Can you give me some names of historians who are not Christian that believe Jesus existed?

Status
Not open for further replies.
That is very good. Tacitus is such a good example. As a historian, he was the gold standard and he clearly wrote about the trial and execution.
 
You are right. The Gospels cannot reconcile events involving Jesus return from exile in Egypt and the name of certain historical figures identified
 
Maximus1 said:
You are right. The Gospels cannot reconcile events involving Jesus return from exile in Egypt and the name of certain historical figures identified
Click to expand...
Which could also mean that we are lacking in complete or correct historical information, or that some small error is made in the telling of the story, not necessarily that the Gospel story is “untrue”.

If I said I was born on November 1, 1972 and I was actually born on November 1, 1974 or November 10, 1972, then the basic story of me being born in the early 1970s is true; the date mentioned may be in error.
 
Last edited:
Suetonius mentions Jesus and the early Christians who were persecuted under Nero.
 
rossum said:
40.png
Gorgias:
Coming from a Buddhist, this is pretty hilarious…
Click to expand...
The same is true of the Buddha. There are a lot of stories about him and only some of them are true.
Click to expand...
I’d say the historicity of Buddha is far more problematic than the historicity of Jesus. We can debate the veracity of the Gospels and writings of later Christians, but that Jesus existed is something I don’t think anyone can reasonably dispute.
 
Tacitus josephous

And most morden historians including Bart ertman and more

It’s almost universally accepted that Jesus existed as historical person
 
rossum said:
The same is true of the Buddha. There are a lot of stories about him and only some of them are true.
Click to expand...
It’s worse than that. The stories of the Buddha were developed well after his death and the death of his contemporaries. The Gospels are presented as being the testimony of eyewitnesses, whether written by them or by those who acted as their scribes.
 
And Tradition can simply mean experience. Which is why the east teaches the same as the west regarding this matter.
 
Pagan sources: Tacitus, Seutonius, Pliny the Younger. Jewish sources: Josephus, Philo.
 
Here the nation’s leader was not, when Jesus returned.
There are errors is my only point. And for the record, it is of low value in a spiritual text anyway
 
Bart Ehrman is our go-to expert to confound the mythicists. Very few people with expertise believe a person identifiable with the Jesus of the Gospels did not live. But historians like Ehrman (an agnostic/atheist) will tell you very little is known about Jesus: He was born in Nazareth, he had a mother and father called Mary and Joseph, and siblings (sorry Catholics, see Bart Ehrman to disagree), was a follower of John the Baptist, formed his own movement, went to Jerusalem, was the centre of a disturbance and was crucified by the Roman Governor, who belied jesus to be claiming to be, or was considered to be ‘King of the Jews’. And from memory that’s about it. But a real person? Yes.

A third, or likely more, of all biblical scholars are atheists. Yet all these atheists agree that Jesus existed; although they reject the idea that Jesus was God. If there were the smallest possibility that they could prove Jesus never existed, they would.

These are people, after all, such as Erhman and Pagles, who have dedicat4ed their lives to destroying Christianity.yoe

As far as I can tell, only a pitifully small number of people as Freke and Gandy, Carrier - just a very, very tiny minority of people --insist Jesus never existed. They are vocal, but are laughed at by all real scholars.
 
Gorgias said:
It’s worse than that. The stories of the Buddha were developed well after his death and the death of his contemporaries.
Click to expand...
The Theravada Vinaya and Sutta pitakas date back to the time of the Buddha. The Abhidhamma pitaka is later and specific to the Theravada school.

Mahayana sutras are generally later, though in some cases we have a, much shorter, verse original from which they were developed. For example, the Astasahasrika prajnaparamita sutra was developed from a shorter verse original, the Ratnagunasamkayagatha.
The Gospels are presented as being the testimony of eyewitnesses, whether written by them or by those who acted as their scribes.
Click to expand...
Not all of the Gospels are fully eyewitness accounts, neither Matthew nor Luke were present at the birth of Jesus for example.
 
As far as I understand it, the only historians that don’t believe Jesus existed are those whose atheism prevents them from holding the very reasonable position that his existence is as sure as anyone’s from the ancient world. When I was in college a few years back, Jesus was written about pretty extensively in the textbook. I don’t remember the names of the historians who wrote the book but they didn’t doubt that he was a real person. They didn’t speak of him as the Son of God but they certainly recognized that it’s only reasonable to believe that he was a real person.

Even famous skeptic John Stuart Mill believed he was a real person of unique characteristics.

