Rock #fundie

Rock #fundie whywontgodhealamputees.com

So do you believe one hundred percent that Julius Caesar was real and walked the earth? I find it very interesting that nobody questions the existence of any historical figure except for Jesus. I believe that people are scared to admit that he walked the earth because if you believe that then you will have to make a choice whether to follow Him or not.

68 comments

old comment by Redhunter

I believe that many of the caesers claimed divinity, including Julius. Didn't make it so.

Jules had many a statue or coin made with his face on it, some can still be found in the ground today. Jules was known to have existed for more then three years. People wrote about him extensively DURING his lifetime. Jules started campaigns against others and kicked off a civil war or two. And then he managed to write of his military conquests and stratagies in his Commentarii's, which were written by Jules himself. He was also a poet. We know enough about Julius Caesar to know that his family had a history of epilepsy, of which he himself suffered from. He was written about by literally hundreds of men, and his face captured forever in metal and stone.

Jesus: Three years of wandering before he dies.
No athenticity outside the bible.
The bible wasn't written by the men given credit.
The bible was written long after the fact when the facts were hazy at best.
Nobody else cared enough to write all of the supposed wise words of jesus down.
The stuff in the bible about jesus is in only four books; three of which are nearly identical.
The bible can't even get jesus' grandfather right.

No brainer.

old comment by Anonymous

Concerning Jesus's existence, it's true that the evidence is scanty and fragmented but that is not evidence of his non-existance. Jesus was a very unimportant character, not just for the Jewish authorities(the ones who wrote), but also, and most importantly, for the Roman authorities. If we add the fact that not many documents have survived from that time, it's understandable that you don't find, outside the Gospels, much information. Even Josephus and other writers give very ambiguous and fragmented information. Anyway, even if we find such abundant data for a character whose fame came much later than his death, no data will confirm that he's the son of God and, believe it or not, mainstream Christians agree on that. Jesus, as a divine figure, is a matter to be believed, I mean, either you believe it or not, you can't prove it.
Now, Caesar is a far different case. There is plenty of documents who talk about him, he even authored works himself, why?, because, for a given(powerful)civilisation, as the Romans were, there is plenty of information about such a prominent figure. And moreover, believing in his existence doesn't mean that your beliefs or life had to change, which makes his existence less questionable.

old comment by sandman

Hmmm...let's see....

Julius Caesar was one of the most famous and well-documted historical figures of the ancient world. There are even references to him in the records of ancient China, Egypt, Inda, and the Northern African kingdoms. His existence has never been disputed by anyone, the evidence to attest to his existence is overwhelming and is comprised of litterally millions of varried and regionaly diffuse sources.

Jesus Christ's existence is attested to in only a single, self-authoratative book compiled (and possibly written) hundreds of years after he lived and died. No evidence as to the reality of Jesus Christ of Nazareth exists anywhere but in the Bible. There are no mentions of him in the ancient Roman records, or the Greek records, or the Palestinian records, or the Egyptian records, or anywhere else. There are records and evidence to the existence of other individuals in the Bible: Pontious Pilate, Rameses and Rameses II, Herob, and other political figures, but there is no idependant, objective record of Jesus.

That's why the existence of Jesus is contested but the existence of Caesar is not.

old comment by Nyssa

Redhunter,

"The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.

I am aware that the sources you cite have been questioned and some are controversial but the issue is more that they have been altered by later writers than that they are false to begin with. I personally feel that with the amount of 'borrowing' the christian faith has done from other religions, and teh distortions of other historical figures that it is more likely Jesus existed and has become somewhat of a mythical being than that he was entirely created.

old comment by Redhunter

Nyssa

I actually agree with you. There may well have been a man that this was all based on, but not a deity by any stretch.

But the "proofs" from the men I listed, at best, indicate that the writers heard of a man who was the leader of the christians, but none of them show that they even knew his name much less that he existed outside of rumours that the writers had heard of. And all of them were written quite a while after the fact. We're talking decades to hundreds of years later. Hardly concrete. I'm just disputing the so-called evidence, as I've looked a bit into it in the past. Basically it wouldn't be allowed in a court of law. It's pretty much heresay.

But I agree with your assertion that he was probably a man or many men who were cobbled into a larger than life charactor.

old comment by Anonymous

For those of you who say that there are no contemporary evidence for Jesus's existance. Don't look at it with the current perpective.
One, not all the documents and works of the time have survived. Moreover, most of them have been lost due to wars, bad conserving conditions or stealing, among others.
Second, Jesus was not a prominent figure after, at least, the third century BC, where most of the data about him was probably lost. For the Jewish authorities he was a traitor whose existence was not worth recording, a carpenter with no ambition and a wimp. For the Romans, he was a religious crackpot, a harmless one and not particularly prominent.
Now, if there were proofs of his existence, as many of you have mentioned, none of them would prove that he's the son of God. Fine, believe it or not it's what most Christians believe.

old comment by Brian X

I've always thought that people who insist that there was no historical Jesus are really stretching things way further than really warranted. A reasonable case can be made that the historical Jesus was in no way divine, but the idea that there was in fact a historical Jesus is actually rather trivial to assert, given how common would-be messiahs were in first century Judea and Galilee. As for contemporary documentary evidence, where would we even look? Surely any birth records would have been destroyed by the time of Masada and the empire-wide crackdown on Jewish rebellion, and as for documentary evidence of the crucifixion, given Pilate's well-known excessive brutality, would his soldiers have even bothered making a record of crucifying some random street preacher?

