No, you are repeating yourself. I reposted the answers you ignored the first time for your convenience.

Thank you Mr. Wells for confirming that no evidence of Christ's life exists beyond the Gospels. I appreciate and respect that the Gospels are sufficient to warrant your belief in the historic existence of Christ, however that is not sufficient for modern scholarship. I would disagree with your premise, Mr Wells, because not even the four Gospels (which won a popularity contest in 325 CE) present the same personality of Christ, much less when one considers the Apocrypha.

Who was Pontius Pilate? Who were the Pilates?! Who were Pilate's fathers? Who were his sons? From which tribe did his ancestors claim descendents? I've even read pseudo-historians who claimed Pilate's wife was the bastard daughter of Augustus. How many days of games were celebrated at the Imperial wedding? Obviously, a "man" who merits a decade of governorship over Judea either comes from or created a long, proud Roman family.

Maybe Pilate was nova homo like Cicero or Marius. Maybe he worked his way up the ranks of the legions. Except we know Cicero and Marius existed because there were scores of contemporary sources who marveled at their lives and their accomplishments. Both men knew that they had no family from whom to recall their deeds, so they had to glorify their own deeds in their lifetime to warrant their power.

At the very least, who governs a province for a decade, returns to Rome, AND DOESN'T BUY A VILLA ON THE PALATINE? The last guy before Pilate to govern a province for a decade came home and conquered the Republic!!!

DL, we're not the first ones to have this conversation. For centuries, real historians and real believers have searched and searched and searched for ANY evidence of Pontius Pilate. It does not exist. If it were possible to prove a negative, then the absence of evidence would prove that Pontius Pilate never existed.

 

Evidence does exist, and I have presented it here. Proof does not exist, but I have stated several times in this thread that little can be proven about the first century AD.

 

I think the more important question is, in 2000 years will people believe that 2 Inch Jake truly existed or was he merely an embellishment of history, a mythical man too good to be true?

 

I think I have the rhetorical answer to the ultimate rhetorical question!!

Shameless self-advertising :laughing:

 

Bullshit. We can prove with absolute certainty that Buddha existed. We can prove with absolute certainty that Julius Caesar existed. We can prove with absolute certainty that Jerusalem was sacked in 70 CE. As was highlighted earlier in this thread, we can prove with absolute certainty that Alexander existed; despite the loss of primary source material.

We cannot do the same for the most important man in history. That there's a giant "black hole" in the historical record surrounding anything related to Christ suggests that some late Christian Emperor pulled a Nixon Tapes on the Acta Diurna to purge anything that contradicted state theology. And all we're left with is a Jewish nationalist inventing fictitious 10-year governors that broke the "tradition" of Rome honoring Israeli religion and a rock "discovered" in 1961 that Wiki asserts without citation as being "dated to the 1st Century".

 

Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
By Bob Dutko

An examination of the evidence for the resurrection goes beyond just exploring the evidence Jesus rose from the dead, but to the reliability of the Bible itself and whether we have evidence the Bible is true. As Christians however, the physical resurrection of Jesus is crucial to our faith, so let's examine whether a belief in the resurrection is logical by critiquing the arguments of skeptics.
One of the common tactics skeptics use to deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is to say that “since none of us were there, no one can really say what happened 2000 years ago”. While there is some truth to that statement, it is an illogical argument against something having been documented in history. Here’s why. None of us were also around when George Washington was President, so technically, we can’t “prove” he was President, however, if there is enough historical documentation attesting to his Presidency and corroborated historically by enough eyewitnesses, combined with absolutely no documented claims denying these facts, logic demands we accept his Presidency as historically true. To deny this would be illogical and unscientific.
The same holds true for the resurrection of Jesus. Skeptics, of course, have a tendency to discount the Biblical accounts because the Bible is “just a religious book”, but that is not true. In addition to the Word of God, the Bible also happens to be a book of history, documenting by eyewitnesses the actual events of that time in history. History records from eyewitnesses that Jesus Christ actually died and then 3 days later rose from the dead and was seen by 500 men over a span of 40 days. But, skeptics will still refuse to accept this by coming up with hypothetical theories to explain away the resurrection.
One of the most common is to claim the disciples merely stole the body of Jesus and hid it, then lied to people telling them he really rose from the dead. So let’s examine this one particular theory and see if it stands the test of scrutiny and logic by asking a few simple questions.

