Montecresto
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I think there is no question that Jesus the human being existed. there is nothing wrong with admitting that no matter what you think of him being the messiah. I think there is just as much proof that he existed as there is that Alexander the Great or Aristotle existed. in order to believe there was some conspiracy to "create" Jesus you would have to believe something along the lines of a 9/11 conspiracy theory. there are too many impossibilities to consider. If the disciples conspired together why wouldn't all of their historical accounts be exactly the same instead of having sometimes huge differences in their stories about Jesus. it just doesn't make sense from the start.
Too long to write so I'll be short as possible with lout too much theology... New covenant. When the religious people brought a woman caught commiting adultery they wanted to stone her. Jesus answered them and they left, and told her he doesn't condemn her and to Go sin no more. Jesus healed on the sabbath and that made them want to kill him even more. And it's interesting, Funny how people use scripture when convenient to them, then chuck it out for the rest of there lives.The Bible has more than a few such impositions. The death penalty for cursing a parent, taking the Lord's name in vain, not crying out loudly enough while being raped, or even not being a virgin on your wedding night (Those last two apply women only.) are some examples. Remember the guy who picked up sticks on the Sabbath? Death..... Look to the beam in your own eye.
Wow, now that's a new twist, eyewitness accounts differing being offered up as proof!! And what "evidence" outside of the bible is there that he existed. Two historians that would have been his contemporaries, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus failed to mention a guy healing the sick, raising the dead, and feeding throngs with a couple fish and a few loaves of bread. (Of course the "Complete Works of Josephus" have an after thought paragraph that mention him quite in passing, lol. )
It doesn't matter whose "perspective" it is. Cutting peoples hands off for theft, permission to beat women, killing people for changing religion, is wrong and crazy universally, regardless of how some people may feel about it.
Too long to write so I'll be short as possible with lout too much theology... New covenant. When the religious people brought a woman caught commiting adultery they wanted to stone her. Jesus answered them and they left, and told her he doesn't condemn her and to Go sin no more. Jesus healed on the sabbath and that made them want to kill him even more. And it's interesting, Funny how people use scripture when convenient to them, then chuck it out for the rest of there lives.
There's plenty non biblical sources. Here are just a few...
Thallus (52AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus and he is so ancient his writings tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:
“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.”
Mara Bar-Serapion (70AD)
Sometime after 70AD, a Syrian philosopher named Mara Bar-Serapion, writing to encourage his son, compared the life and persecution of Jesus with that of other philosophers who were persecuted for their ideas. The fact Jesus is known to be a real person with this kind of influence is important. Mara Bar-Serapion refers to Jesus as the “Wise King”:
“What benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as judgment for their crime. Or, the people of Samos for burning Pythagoras? In one moment their country was covered with sand. Or the Jews by murdering their wise king?…After that their kingdom was abolished. God rightly avenged these men…The wise king…Lived on in the teachings he enacted.”
Phlegon (80-140AD)
Phlegon wrote a chronicle of history around 140AD. In this history, Phlegon also mentions the darkness surrounding the crucifixion in an effort to explain it:
“Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth to the ninth hour.”
Phlegon is also mentioned by Origen (an early church theologian and scholar, born in Alexandria):
“Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events . . . but also testified that the result corresponded to his predictions."
“And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place …"
“Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails.”
Pliny the Younger (61-113AD)
Early Christians were also described in early, non-Christian history. Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the Roman emperor Trajan, describes the lifestyles of early Christians:
“They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.”
Suetonius (69-140AD)
Suetonius was a Roman historian and annalist of the Imperial House under the Emperor Hadrian. His writings about Christians describe their treatment under the Emperor Claudius (41-54AD):
“Because the Jews at Rome caused constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Christ), he (Claudius) expelled them from the city (Rome).” (Life of Claudius, 25:4)
This expulsion took place in 49AD, and in another work, Suetonius wrote about the fire which destroyed Rome in 64 A.D. under the reign of Nero. Nero blamed the Christians for this fire and he punished Christians severely as a result:
“Nero inflicted punishment on the Christians, a sect given to a new and mischievous religious belief.” (Lives of the Caesars, 26.2)
And on and on...
I think there is no question that Jesus the human being existed. there is nothing wrong with admitting that no matter what you think of him being the messiah. I think there is just as much proof that he existed as there is that Alexander the Great or Aristotle existed. in order to believe there was some conspiracy to "create" Jesus you would have to believe something along the lines of a 9/11 conspiracy theory. there are too many impossibilities to consider. If the disciples conspired together why wouldn't all of their historical accounts be exactly the same instead of having sometimes huge differences in their stories about Jesus. it just doesn't make sense from the start.
