I finally did some deep searching into the whole Christian thing, read tons of books and essays and documents, and found.... nothing. Outside of the gospels (now dated by many theologians and scholars and historians at 170-180 AD, there is no evidence that any such person as Jesus Christ ever existed. There are some proven forgeries, such as the Josephus passage (called the Testimonium Flavium), an ever-so brief passage about Jesus, but it's been shown to be a 4th century forgery.

And even more curious, there are absolutely no contemporary writings by people who lived in Judea at the time and left a great deal of writings, and not a single one of them wrote anything about Jesus...no feeding the multitudes, no raising the dead, no healing the sick... nothing, almost(no..exactly) as if he didn't exist at all.

Hi All,

Given, for the sake of argument, that the above quote is true and it is very close to historical truth as we currently know it, the question arises: how did Christianity really get started if there were no historical Jesus?

One theory that seems plausible is that a group of Essenes, an ascetic, monastic Jewish sect, found themselves moved to do something for their people who were having a rough time under Roman rule and moved into the community. They would have been learned men and could probably perform seeming miracles of healing. As learned men it could be that a cult built up around them. It is quite possible that they were a threat to the established priesthood of the day and so the priests who had good diplomatic relations with their Roman masters arranged for the group leader to get nailed.

However the cult continued after the execution.

The Romans, paranoid as always about organisations in their subject peoples sent Saul to ‘stop this nonsense.’ Saul who was something of your traditional Middle East fanatic set to with a will but somewhere along the line he had his famous Damascene conversion: “Oi vay! There must be something in this God business.”

So he changed his name to Paul and got his God business properly organised by writing epistles to all and sundry.

The cults continued after Paul’s death but they each had their own angle on the eternal truths. To resolve this the Bishops got together at Nicea and worked out an agreed story. They edited the gospels to match the agreed story, for the good of the simple people of course, and have pitched it to the flock ever since.

If the above sounds cynical it isn’t meant to be. It’s an attempt by this not particularly knowledgeable person to figure out what really happened. And if anyone has any better thoughts based on something more tangible than faith I would be most interested to read them.

I understand that ordained priests know all this as part of their training yet they still have enough faith in their religion to preach it. Presumably there is an answer to the historical case.

Regards

Kortpeel

If Kortpeel is correct, that would mean Judaism is the TRUE faith...just saying..

The evidence for historic Christianity has always been questioned by some. The fact remains that God has preserved the Gospels and the letters of the N.T. There are no remaining autographs (originals), but preserved accurate copies of the N.T. Gospels do exist. To ask how Christianity got started is to neglect the veracity of the Gospels themselves. The Gospels state that Jesus did live, four authors record his life, and compliment one another's record of his life. Do we reject their testimony as worthless? Do we call them liars? Why would they write what they wrote? Do we say, "Well they just wanted to start a new religion? I can't see it, but that's me. The Gnostic writers tried to copy the inspired truth, but they couldn't do it. The Gospels display the inspiration of God and prove the veracity of what was written. I believe the historic account written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read them for yourselves and tell me they made it all up. Why would four men tell the same story with varying degrees of insight? To substantiate the truth. P.S. Even the life of King David is doubted outside of the Biblical record. Did he exist? Was he Israel's second King? I believe he was.

Josephus, the Jewish historian does mention him, but he, like many of the Jews of that day and still today, along with millions of others, denounce the deity of Christ, that He was very God. They did not see the need to record the life of a person who they rejected. The people of his day, outside of the faithful, thought of Jesus as just a deranged teacher who got himself killed for no good reason. Christ was a stone that they tripped over, (Greek - scandalon) they just could not accept that He was God and yet the miracles themselves proved that He was: believe it, or not. To reject the historic Jesus, is to disbelieve the incarnation, that God became a man, that Christ took on human flesh, because only God could and did pay for the sins of man by dying as a sacrifice and substitute for humankind. Faith has been and always will be the key to receiving the benefit of this sacrifice, which is, eternal life. You cannot earn eternity by works, it requires faith in the historic Jesus, believe it or not. Check out the following website: http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLr ... _Jesus.htm

Hash (imported) wrote: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:43 am The evidence for historic Christianity has always been questioned by some. The fact remains that God has preserved the Gospels and the letters of the N.T. There are no remaining autographs (originals), but preserved accurate copies of the N.T. Gospels do exist. To ask how Christianity got started is to neglect the veracity of the Gospels themselves. The Gospels state that Jesus did live, four authors record his life, and compliment one another's record of his life. Do we reject their testimony as worthless? Do we call them liars? Why would they write what they wrote? Do we say, "Well they just wanted to start a new religion? I can't see it, but that's me. The Gnostic writers tried to copy the inspired truth, but they couldn't do it. The Gospels display the inspiration of God and prove the veracity of what was written. I believe the historic account written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read them for yourselves and tell me they made it all up. Why would four men tell the same story with varying degrees of insight? To substantiate the truth. P.S. Even the life of King David is doubted outside of the Biblical record. Did he exist? Was he Israel's second King? I believe he was.