• If Jesus did not actually rise from the dead, why did the disciples go from frightened, timid followers of Jesus before his death, to bold evangelists willing to die preaching his resurrection if they just really made the whole thing up and he was still dead? Remember, before Jesus was crucified, the disciples were, for the most part, cowards. Peter denied even knowing Jesus 3 times before the crucifixion. What event changed them from cowards to courageous? Answer: They must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• Why were the disciples willing to be tortured and killed for a known lie? You don’t need a degree in human psychology to know that people do not die for a cause they know to be false. People do certainly die for false beliefs all the time, but they think they are dying for the truth. If the disciples faked the resurrection, they would know Christianity is a lie. History records they were tortured and killed for their faith, and not one of them said, under torture “okay, okay, we made the whole thing up”? Why is that? Answer: They must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• Why would they make up the resurrection story if Jesus turned out to be a fraud? Remember, Jesus told them he would rise after 3 days. If he was still dead on day four, that means he wasn’t who he claimed he was, he wasn’t the Messiah and certainly wasn’t God after all, so why would the disciples worship a dead guy who lied to them and was exposed as a fraud? Answer: They must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• What was their motive? Lies or deceptions are typically done for some selfish motive. Preaching the resurrection of Jesus would not bring them wealth, fame, status or popularity. It would only cause them to be hated, scorned, persecuted, excommunicated, imprisoned, exiled, beheaded, tortured and crucified, as history records, so again, what could possibly be their motive? Just to save face? That’s certainly not logical. No one is going to go through what the disciples went through just because they’re too embarrassed to say “I guess we were wrong”, so what was their motive? Answer: It was the TRUTH. They must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• How do the disciples, 12 ordinary people pull off such a hoax? Remember, this “hoax” would trigger thousands of skeptics per day to convert to following their scam as well as redirect the entire world to even eventually change their calendars and establish their hoax character, Jesus as the best known religious figure in all of humanity. How could they pull something like this off without ever getting exposed, offering a death bed confession or even admitting it was a hoax under torture? Answer: It must not be a hoax. They must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• Why would thousands of people immediately convert if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead? Think about it. History records that thousands upon thousands were instantly and immediately mass converting to be followers of Jesus, as many as 3000 in a day. It is recorded that after the crucifixion, Jesus appeared alive over a span of 40 days and to “500 brethren”. (Back then, only men were counted in crowd totals, so factoring in women and children, Jesus most likely appeared to safely 1500 to 2000 people over 40 days). If that many people saw Jesus alive, it would explain how so many were converting because even the most hardened skeptics would have crowds and crowds of former skeptics saying “yes, it’s true, we all have seen him too”, but if no one saw him alive and the crowds had only the words of the disciples to go by, why would thousands convert? Remember, the disciples were preaching to many who didn’t want to believe Jesus was the Messiah, so what words could they speak to hostile crowds to convince them Jesus really did rise from the dead? “Trust us”? That might convince some of the disciple’s closest friends, but not thousands upon thousands of skeptics. So why did thousands convert? Answer: Crowds must have actually seen the risen Jesus.
• Why did the disciples make themselves look bad in the Gospels? Think about it, if you were going to make up a story, wouldn’t you present yourself in somewhat of a positive light? The disciples painted themselves as sniveling cowards lacking in faith. Why? Answer: They must have been telling the truth.
• How did Saul of Tarsus, the chief persecutor of Christians convert to become the Apostle Paul, the chief follower of Jesus if he didn’t really have an encounter with a risen Jesus? Logically, if Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, Saul would just gloat in his victory, exposing Jesus as a fraud who couldn’t conquer death after all, so what event could have caused him to convert? Answer: He must have actually encountered the risen Jesus as recorded.
• How could the disciples even steal the body in the first place? The body was encased in a tomb with a 24 hour watch by Roman guards trained to kill. The punishment for breaking a Roman grave seal, or attempting to steal a body or overpowering a Roman soldier was death, so how did timid, cowardly disciples muster up the courage to try this? And as stated before, for what motive? That’s a big risk for absolutely no payoff. Some will say “maybe the guard was asleep”. First, dereliction of duty brought death to a Roman soldier, so I doubt they would “fall asleep” and secondly, the stone covering the tomb weighed 2 tons and was rolled into a stone groove which would have been flush against the stone opening of the grave. Think about how loud a 2 ton stone scraping against stone would be as several disciples tried to move it. I don’t think Rip Van Winkle could sleep through that, so, how could the disciples have stolen the body? Answer, they didn’t. Jesus actually rose from the dead

