Did Jesus really exist?

[Randy_Carson]

Just because the RCC censored him where it holds sway doesn’t mean that no one no longer reads his books or that his scholarship is any less serious.

He had his say, and his ideas were rejected.

No one is paying much attention to him anymore.

 

[bmonk]

It is highly unlikely that a messianic religion (one that would rapidly transform the ancient world) would form in such a short time after Jesus’ purported death unless there actually was a person whom people would consider a Messiah. Atheists love to posit the idea of “Flying Spaghetti Monsters” as a supposed analog to a belief in God, but you could not form a religion around such an inane personage within the space of a few years, and moreover create a cadre of believers willing to risk becoming a societal pariah within their community and, in some cases, becoming martyrs. People transform themselves and their communities so radically because of real relationships, not fictitious entities.

This is my greatest argument for the existence of Jesus. If Jesus did not exist, how do we explain the early Church? If the Apostles and disciples did not have Jesus as teacher, if they concocted a myth, why did none of them deny that lie rather than experience persecution and death? There are few enough conspiracies that last more than a few years, or a few decades at most–why is there not the least hint that the first generation–or any later generation–of Christians made it all up?

If they did concoct it, they surely chose some odd means: adopting a symbol of shame and curse as its primary means of salvation? Insisting on eating and drinking the savior’s body and blood? Glorying, not in some great figure that everyone would know like Augustus Caesar, but in an obscure country rabbi who came from a family of laborers? Who would be able to get such an unlikely story to last–or try in the first place?

And yet, for all its oddness, nobody has ever been able to show it is in error, in big or small historical facts. He rose from the dead? Who has ever heard such a thing? Yet, if he was crucified, he died (the Romans would not have been mistaken on that point)–and his body was never produced, neither by Romans or Jewish authorities, nor by Christians. And so on. They got the details we know from history right–which means the books were written not too long after the events, when there were still eyewitnesses around. But nobody objected to the stories–so they agreed to their accuracy, in principle.

 

[zz912]

Mythicists I’m most familiar with don’t think that Jesus was an entirely fictitious entity. They think he was initially thought to be a spiritual entity revealed through scripture and personal revelation who was later incarnated, so to speak, in and by the gospel stories.

The Mormon religion has grown as fast, if not faster, than Christianity and is
based on a belief in a spiritual entity – the angel Moroni – and his revelations. Mormons were chased from one end of this continent to the other and some were killed for their beliefs. If that could happen with Mormonism, I don’t see why it couldn’t have happened with Christianity.

False equivalence. The Mormons have never claimed that the angel Moroni was ever a true human being who walked the earth. They do claim that Joseph Smith was a real human being who walked on this earth. Every serious person agrees with them on this assertion.

Same is true about the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. There is NO evidence to suggest He never lived or made up. There is a LOT of evidence to prove He did live and walk this earth 2000 years ago. Any claims or theories about Jesus being a myth are just wild fantasy scenarios based upon no evidence whatsoever.

 

[zz912]

In the field of ancient history scholarship, the stance that Jesus was ahistorical is on a par with the belief that we didn’t really land on the moon (for those who work in the field of aeronautics), or that the holocaust was a myth (for those who work in the field of modern history), or that the 9/11 attacks were stage-managed CIA detonations in New York and robot-controlled empty planes in the Pentagon (for structural engineers and EOD specialists). You’re so far on the fringes of accepted scholarship if you believe any of these four propositions that you are, to use a technical term, a nut-job.

That’s not to say that you won’t find a few nut-jobs in any profession who hold eccentric, bizarre, outré, freaky beliefs that the cohorts of their fellow scholars don’t hold, but we can safely discount them.

Bingo.

 

[mkoopman]

…
And yet, for all its oddness, nobody has ever been able to show it is in error, in big or small historical facts. He rose from the dead? Who has ever heard such a thing? Yet, if he was crucified, he died (the Romans would not have been mistaken on that point)–and his body was never produced, neither by Romans or Jewish authorities, nor by Christians. And so on. They got the details we know from history right–which means the books were written not too long after the events, when there were still eyewitnesses around. But nobody objected to the stories–so they agreed to their accuracy, in principle.