Josephus, the Jewish historian does mention him, but he, like many of the Jews of that day and still today, along with millions of others, denounce the deity of Christ, that He was very God. They did not see the need to record the life of a person who they rejected. The people of his day, outside of the faithful, thought of Jesus as just a deranged teacher who got himself killed for no good reason. Christ was a stone that they tripped over, (Greek - scandalon) they just could not accept that He was God and yet the miracles themselves proved that He was: believe it, or not. To reject the historic Jesus, is to disbelieve the incarnation, that God became a man, that Christ took on human flesh, because only God could and did pay for the sins of man by dying as a sacrifice and substitute for humankind. Faith has been and always will be the key to receiving the benefit of this sacrifice, which is, eternal life. You cannot earn eternity by works, it requires faith in the historic Jesus, believe it or not. Check out the following website: http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLr ... _Jesus.htm

The foregoing is wrong on several accounts, but I will limit my discussion to the two most glaring ones. First, no one knows who the "they" are who wrote the gospels. No one named Luke wrote The Gospel According to Luke, for example. The origins of the gospels are quite controversial and, as the above writer says, we don't have the originals. And the many early copies that do exist have hundreds, even thousands, of variant readings.... so which of these many variant readings are the "correct" one? No one knows. Even the early church writers such as Clemence of Alexandria and Origen do not seem to know of these gospels, so they obviously appeared sometime after them. The gospels were not eye witness accounts, just rumors. There were lots of kook religions around Judea at that time, all preaching a coming messiah and salvation. But here's the thing...outside of the canonical gospels there is no independent corroboration of any such person (supposedly the most important person who ever lived) mentioned by any other contemporary writer.

Which brings me to my second point. The writer Josephus, who wrote The Antiquities of the Jews, would not and, in fact, COULD not have written the brief little passage that today is called the Testimonium Flavium (or TF). Josephus was a devout Jew of the inner circle until his death. There are many things that point to the TF being a 4th Century forgery...the way it interrupts the narrative, the fact that no one comments on it until the 4th and 5th Centuries, the style is not that of Josephus, and much more. Most scholars today now regard the TF as either mostly or completely forged.

So what are people left with? Wishful thinking, tradition, the religious indoctrination they grew up with, and my favorite irrationality "Faith." Faith is what you apply to any religious concept that defies logic, proof, science, research, and history....and downright common sense.

Let's look at it this way...the God of the Universe, was so incompetent and distracted that He created man in his own image, but man turned out to be very imperfect...in fact, given to sin. So to correct the problem that He created in the first place, He sends part of Himself in the person of His only son, to die a painful death and thereby "save" us from His wrath...wait, this whole thing is breaking down somewhere. It makes absolutely no sense at all, so this is the point where you pick yourself up out of the logical gutter you fell into, get back onto your Bicycle of Faith, and peddle off singing a VERY LOUD HYMN so as to distract yourself from the illogical things you've been thinking. Yeah, I know, I used to do the same thing.

Christianity is a crock, and it's built on one huge lie, followed by many lies over the next few centuries. Really, if you are having trouble with this, do read Earl Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle" or the book "The Christ Conspiracy" by Acharya S. In my view, Christianity has a lot to answer for...the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades, many religious wars that raged across Europe for centuries, and for holding countless millions of people captive to a stupid and soul-crushing theology for almost 2000 years.

The sooner we rid ourselves (as a species) of all man-made religions (and I include Islam and Judaism here too), the better off we will be. Now lest you think I'm an atheist, not so... I consider myself a spiritual person, and think there might just be a, for want of a better word, God -- the consciousness in the universe that is some higher being, perhaps one we all inwardly strive to return to, but whatever and whoever God is (and I prefer to call it The Source), it is most certainly NOT the guy depicted on the Cistine Chapel ceiling, and it is NOT some heavenly bookkeeper writing down our every mistake, sin, and bad thought. Get over that.

Read a little, challenge yourself to read something OTHER than church-approved literature and the bible...you may actually grow and learn something about the way the universe really works.

L. Ron Hubbard started his own religion, why couldn't others do it as well?

The real problem with Christianity, is that it mirrors many other religions that predate it, including the concept of the messiah, the virgin pregnancy, and the alignment of the three kings. For those of you who do not know, the kings are actually three celestial objects that line up with the north star and sort of point toward the east in late December. The odd thing is that Jesus was born in the spring, but his birthday was moved to December by the church to help mitigate a pagan holiday (which is where the christmas tree comes from!)

The rendering of Jesus that is commonly accepted as accurate by most Christians (you know, fair skin, light eyes, light hair...) is actually a painting of the son of Pope Leo the 13th, I think. (definitely a pope named Leo, unsure if it is the 13th).