On the other hand, it's pretty clear that if he did exist, he was pretty much a nobody until his followers started spreading his message.

old comment by Dr.Shrinker

Which Jesus? The one from Mark who mostly talked about the kingdom of heaven, or the one from John who talked mostly about himself? The one from Matthew who said that the law would stand forever, or the one from Luke who said that the law wasn't important? The one who died after the Passover began, or the one from John who died before? The one who asked, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" before he died, or the one who said, "It is finished" and then died?

Perhaps you mean the Jesus of Paul who, evidently, didn't do anything worth noting besides die. Or perhaps you mean the Jesus from one of the apocryphal gospels that didn't make it into the NT.

And please don't try and tell me that they are all talking about the same man (aside, perhaps from the apocryphal accounts). The gospel accounts contradict each other fatally. Some of the information they provide must be erroneous. It is possible that they all are.

old comment by David B.

Personally, I don't believe there was a historical Jesus. I find the evidence for any such person to be either ambiguous or without provenance. Add in the number of deliberate "insertions" by later writers and you have effectively bupkiss, outside the bible.

To the argument that Jesus would have been a minor figure, perhaps a historical footnote at best, until Christianity took off, I can only add can you show there was only one?

Yeshua/Yehashuah wasn't a particularly uncommon name, and prophets, messiahs, apocalyptic preachers and freedom fighters were fairly commonplace if the Roman records of their executions are to be believed, there were probably a few Yeshuas in amongst the Simons, Judases and Johns. Hell there might even have been a Brian for all we know.

There is no historical "Jesus", i.e. a figure corresponding to the character portrayed in the bible, because that figure performed miracles and drew crowds and was anything but easily overlooked. Shear away the mysticism, the heroicism, the mythologising and the fictionalising, and what you are left with isn't Jesus the historical nobody, but Jesus the historical anybody. The historical inspiration could stem from any number of people, of any name, or perhaps none at all, but to assert there was a historical figure, maybe called Jesus, that inspired Christianity is a claim requiring evidence, and it has none.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

"So do you believe one hundred percent that Julius Caesar was real and walked the earth? I find it very interesting that nobody questions the existence of any historical figure except for Jesus."

Ramses II. It does his case - and place in history - re. his existence no harm, for him to have an actual body.

'Belief'? Facts - and hard, solid, physical evidence - destroys 'Belief'. Every time.

Moral; No evidencee, no acceptee. 'I've shown you mine, you show me yours'. That phrase exists for a reason. See you in that museum in Cairo, Cock.

@rubber chicken

"King Arthur"

Whilst seen purely as a legendary figure, nay, a metaphor for the nobility and honour of Britons, his story to this day still has great cultural power in my country. There are enthusiasts/academics of Arthurian legends/'Arthuriana', who study/collect any & all direct writings/indirect references to such; from the earliest writings, right up to pop-culture-esque mentions, in an episode of "Babylon 5", the Sci-fantasy comic "Camelot 3000" (great art by "Judge Dredd" artist Brian Bolland, BTW)- and, speaking as an otaku, even in recent years the VN by Type-Moon - and the anime adaptations - of "Fate/Stay Night", in which King Arthur is reincarnated in 21st Century Japan as the cute female 'Sabre'.

We Brits know he doesn't exist; never had, never will. But it makes for a cracking story, nonetheless. One word: "Excalibur."

So one wonders if fundies are purely projecting their own 'beliefs' in the form of a 'Saviour', the so-called Jesus: himself, purely a cultural metaphor, only they didn't get the memo, re. what professors of Theology know about the subject.

old comment by Felix Wilde

David B. said it best. There was almost certainly a messanic claimant/insurgent called Jesus. That would be the case with or without Christianity. However, the fact is, Yahweh Presents The Bible's Jesus of Nazareth is very poorly represented in historical evidence, even compared to other religions' founders.

I believe the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals were mentioned before, although in a misleading context. Nearly no one believes they were responsible for all those historical accounts of a Jesus, but they were certainly a scandal for the church. They were more to do with internal church politics than proving Christianity though.

Yes, it has been opined that Socrates was fictional.

And lastly, comparison ftf. Two people who were called gods both existed. One very specifically and definitely, the other kinda sorta. Well done on tricking us!

old comment by Canadiest

"I find it very interesting that nobody questions the existence of any historical figure except for Jesus."

Because you believe the book which is the only source that claims there was a Jesus, you believe a book that has a world flood, talking animals, mistakes and contradictions, in fact the Jesus gospels all contadict each other.

Besides, why do you people, realizing yourself that Jesus isn't in the records of surrounding countries, not even the Romans, always insist on using well recorded figures like Ceasar, Alexander or Washington when you compare other historical accounts to Jesus?

Much closer comparisions would be Achilles or Hercules.

When Python was working on The Life Of Brian their research led them to Roman and Hebrew accounts that revealed Isreal was absolutely littered with travelling prophets, and that the holy men had predicted the coming of a savior for decades, giving them the mistaken for the savior plotline to frame the movie.

Biblical scholars also acknowledge these writtings and many suggest that Jesus is probably an compiled figure derived from several prophet/messiah stories. Mithras looms large in the shadows as well.

You're confusing "historical figure" and "mythological figure". Some historians accept that an influential man at the origin of the gospels may have existed, but also agree that the only overwhelming references are in books collected in the canon, that the oldest tradition could only have originated a generation or more later, that there was human tradition and claim development, that supernatural claims like miracles and virgin birth are part of such tradition and not historical. If you want to prove the existence of the supernatural, the onus is on you and claims in texts is not evidence.

Rock #fundie whywontgodhealamputees.com

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