Well, at what time of day was He crucified? Not by Tradition because that has a definite answer, but by the Gospel accounts that show no discrepancies.

The Christians did indeed discover His Body, still do. Of course, the whole thing about His Body being discovered by Christians is a bit fishy. I suspect that will net a great response.

 

[bmonk]

Well, at what time of day was He crucified? Not by Tradition because that has a definite answer, but by the Gospel accounts that show no discrepancies.

The Christians did indeed discover His Body, still do. Of course, the whole thing about His Body being discovered by Christians is a bit fishy. I suspect that will net a great response.

Mark 15:25 says it was the third hour in the morning (9 a.m.), but he does not have the darkness start until noon (sixth hour, Mark 15:33), which is in line with the other gospels (except Luke, which gives no precise time–there’s a lot happening before he mentions the darkness starting at noon. So, the one time inconsistent with the other Gospels (Mark’s third hour) is actually rather inconsistent with itself.

Furthermore, I never claimed there were “no discrepancies.” Eyewitness accounts will, inevitably, differ–memories are fallible, or they simply saw things from different perspectives and so remembered them differently. However, I find the differences among the various accounts to be relatively minor–errors of detail, not the important events–and to be typical of different accounts of the same events, not the more suspicious events where every detail is exactly the same, or where there are very different, contradictory versions, so that you know someone is lying.

Yes–there is an even bigger question on the crucifixion: Did Jesus die after the Passover meal (the day following it, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke) or on the Day of Preparation (as John clearly says)? We don’t really know–and there are various arguments to say there really is no contradiction. Or else one side or the other changed the historical sequence for theological reasons. But again, the point is clear: They wanted the Last Supper and the Crucifixion tied to Passover, as it was historically. Only the details (albeit a rather important detail) is unclear.

 

[cornbread_r2]

False equivalence. The Mormons have never claimed that the angel Moroni was ever a true human being who walked the earth. They do claim that Joseph Smith was a real human being who walked on this earth. Every serious person agrees with them on this assertion.

…]

Another poster asserted that it was unlikely that Christianity could succeed as it has unless it was based on a real person. My analogy demonstrates that a religion can indeed form and flourish around a belief in a purely spiritual entity – in the case of the Mormons, the angel Moroni. (Mormons regard Joseph Smith as a prophet and, therefore, not the equivalent of Jesus.)

 

[bmonk]

Another poster asserted that it was unlikely that Christianity could succeed as it has unless it was based on a real person. My analogy demonstrates that a religion can indeed form and flourish around a belief in a purely spiritual entity – in the case of the Mormons, the angel Moroni. (Mormons regard Joseph Smith as a prophet and, therefore, not the equivalent of Jesus.)

But that is a different case too. The Mormons do not claim Moroni is a living human person, but an angel. We have many cases throughout history of such religions based on spiritual entities–all the pagan religions qualify. We also have religions based on physical persons, such as Jesus (Christians), Mohammed (Muslims), Buddha (Buddhism), and others–one might count the Protestant founders, for example. But has there ever been a successful religion based on a real person who did not exist? At best, we can say that such persons are legendary–that is, on the limits of historical knowledge, so that we cannot be sure they exist or not.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Another poster asserted that it was unlikely that Christianity could succeed as it has unless it was based on a real person. My analogy demonstrates that a religion can indeed form and flourish around a belief in a purely spiritual entity – in the case of the Mormons, the angel Moroni. (Mormons regard Joseph Smith as a prophet and, therefore, not the equivalent of Jesus.)

There are huge differences.

Christianity was a persecuted sect for the first three centuries ending with the Edict of Milan in 313. It was proclaimed “strana et illicita” (strange and unlawful) by Senatorial decree in the year 35; “exitialis” and “detestabilis” (deadly and hateful) by Tacitus; "prava et immodica” (wicked and unbridled) by Plinius; “nova et malefica” (new and harmful) by Suetonius; and “tenebrosa et lucifuga” (mysterious and opposed to light) by Minucius. It was outlawed and persecuted many times and to extreme degrees because it was considered a dangerous enemy to the power of Rome.