Wow, now that's a new twist, eyewitness accounts differing being offered up as proof!! And what "evidence" outside of the bible is there that he existed. Two historians that would have been his contemporaries, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus failed to mention a guy healing the sick, raising the dead, and feeding throngs with a couple fish and a few loaves of bread. (Of course the "Complete Works of Josephus" have an after thought paragraph that mention him quite in passing, lol. )
Too long to write so I'll be short as possible with lout too much theology... New covenant. When the religious people brought a woman caught commiting adultery they wanted to stone her. Jesus answered them and they left, and told her he doesn't condemn her and to Go sin no more. Jesus healed on the sabbath and that made them want to kill him even more. And it's interesting, Funny how people use scripture when convenient to them, then chuck it out for the rest of there lives.
How many people from the first century can we dismiss from existence using these techniques? Why are you holding of Jesus as the one who needs SPECIAL evidence of existence. more than you require to believe Aristotle, for example, existed. nefarious motive perhaps?
So Thallus didn't understand the science of a solar eclipse. Bar-Sarapions mention of a Jewish Wise King doesn't confirm the mythological Jesus. None of your sources are contemporary with the time Jesus was alleged to have lived. As I pointed out, the silence from Philo and Josephus who would have been his contemporaries says it all.
So Thallus didn't understand the science of a solar eclipse. Bar-Sarapions mention of a Jewish Wise King doesn't confirm the mythological Jesus. None of your sources are contemporary with the time Jesus was alleged to have lived. As I pointed out, the silence from Philo and Josephus who would have been his contemporaries says it all.
Excuses excuses. Kill the children who curse you is a biblical instruction. Worse even than chopping off a thief's hand, yet you handwave the first while condemning the second. What was Jesus' attitude to hypocrites?
And of course, we don't have the writings of Thallus anyhow, we only know about them because they are referenced in another work, which has also gone entirely missing. It's a second-hand account at best. Let's be honest. JFish123 is just cutting and pasting from an apologist site and everything he has to say has been soundly rebutted. He has no clue what he's talking about, which isn't at all a surprise.
Jesus told those people who did believe in those punishments were wrong. So don't know how that's hypocritical if I follow the one who told the people in charge what they believed were wrong. And how many lives has atheist regimes butchered in the last century? By my count over 100 million. Not a good track record for just 100 years...
To honor dead students they should. And to the second part, this country was founded on Judeo Christian values. But If someone wants to do a Hindu prayer in a court house go ahead. I may not agree with to whom your praying too, so I'm not going to pray with you. No harm no fowl.
Would you be okay with Muslims putting their symbols and sayings in a federal courthouse?
Instead of a benevolent God they often choose government as their masters
Instead of Christians being on the defensive, how bout some Atheists explain how atheist states often end in atrocity? around a century...
Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) 49-78,000,00 people murdered
Jozef Stalin (USSR 1932-39 only) 15,000,000 people murdered
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000 people murdered
Kim II Sung (North Korea 1948-94) 1.6 million people murdered
Tito (Yugoslavia 1945-1987) 570,000 people murdered
Suharto (Communists 1967-66) 500,000 people murdered
Ante Pavelic (Croatia 1941-45) 359,000 people murdered
Ho Chi Min (Vietnam 1953-56) 200,000 people murdered
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (USSR, 1917-20) 30,000 people murdered
Ironic you would say that, when, according to your link:
hundred
noun hun·dred \ˈhən-drəd, -dərd\
: the number 100
hundreds : an amount that is more than 200
—used to refer to a specified century
But whatever. You were attempting to use time to discredit the authorship of the NT, and turned out to be wrong.
The earliest biography of Alexander the Great was written 400 years after his death.
The famous philosopher Socrates has no surviving work and is unknown save through the often contradictory testimony of his students.
I mean shoot, the Roman Emperor at the time had less known sources about him than Jesus. And the earliest account of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15) was known within years of Jesus’ death. The earliest gospel, Mark, was written about 30 years after Jesus’ death . And the earliest non-Christian source, Josephus, wrote about Jesus about 70 years after his death.
Even hardcore atheists like Richard Dawkins admit Jesus was historical. Even "Ask the Atheists" website claims as much as well as almost every other major atheists. To claim not enough evidence for Jesus, gotta cancel Alexander, Socrates, the Roman Emperor at the time of Jesus etc... Off the list as well to even begin to be credible.
The number one, to my knowledge, has always been singular. If it precedes the word 'hundred' it still remains singular. I'm guessing that the same rule would apply to one million, one billion or one trillion, though I'm not that familiar with New Math.
Was that a singular "hundreds" or a plural "hundreds"?
:shrug: he claimed that the New Testament wasn't finished being written until "hundreds" of years after.
Then to be intellectually honest, you have to believe Alexander the Great,Socrates didn't exist either. My God, if Richard Dawkins and people like Ask the Atheists website among many other atheists agree Jesus existed, your really reaching the bottom of the barrel with conspiracy theories to do all you can not to believe in Jesus. Don't know why, don't care, but something ain't right for such a defense . My guess, you don't want there to be a Jesus so all evidence goes through a bias of can't be , so mustn't be. Gotta be independent like others who looked at the evidence and came to the historical conclusion my man.
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