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Permalink Reply by William on May 31, 2010 at 8:46pm

There probably was a man named Jesus that started a religio-political movement in first century Palestine. In fact, one of his apostles was called the zeolot which leads me to believe that he was part of that group as well. The stories about his miracles are largely stolen from the Hebrew scriptures, and I would suspect that the others are simply made up or stolen from pagan sources. The story of a dying and rising god is a well known pagan myth (e.g. Osiris), and I think that it was merely taken from the mystery religions of the Roman Empire and applied to Jesus over time. So I guess I fall in the "B" category.

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Permalink Reply by Sam in WV on May 31, 2010 at 9:02pm

This would be called a Euhemerist or Evemerist position, The events and activity of this region are quite well documented for the time, but there is a dearth of textual evidence for your founder of a religio-political movement you mention. I have started to critique the "scrappy" evidences on the previous page.

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Permalink Reply by William on May 31, 2010 at 9:25pm

Interesting.... I learned some new words today. thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Tom on May 31, 2010 at 9:08pm

no

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Permalink Reply by Robert McLean on May 31, 2010 at 10:03pm

I believe, as if belief has any credibility, that jeebus lived, but was the Houdini of his day, a showman. Like now, there was a living to be made as a religious warbler. Also, no education, no knowlege of anything and cultural superstition made a fertile ground for what has become the single biggest con of all time.

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Permalink Reply by Sam in WV on June 1, 2010 at 1:33am

Yes, but Arrian states up front that he prefers a source who was contemporary to Alexander, Ptolemy (the "Anabasis", now lost). What author references any source that was actually contemporary to or within a few years of the alleged Jesus?

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Permalink Reply by Sam in WV on June 1, 2010 at 1:48am

Many of the early church apologists reference works that were well known to the wealthy and well-educated, especially Tertullian. Christian historians often portray the earliest believers as slaves and among the lowest classes, but the literature poses a profound contradiction.

BTW, the first 3 Popes are not mentioned by any of the earliest patristic apologists. It is not until Irenaeus, many decades after their alleged See in Rome, are they mentioned, in 170 CE at the earliest.

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Permalink Reply by VanCity Skeptic on June 1, 2010 at 3:42pm

(C) I do not believe Jesus Christ ever existed as an actual person, combined with (E) don't think it matters anyway since all religion is false.

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Permalink Reply by William Arnold on June 4, 2010 at 4:30am

B: I believe there may have been a man named Jesus or it may have been many people all merged in to one character. But I think that any acts of healing were mostly likely a result of him being a well educated man and that when recorded they were greatly exaggerated, as for most of the other events in the bible I find then rather hard to believe.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Moss on June 4, 2010 at 6:02pm

There is no real historical proof that Jesus ever existed .. The dead sea scrolls, which are first and second century documents which are consistent with "old testament" myths, which don't include Jesus .. The orthodox Jews have a story of a young rabbi, who they believe was a profit, who lived during this period and may have been the person the "Jesus Myths" evolved from.. However, their young rabbi lived, married, and died as a mortal man .. His mother conceived him as the result of a adulteress relationship ,was married to a carpenter. That's where the similarity ends .. the "resurrection" of the zombie god is not part of the story. That's strictly christian mythlogy . My question is, why is a non-religious person like yourself, asking this question? You must know, by now, that all religions are just different shades of "Bullshit" created by the wild imagination of idle men. So my category is : E. Christian mythlogy is unimportant and not relevant to any critical thought.

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Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on June 6, 2010 at 11:05am

What? No, the vast majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written before Jesus was even born. And they were written by the Essenes, a sect who chose to live in total isolation (that's why we find their documents in caves). Why you would expect these guys to mention Jesus is beyond me.

Also, I think you'll find that rather than religions being created by "wild imagination by idle men", they tend to be influenced very heavily by real life events. They exaggerate these actual events to mythic proportions.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Moss on June 6, 2010 at 7:56pm

Jesus supposedly existed from, about 4 or 5 BCE to about 29 or 30 CE ..The scrolls pro-ported to have been penned between 150 BCE to about 70 CE .. One would think that somewhere in the 900 or so documents translated from this period, there would be some mention of him .. There is not ..
Wikipedia:" The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include the oldest known surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus.[1] These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE and 70 CE.[2] The scrolls are traditionally identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, though some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests in Jerusalem, Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups.[3][4]"

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