I know you don’t want Christian sources but in his book Evidence for Christianity, author Josh McDowell explains that even if we didn’t have any of the books of the New Testament, we would know from other sources that he was a real person. Rationally speaking, these extra biblical sources have to be considered seriously.

These historical facts had a big impact in my own journey and with my own doubts. Here’s a quote from the book:

*“even if we did not have any Christian writings, ‘we would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger that: (1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher; (2) many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms; (3) he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; (4) he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; (5) despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64; (6) all kinds of people from the cities and countryside—men and women, slave and free—worshipped him as God by the beginning of the second century.’” *
 
rossum said:
The Theravada Vinaya and Sutta pitakas date back to the time of the Buddha.
Click to expand...
The Vinaya texts date – at the earliest – back to the 5th century AD, well beyond the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. Before that time, there’s the claim of an oral tradition, much like the Jewish Old Testament. By comparison, the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses and those who scribed for them. Luke might not have been present at the birth of Jesus, but he gives details that only Mary would have known. That’s a pretty good eyewitness account!
DaddyGirl2 said:
He’s said many, many times that he’s open to the belief that gods may exist.
Click to expand...
That’s not what his blog post on why he disbelieves says, though…
 
Gorgias said:
The Vinaya texts date – at the earliest – back to the 5th century AD, well beyond the lifetime of the eyewitnesses.
Click to expand...
You are misinformed. We have the Vinayas from both the Sthaviravada and Mahasangika schools, which separated 140 years after the Buddha’s parinirvana. The texts are the same. Unfortunately we do not have any copies of the Mahasangika Suttas. The best we can do is the Sarvastivada Suttas, which date from 230 years after the parinirvana. Again they show no major change other than a reordering of some individual suttas.

You are correct about the dating of the time the scriptures were first committed to writing. Prior to that time they were transmitted orally, and they show it. They are full of repetitions and numerical lists, to make memorizing easier. There is one whole nikaya, the Anguttara nikaya, collecting the numerical lists. Modern translations contain many ellipses to avoid writing out all the repetitions in full.

In Ancient India, writing was a secular art, not suitable for scriptures. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain scriptures were not written down but were for oral transmission only. The Hindu Vedas are an example of a sacred text that was transmitted orally, not in writing, and one which dates back to long before the Buddha.
By comparison, the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses and those who scribed for them. Luke might not have been present at the birth of Jesus, but he gives details that only Mary would have known . That’s a pretty good eyewitness account!
Click to expand...
Which makes Luke, in part, a hearsay account, not an eyewitness account. Hearing about something from someone else is, by definition, hearsay.
 
rossum said:
Which makes Luke, in part, a hearsay account, not an eyewitness account. Hearing about something from someone else is, by definition, hearsay.
Click to expand...
He wrote it down from the eyewitness. And, if we want to talk about “hearsay”, then there’s a whole boatload of questions we need to discuss, not the least of which whether we’re using the definition of ‘hearsay’ from jurisprudence, and if so, if it’s a reasonable definition, and even if so, then what exceptions to disregarding ‘hearsay’ evidence are.
 
DaddyGirl2 said:
40.png
Gorgias:
That’s not what his blog post on why he disbelieves says, though…
Click to expand...
WHY he disbelieves is totally different issue. He’s open to the existence of gods, he just doesn’t see enough/good evidence for it.
Click to expand...
Not what he says, on his blog:
I apparently threw a few people for a loop yesterday when I referred to myself as an atheist. Several readers responded, wanting to know if I had changed my views, since I have publicly stated that I am an agnostic.

I posted on this issue a while back – possibly a long while back – but since I don’t expect everyone to read everything I’ve ever written on this blog (!), I thought maybe I should explain my views again. So – apologies to those of you who have heard this before.

When I became an agnostic – 17 or 18 years ago? I’m not even sure any more – I thought that “agnosticism” and “atheism” were two degrees of basically the same thing. My sense is that this is what most people think. According to this idea, an agnostic is someone who says that s/he does not know whether God exists, and an atheist is someone who makes a definitive statement that God does not exist. Agnostics don’t know and atheists are sure.
Click to expand...
So, to review: he’s calling himself an atheist. He defines an atheist as “someone who makes a definitive statement that God does not exist”, and asserts that he is “sure.”

That hardly sounds like “open to the existence of god.”
 
Gorgias said:
He wrote it down from the eyewitness.
Click to expand...
Indeed he did, so we agree it is a hearsay account. If the eyewitness had written the Gospel, then it would be an eyewitness account, as parts are. However the accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are hearsay accounts, not eyewitness accounts.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top