Contrast with the above, the fact that Mormonism is the American dream writ large - a cosmic projection of the hopes and dreams of capitalist imperialism and space conquest at the same time. Mormonism fits like a glove onto materialist aspirations by rewarding believers who turn the Protestant work ethic into supernatural materialism culminating in the ultimate imperialist reward of running your own celestial realm.

So, no it isn’t the “equivalent” of Jesus. The equivalent would have been if Joseph Smith preached a message that was detestable to his hearers, was executed in a horrific way and his followers hunted down, fed to lions, cut down or burned alive for three hundred years. Considering Mormonism has only been around for just shy of 200 years and left in relative peace in its own little fiefdom of Utah, there is very little that is equivalent, besides the little discrepancy that it still has some 1800 years to catch up on the survival front.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The Mormon religion has grown as fast, if not faster, than Christianity

This is just false.

Christianity grew at a rate of 40% per decade for the first two hundred years and then exploded to 33 million, over half of the population of the Roman Empire by 350. From about 1,000 Christians in the year 40 to 7,530 in 100 to a little over six million in 300 and 33 million in 350. In the hundred years between 250 and 350, numbers went from about two percent of the population to slightly over half.

Source: huron2.aaps.k12.mi.us/smitha/HUM/PDF/Growth-of-Chr.pdf

To be in any way equivalent, the numbers of Mormons will need to mushroom from the current 6 million to 160 million in the next 60 years. I don’t think that will happen. However, if it does, then you will have what can be called an equivalency, at least in numbers, though not in terms of obstacles that needed to be overcome.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

The Mormon religion is also declining in numbers due to an increased exodus by members, which has led to concern within the Mormon church hierarchy:

A look at a current trend in Mormonism with James Walker, president of Watchman Fellowship

Why are Mormons leaving the church “in droves?” The surprising question was posed to Elder Marlin K. Jensen, church historian and recorder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The answer may be equally surprising.

James K. Walker, president of Watchman Fellowship, an independent Christian research and apologetics ministry focusing on new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age, spoke at the 2013 Capstone Convention in Salt Lake City and addressed the question of why Mormons disbelieve.

While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (LDS) took 117 years from its founding to reach its first 1 million members, growth in the 20th century and beyond is said to be closer to one million added worldwide every three years, Walker said. In the 1980s, author and historian Rodney Stark predicted that the LDS church could reach world religion status if the growth rate continued.

Then something changed.

“Something went very badly wrong on the road to world domination,” Walker said.

A Jan. 31, 2012 Reuters special report, “Mormonism besieged by the modern age,” reported on Jensen’s unscripted, candid remarks to the question posed above that were recorded while speaking at a small gathering at Utah State University.

Reporters Peter Henderson and Kristina Cooke wrote this:

Did the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints know that members are “leaving in droves?” a woman asked.

“We are aware,” said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. “And I’m speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church. They really do know and they really care,” he said.

“My own daughter,” he then added, “has come to me and said, ‘Dad, why didn’t you ever tell me that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?’”

The reporters note the “rising tide of questions” from church members about issues regarding the Book of Mormon and the historical problems that have been “largely glossed over” by Mormon leaders.

Walker pointed out that Jensen placed blame on the internet. The article reported this: “For the younger generation, Jensen acknowledged, ‘Everything’s out there for them to consume if they want to Google it.’”

As to the solution of the internet problem and disaffected Mormons, the article said this:

With defections rising, the church has launched a program to staunch its losses. The head of the church, President Thomas Monson, who is considered a living prophet, has called the campaign “The Rescue” and made it his signature initiative, according to Jensen…. “The church has a very progressive research and information division, with tremendous public opinion surveyors,” he said. Among other steps, it has hired an expert in search-engine optimization to raise the profile of the church’s own views in a web search.