Here is the thing: People, for centuries, have believed what they have been taught by their parents and religious leaders. The challenge is that science (in the 20th century) has disproved many many "facts" of the bible. As humanity has increased its propensity for education and intellect, more and more have become agnostic. it is difficult to believe in a mythology that has so many blatant mistruths and falsities. Even if there are shreds of truths held in a religious document (bible, torah, koran), if you know in your heart that that document is filled with falsities, it is difficult to truly embrace that culture.

As an aside, Christianity promotes Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. Now I get it, these characters were created to keep children excited and interested in their religion. The problem is, 200 or 300 years ago all other facets of the religion were accepted as fact. But now, a kid discovers at 8 or 9 that these were not real, and then in high school they are introduced to scientific evidence that is diametrically opposed what they have been taught.

it is easy to see why religion is being abandoned for the concept of "spirituality". Man wants to believe that he is not alone, and that there is deeper meaning to his life, but traditional religions have been proved false in many ways, and thus the loss of faith...

What it comes down to is you believe what you are taught as a kid, it transcends religion, it happens with nationalism, cultural identity, political ideology, even spots teams.

Simply because your folks told you to believe it, does not make it true.

Oh, and one final thing... the writings of Josephus cover a lot of ground. Page upon page, book upon book of the most minute detail covering events and people who had even the most incidental parts in Jewish history. But the only thing that appears in Josephus' writing about Jesus (and unlike the link that Kortpeel provides, MANY scholars today belive it is a forgery)...is that all there is outside the gospels about the most important man who ever lived? I mean, the two passages together comprise maybe 15 lines...one passage in Josephus is probably a forgery, and the other is so obscure we can't be sure exactly who he's talking about....and that's it? The greatest man in history, the Messiah, sent from God to save mankind, who walked around Judea raising the dead, healing the sick, cleansing the temple...and all he gets is two tiny little paragraphs in the huge work by Josephus? Really?

Josephus did not live in the purported time of Jesus, but Josephus' father did, and I would expect that his father would have told Josephus all about this wonder worker, the very Son of God... but alas, that appears not to be the case. In fact, the silence of other writers during that time is deafening. There is no "there" there. There is nothing that one can objectively and logically look at and prove that Jesus ever existed.

Don't speak to me of faith...show me proof. Don't show me any more forgeries, and especially don't show me any more "gospels"...I've seen them. In fact, don't show me any more crap from the Church...show me proof that will stand up in court, or that would stand up under scholarly review, that would survive academic testing. I won't say "I'm waiting" because the entire world has been waiting for 2000 years, and all we've been handed are platitudes, homilies, forgeries, lies, and all dished out with a generous helping of violence, war, sexual abuse, and corruption.

What about Tacitus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus

I guess the one either has faith or one does not. Human reasoning and "logic" have lead to more suffering and folly than most religions.

When I lived in St Louis one of my friends, a Jew referred to Jesus as the best thing that ever happen to Jews. He was a shop owner and referred to Jesus as Jew boy does good, business was never better.

He also said that in Jewish text there was reference to Jesus having lived at that time. I would like to know if anybody else has run into this.

If, Jesus was a real person as the bible says, he would have been matched at about age 12 or so to his future wife. As a Rabbi, nobody would have lessened to him if he were not married. There is Bible prof of this, when he died two people prepared him for the grave, his mother and his wife, only very close relatives would have been allowed to do this.

So the question is did Jesus and Mary have kids?

Or,

Was the story of Jesus is just that, a story?

River

Faith is a human trait. I know if I wait long enough the number 78 bus will come. --FLO--

Milkman (imported) wrote: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:38 am What about Tacitus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus

I guess the one either has faith or one does not. Human reasoning and "logic" have lead to more suffering and folly than most religions.

Yes indeed...what about Tacitus? If you read that wiki linked article fully, you will see in the Authenticity and Reliability section a discussion of my own problems with Tacitus. He's not cited very often for the reasons given... the authorship is in serious question. Surely Tacitus, being a Roman Senator, would know that Pontius Pilate had been a Prefect, not a Procurator. Also, this is not in that article, but Tacitus wrote some 17 or 18 books on Roman history, and all of them but one are written in a refined form of Latin, as if written by an educated Latin speaker, as Tacitus was. The book that is supposedly by Tacitus that contains the Nero-and-Christian references is written in a rougher form of Latin, leading scholars to suspect it was not really by Tacitus, not to mention the poor light it casts on the city of Rome in that book, being characterized as a flesh pot and the home of all corrupt things. And in fact, Tacitus is the ONLY source from that era that speaks of Nero persecuting Christians and blaming them for the burning of Rome. No other contemporary historian mentions it anywhere.

All that the reference to Tacitus does (particularly its probable forgery, and that of Josephus too) is to show how desperate the early Christian church was to find evidence, ANY evidence, even if they had to manufacture it, as to the existence of Jesus. Didn't happen. Jesus is a myth, just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.