly much older original documents are actually accurate copies, uninfluenced by the biases of those making supposed copies during times when Christianity was already well established.
What historical research certainly doesn't support is treating the Bible as if it were a history book, nor anything at all about the supposed divinity of Jesus. Jesus is either mythologized history or historicized mythology, take your pick.
rug
(82,333 posts)The bottom line is there are huge holes in the arguments against the historicity of Jesus, holes too many are only too willing to overlook.
edhopper
(33,585 posts)there being a man, Yeshua, at that time and was probably a preacher of some kind.
Or that the Jesus of the scripture existed?
rug
(82,333 posts)The corollary to that is that it he was made up decades, if not centuries, later for reasons I've yet to hear explained. Look around, you'll find the threads here and there.
I don't have a dog in that fight.
My sense of it is someone existed that the Gospels were based on. But I have doubts of the veracity of any of it.
I also think there were existing mythologies overlaid on the story of Jesus.
goldent
(1,582 posts)existing was based on an agenda. It reminds of the moon mission deniers where you start with the conclusion and then find bits of evidence to support it. I watched the documentary by the moon mission deniers and it was pretty convincing! And I lived during the moon landings!
In a recent thread, one of the arguments against Jesus existing was lack of birth records, trial records, and death certificates This would be great Onion material.
okasha
(11,573 posts)who has repeatedly produced a chart proclaiming that Jesus was "just like" half a dozen other divine figures born to virgin mothers on Dec. 25, all of them likewise "resurrected." I've several times asked this poster to cite the original sources for this material, but of course she can't. Mithras' "mother" was a rock; Isis had been married to Osiris for literally eons before Horus was conceived; and Krishna was Devaki's eighth child, born, according to the Bhagavada Purana, on August 17.
What the originator of this chart has done is take a handful of elements from the gospel narratives and attribute them to the "just like" divinities, quite without regard to what each god's mythos actually says about him.
The thing I find remarkable is that no one who has posted this chart has ever bothered to fact check it.
Talk about blind faith--they haz it!
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)Just that the extra-Biblical evidence for his existence is extremely weak. There should be much more than a simple mention in Josephus (likely an insert by a Christian copyist) if he was as significant a figure as he is by some thought to be.
There likely was a historical Jesus, a composite of more than one mystic or travelling rabbi and orator. You could hardly heave a brick in ancient Judea without hitting an apocalyptic cult leader in those days, and I'm sure some of the stories have a basis in fact.
One of the reasons I believe there is likely some historical foundation, is because of how unimpressive the miraculous stuff is to modern readers. Water into wine? The loaves and fishes? He might as well have been going around saying "Take a card, any card".
The evidence for historical Jesus isn't more convincing than the evidence for the historical King Arthur in my opinion, but you can't prove a negative, so it's intellectually dishonest to say there couldn't have been a historical Jesus.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Last edited Sat Sep 6, 2014, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)
While Jesus's followers obviously thought he was a significant figure, all the Romans would have seen was yet one more rabble-rousing Jew likely to spark a rebellion. They dealt with him exactly as they dealt with other rabble-rousing natives throughout the Empire. They shut him down and executed him as a rebel.
Until Paul began to evangelize along the coast of Asia and into Greece, Jesus's followers remained fully Jewish, centered in Jerusalem and led by his brother Jacob. It wasn't until the High Priest Annanas had Jacob illegally executed 25 years later that they came to official attention again. That incident produced a brief mention of Jesus by Josephus that probably is not interpolated.
Mentions by Tacitus and Pliny come a bit later, after the fall of Jerusalem in CE 70, when the church became both gentile in membership and Pauline in theology. Then, and only then, did Jesus, the obscure Jewish rebel, become a significant figure in history.
By the way, scholars in the field are now pretty certain that King Arthur was an actual historical figure, probably based at Cadbury.
edhopper
(33,585 posts)probably was as similar to the real man (or men) as the real 5th Century Arthur was to the ruler of Camelot.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)The quality of their arguments puts them in the category of "alternative historians" and "Acharya S" in particular strikes me as a cult leader type.