The solution is to launch a public relations endeavor, Walker pointed out.

“It’s all about trying to develop spin. It’s all about trying to do surveys to find out what people think. This is the work of a public relations office,” Walker said. “It’s not about setting the record straight. It’s not about becoming honest and setting the record straight about the past.”

Changes within Mormonism scholarship, including the firing of Daniel Peterson as editor of Mormon Studies Review, seem to imply that the church may be backing away from its aggressive defense of Mormon history and scriptures, Walker noted.

“It looks to me as an outsider, and I’m speculating here, that apologetics and defending the faith is not part of ‘The Rescue’ plan,” Walker said.

Of note also is the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) that reports that the true account of Mormon membership in the United States is 4.4 million rather than the more than 6 million claimed by the church. The survey was based on adults who self-identified as Mormons and factored in an average number of children per family.

The ARIS concluded that the number of converts to Mormonism is about equal to the number leaving. The church is “treading water,” the report said.

Walker said the information is new and surprising, but that the implications are significant.

“It takes almost all of the church’s multimillion dollar missionary, proselytizing, and advertising budget just to offset the Mormon exodus,” Walker said.

defendmag.com/mormons-leaving-lds-church-part-1

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Compare those numbers to the Catholic Church in America which is actually…growing, despite what the innumerate media says.

An excellent article on the Catholic population, and the counterintuitive nature of statistics:

nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2010/11/pies-damned-pies-and-statistics-is.html



From the article:

All things considered, Catholicism does a better job of keeping those raised in the faith than any Protestant denomination (68% of those raised Catholic remain so as adults). The typical response to this is “but Protestants are just switching denominations” as if moving from one denomination to another is similar to Catholics switching parishes and having your records “sent over.” In the real world (as opposed to the categorizations within sociology of religion) such a point of view seems a bit foolish.

As a term, “Protestant” has significant meaning historically and sociologically but it is not an institution and few Americans actually identify their faith as such and instead name the denomination of their church. If someone leaves a Methodist church for a Baptist church that is a real change for the individual and both churches. The churches have independent memberships, styles of worship, and are completely separate entities. I don’t think Presbyterian churches are just “fine” with losing an estimated 59% of those raised in that denomination if these individuals simply go to another Protestant denomination. I’m sure they consider these losses religious switching and real change regardless of the characterizations researchers or the media attempt to make about people “just going to another Protestant church.”

Also, the Pew study did not discover some “new” phenomenon of religious switching. This is rather old news among social scientists who study religion (e.g., see Bradley Wright, a sociologist, and Rodney Stark, an economist, commenting in “The Leavers”). However, it was news to the media and the general public who seem to believe the switching is as recent as the study and news stories about it.

The losses that the Catholic Church has experienced are regrettable but also quite normal (and as shown above among the most minimal compared to other religions or even the “Nones”). In a free and religiously diverse country, no religion will keep 100% of those raised in the faith and are unlikely to maintain even 90% or 80%. Note that Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey report estimates that 31.4% of the U.S. adult population was raised Catholic. However, you will never find a time historically in the data when anywhere near 31.4% of the U.S. population actually self-identified as Catholic. How can this be? Because losses have occurred over such a long period of time. Many believe the Pew study indicates a recent mass exodus from the Church. This is clearly not the case. Both Pew and CARA research shows the losses have occurred over many decades—the lifespans to date of all those alive now who were raised Catholic. CARA surveys indicate a half of the losses occurred before 1988 and there is no year or short period of time that stands out as an outlier that would indicate a sudden large drop in Catholic affiliation.

The losses incurred by the Catholic Church have also most often been among a very specific group—young people. As Pew found in a follow-up to the Religious Landscape study: “Almost half of Catholics who are now unaffiliated (48%) left Catholicism before reaching age 18, as did one-third who are now Protestant. Among both groups, an additional three-in-ten left the Catholic Church as young adults between ages 18 and 23. Only one-fifth who are now unaffiliated (21%) and one-third who are now Protestant (34%) departed after turning age 24. Among those who left the Catholic Church as minors, most say it was their own decision rather than their parents’ decision.” Similarly, CARA surveys have estimated the median age of a former Catholic to be 21. Thus, the poster-image for former Catholics is not a middle-aged New Englander of European dissent storming out of the pews in anger. Instead it is a disaffected teenager.

Following the Pew study, many now often frequently cite that “one in ten Americans” is formerly Catholic. What these individuals seem not to realize that one in four is Catholic. In general people don’t have a good understanding of the sheer size of the Catholic population. For example, I have noted elsewhere that the recent trend in infant baptisms is down slightly. However, there are still enough people joining the Catholic Church each year to sustain the population. In 2009, The Official Catholic Directory reported 857,410 infant baptisms, 43,279 adult baptisms, and 75,724 receptions into full communion in U.S. dioceses. This totals 976,413 in one year (and does not include the number of former Catholics who have returned to the faith or immigrants who entered the Church elsewhere and who moved to the U.S. in this year). To put that in context, the number of new Catholics in 2009 would make this one-year cohort of new Catholics approximately the 26th largest membership Christian church in the United States (also similar in size to all Jehovah’s Witnesses or about half of all Muslims in the United States).

Q: The Catholic Church is inflating their numbers. There is no way this many people are still Catholic.

A: The Church has very little to do with the data utilized here. They are derived from polls over which the Church has no control or influence as well as U.S. Census data. The polling estimates are based on “self-identification” of respondents and these are almost always larger than the Church’s own estimates either in The Official Catholic Directory or Vatican statistical publications.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

If we break the CARA statistics down, we find the group that has the worth retention rate is…atheists.



As I said, the new data since released indicates Mormonism is dealing with a loss rate that roughly matches their conversion/birth rate.

So you can comfort yourself that if it’s hard to raise a Catholic family sometimes, it’s even harder to raise an atheist one. Their retention rates are really lousy.

 

[arnoldoe]

I don’t know about the historical record for Alexander, but there are no contemporary historical accounts of the Emperor Nero. The oldest account of Nero was written 50 years after his death, by someone who was a young child when Nero died. The next two oldest accounts were written 150 years after his death.

He was the flippin’ Emperor of the Roman Empire - of the Caesars, his 14-year reign was the second longest. Yet, we have more historical evidence for Jesus than we do for the most powerful man on earth for 14 years, the Emperor Nero.

I don’t know why you keep using this false example…

 

[DavidFilmer]

I don’t know why you keep using this false example…

Ummm, because it’s actually not false???

Would you care to actually cite a Roman (any Roman - even a patrician) whose writings survive to this day who was a contemporary of the Emperor Nero?

You haven’t done so in other threads. I doubt this thread will be any different.

Sigh. Same old same old. Never a citation, no matter how many times I ask for one. Sigh.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I don’t know why you keep using this false example…

From Wikipedia:

Historiography

**The history of Nero’s reign is problematic in that no historical sources survived that were contemporary with Nero. **These first histories at one time did exist and were described as biased and fantastical, either overly critical or praising of Nero.[174] The original sources were also said to contradict on a number of events.[175] Nonetheless, these lost primary sources were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Nero written by the next generations of historians.[176] A few of the contemporary historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder all wrote condemning histories on Nero that are now lost.[177] There were also pro-Nero histories, but it is unknown who wrote them or for what deeds Nero was praised.[178]

The bulk of what is known of Nero comes from Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who were all of the senatorial class. Tacitus and Suetonius wrote their histories on Nero over fifty years after his death, while Cassius Dio wrote his history over 150 years after Nero’s death. These sources contradict on a number of events in Nero’s life including the death of Claudius, the death of Agrippina, and the Roman fire of 64, but they are consistent in their condemnation of Nero.

A handful of other sources also add a limited and varying perspective on Nero. Few surviving sources paint Nero in a favourable light. Some sources, though, portray him as a competent emperor who was popular with the Roman people, especially in the east.

Hope this helps. :tiphat: