The Historicity of Jesus Christ

Disturbing Psychopath said:
Whether Jesus was a historical person or not is completely irrelevant to religion or critics of the religion.
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Agree!!! Totally.

Jesus teachings are still valid. If he was real and said those things: great! Cool! If he wasn't real and those teachings were attributed to him: no problem!

Just finding an historical Jesus does NOT in any way prove that any of the supernatural stuff follows from that.
 
Ross Dolan said:
By the way...I am not a naysayer.

I have no independent knowledge of whether Jesus, as an individual person, existed...and I have no accounts which I would consider definitive. The question of whether a single person, Jesus, ever existed is still unanswered at this time. I will not hazard a guess of "yes" or "no" on the question.
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We would have to basically almost abandon the field of ancient history as an academic discipline if we always required real-time eyewitness statements for anything to be credible.
 
Hume said:
Whether Jesus was a historical person or not is completely irrelevant to religion or critics of the religion.
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If Jesus had not been a historical person, the history of Western Civilization would have been completely different and would be unrecognizable to us.
 
Deranged Psychopath said:
Christianity has long ago proven to be worthless.
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Gotta disagree with ya on this one. Western Civilization has as its common societal touchstones primarily those concepts around what was developed by the Christian Church. HIstorically the Church has been at the heart of Western Civilization. Granted today we are MUCH more secular and, I agree, for the better.

But there's still a lot of value to the TEACHINGS of the faith. Regardless of whether the teacher was real or not or was real but didn't say those things.
 
Hume said:
Christianity has long ago proven to be worthless.
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Whether or not that's true, it doesn't change that fact that the trajectory of western civilization had been one long arc from the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
 
Ross Dolan said:
I do also.

BUT there are accounts of his existence backed by lots of evidence...all of which I consider definitive.

Not so with Jesus...especially the parts about his "miracles" and such.

There are no reliable accounts of Jesus. Mostly just the words of admirers...and others, like Paul, who took their word about his existence.

Accepting their accounts would be like accepting the accounts of MAGA moron's about Trump.

Jesus may well have existed...and if he did, he was socially and morally very advanced for his age. I have no problem using much of what he preached as the basis for my personal morality and inclinations.

I just wish more Christians felt that way.
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If you reread my post, you'd know that I'm not a fan of "miracles" either. There is ZERO evidence of miracles, magic, ghosts or anything else that violates the laws of the natural universe.
 
Cypress said:
We would have to basically almost abandon the field of ancient history as an academic discipline if we always required real-time eyewitness statements for anything to be credible.
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"We" would not. I am just talking about myself in this post. I set a higher standard for some things which all the rest of the world is free to ignore.
 
Ross Dolan said:
"We" would not. I am just talking about myself in this post. I set a higher standard for some things which all the rest of the world is free to ignore.
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The Wikipedia Scholar is, however quite correct. Many historians will point out the thin evidence we have for real people we just "accept" were real on less evidence.

The reason Jesus is special is because if Jesus was real then it opens the POSSIBILITY that his ministry was real and, by extension that he was, indeed the Son of God (said in your best John Wayne accent).

I think it's cool if people want to dig in and find out if there really WAS a real life itinerant apocalyptic teacher wandering Judea in the first century (apparently a quite common thing) and it is interesting that THIS PARTICULAR SECT survived while so many fell by the wayside.

But at the end of the day the TEACHINGS stand as valuable on their own. Regardless of the historicity of Jesus.

Personally I'm OK either way: real Jesus or made-up Jesus. The teachings are the good stuff. It would be cool if he was real but not absolutely necessary.
 
Hume said:
So? You say that as if it is supposed to be profound.
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No, I said it because you and Perry PhD keep asking why it matters if Jesus was historical.
I'm saying it matters, because without Jesus, Athens, and Rome, the trajectory of western civilization would be completely unrecognizable to us.
 
Cypress said:
No, I said it because you and Perry PhD keep asking why it matters if Jesus was historical.
I'm saying it matters, because without Jesus, Athens, and Rome, the trajectory of western civilization would be completely unrecognizable to us.
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I did not ask why it matters. I stated it does not matter.
 
Cypress said:
No, I said it because you and Perry PhD keep asking why it matters if Jesus was historical.
I'm saying it matters, because without Jesus, Athens, and Rome, the trajectory of western civilization would be completely unrecognizable to us.
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I will take Athens over Christianity. It is a failed religion.
 
Ross Dolan said:
"We" would not. I am just talking about myself in this post. I set a higher standard for some things which all the rest of the world is free to ignore.
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I get it.

My two cents:

Tacitus and Josephus were well regarded historians, and I think it's unlikely they were the type of men to just randomly write down vague rumors and spurious innuendo.

As for firsthand witness attestation, Gospel of Mark is probably the firsthand attestation of Peter, as recorded and organized by his companion Mark. Though we shouldn't trust it as truly biographical in the modern sense of biography, it nonetheless can be mined for historical data.
 
Cypress said:
I get it.

My two cents:

Tacitus and Josephus were well regarded historians, and I think it's unlikely they were the type of men to just randomly write down vague rumors and spurious innuendo.

As for firsthand witness attestation, Gospel of Mark is probably the firsthand attestation of Peter, as recorded and organized by his companion Mark. Though we shouldn't trust it as truly biographical in the modern sense of biography, it nonetheless can be mined for historical data.
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IF Jesus actually existed (as an individual) or not is not really the point for me. The fact is that at some point, people decided that a GOD existed...and that the GOD had sent this Jesus to Earth to "die for our sins."

I do not know if there are any gods...and I certainly do not know what any that might exist may or may not do.

The fact that some people have made blind guess that a single GOD exists and decided to send its "only begotten" son down to Earth (this tiny speck of dust in an immense universe) to die in order to forgive people for offending him...sounds like garbage to me. The supposition that we are all "sinners" (we all offend this GOD) seems to me to more reasonably indicate a defect in the GOD than in the humans the GOD supposedly created.

And why would the GOD, who could easily forgive these supposed insults, demand that humans first torture and kill its son before doing so?

The Jesus who taught decent lessons seems like a good Joe. The notion that he was a "gift" from a GOD who wanted him tortured and killed in order to forgive all of humanity for constantly offending it...is a stretch.

I say, stick with the lessons...don't worry about who they came from...and get on with life.
 
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