Happy Easter to all and please take this post for whatever it is worth. I am not preaching anything to anyone I just thought a little seriousness was due in the face of silliness. +

 

Ya know d...79, sometimes you impress me.
Thank you ...
Happy Easter to you too.

 

HOW TO DISMANTLE A BASELESS ARGUMENT 101, brought to you by Incubus.

• If Jesus did not actually rise from the dead, why did the disciples go from frightened, timid followers of Jesus before his death, to bold evangelists willing to die preaching his resurrection if they just really made the whole thing up and he was still dead?

when one invests all ones conviction and hopes & dreams of salvation into one person or establishment and then suddenly that person/establishment gets suddenly and violently desecrated by one's oppressors people will cope by somehow justifying or denying the tragic event. In the case of Christianity they refused to believe that their long awaited and prophesied messiah could so easily be taken away from them without divine intervention. so, like humans so commonly do, they lied to themselves and fabricated a story that would more...conveniently accommodate their aspirations ie: the Resurrection of Christ
.

• Why were the disciples willing to be tortured and killed for a known lie?

Once this seed of hope has been planted and it's meaning takes root it no longer is seen as a lie. it's seen as a worthy cause. remember, these people were convinced that this man Jesus was the son of their god.

• Why would they make up the resurrection story if Jesus turned out to be a fraud?

I already explained this in above. resurrection fits better into their equation than a bleak end to the life of their savior to be replaced by nothing but more oppression by the Romans

• What was their motive?

If they admitted to their followers that Jesus was dead and gone forever his image as the messiah would be diminished. He could not have been the son of god. god would not sit by ideally and let his only begotten son be tortured and killed by infidels....unless, that was his original intention...to suffer for mankind's sin, you see where i'm heading with this? they basically make it up as they go along to fit to their religious requirements

• How do the disciples, 12 ordinary people pull off such a hoax?

ever heard of the butterfly effect? plus when people are desperate for answers they will eat out of your hands. that's the very foundation of every religion. a way to deal with the unknown

• Why would thousands of people immediately convert if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead?

firstly, i highly doubt this immediate conversion of thousands. proof please. also, the term 'mass hysteria' would fit nicely here. It happens in our society all the time. especially around election time

• Why did the disciples make themselves look bad in the Gospels?

because they were unsure. they needed that push that the sudden loss of Jesus did to motivate them into action. you seem to forget that Christianity emerged as a Jewish sect during the horrible years of Roman occupation of the middle east and particularly Jerusalem. A land that to this day still stirs up emotions. When Christianity began their followers were convinced that the end of times were near. Read Revelations.

• .
• How did Saul of Tarsus, the chief persecutor of Christians convert to become the Apostle Paul, the chief follower of Jesus if he didn’t really have an encounter with a risen Jesus?

you are taking the conversion of one man as proof for the existence of a super natural being?

• How could the disciples even steal the body in the first place?

now you just bullshitting me. firstly, there is no proof that the body was missing in the first place. to this day Jesus' burial site is still unknown only speculated. could it be that the reason for this lack of critical evidence is due to the fact that the story itself was fabricated and became over exaggerated as the centuries passed?

 

You can bring an Incubus to water, but you can't make an Incubus drink.

 

I would say something for this topic but I'm too lazy to to go through 5 pages of posts.

 

You say lazy, I say smart. SSDD really, nothing changes but the thread titles.

 

Paul Guignebert, a well known French historian on the history of Christianity, who wrote the book, Jesus, said yes, Jesus lived, but that he was not divine, nor did any of the miracles ascribed to him in the Bible ever occur. This book had about as much space devoted to references as the actual text. Very thorough investigation.

 

No one else has brought this up so let me remind everyone that the life and death of the Jewish Messiah was prophesied in the the Torah and Jesus' life and deeds fulfill those prophecies. I don't present this as proof that Jesus existed, only another bit of circumstantial evidence.

I know that some people will claim that a handful of illiterate fisherman got together and looked up all the information about the Messiah and constructed their story to match the prophecy but that's not very likely.

When a detective tries to solve a case he looks to see if the suspects had the Motive, Opportunity and Ability to commit the crime. So let us look at Jesus' disciples and see if they could have actually invented Jesus and convinced the people living in Judea that he existed and that he was the Messiah.

1) What was the motive for a small group of common working class citizens to suddenly decide to invent a personage and call him the Messiah? What did they have to gain? Fame? Money? Power? Heresy was punishable by death.

2) In as much as they were not part of the political establishment, were not high born leaders of the community, were not part of the religious leadership and they had no forum from which to lunch their conspiracy, did they really have the opportunity to lunch a "Messiah" campaign; And who would have listened to them? The religious authorities would have listened and hand them stoned to death.

3) Since they were not learned men and experts in the Torah, did they really have the ability to put together such an elaborate story that parallelled the prophecies of the Torah? Many of the prophecies were obscure and not understood until after Jesus' death.

4) And last and most perplexing is the question of how they were able to convince the population of Judea that a man named Jesus walked among them, performed miracles and was crucified at the city gates if he didn't actually exist. Wouldn't people say... what the hell are you talking about? I've lived here all my life and neither I nor anyone I know has ever heard of this man or the things you claim he did.

All the above is not conclusive evidence that Jesus existed but it logically follows that if Jesus did not exist, his disciples would have had a very difficult time selling his story to the locals. And if they couldn't sell his story to the locals, how could his story have caught on, spread throughout the world and survived for thousands of years? Not very likely.

Have a good Easter.

HD :rose:

 

i dont really know but everybody has there own beliefs

 

did you read anything I posted in response to Deidre? you just regurgitated the same points I already explained.


talking to you people is like trying to describe sight to the blind

 

Thank you Deidre79

I know my name will live on with fans like you

 

Almost every story of Jesus is a rip off of an even older story from a handful of ancient religions from Mesopotamia.

 

Shameless plug:

https://forum.xnxx.com/showthread.php?t=151995

 

Do you think Joseph Smith actually saw an angel who gave him some gold plates, and that the plates were subsequently shown to several other people? An entire world religion was founded upon those events, in a matter of decades.

 

Dunno. Why do Jews disagree with your statement? Why are you asserting Jews feel otherwise?

No, the Torah is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. None of the prophecies come from the Torah.

Here's a list of the prophecies:

* The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
* Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
* The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
* He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via King Solomon (1 Chron. 22:8-10)
* The Moshiach will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with "fear of God" (Isaiah 11:2)
* Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
* Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)
* He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
* All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)
* Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8 )
* There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8 )
* All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
* The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)
* He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52:7)
* Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
* The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
* The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
* Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)
* The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40)
* He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3:9)
* Jews will know the Torah without Study (Jeremiah 31:33)
* He will give you all the desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)
* He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9).

Please don't give up your dayjob to take up rabbinical studies.

No, heresy was pretty normal in Rome - it was like a soap opera at Church. Romans depended on heresy for a steady supply of entertainment.

And I've asked this before: Why does there have to be some nefarious conspiracy?

That's not even true according to the Gospel! Jesus got kicked out of his own synagogue. He preached for years, healing the sick and conjuring fish and shit. Jesus literally had to walk up the steps of the Temple and start flipping over tables before the Temple noticed him.

That's what ancient Israelites were: stupid! Right. They didn't know how to interpret their own fucking prophecy. They didn't figure that out until they got together 200 years later and wrote the Talmud, aka/subtitle: "Jesus was not the Messiah."

They didn't. That's why Israel's there today, and still full of Jews that don't believe he was the Messiah.

That's why they went to Asia Minor and Greece! :excited: