Divinity of Jesus

The exchanges are interesting on eyewitness account and reliability of the NT documents.But I sometimes wonder why textural criticism issues which creep into the Bible Study forum are not channeled to the Forum The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy.Very often here, discussions on the meaning of the Bible text morph into arguments about how soon the authors wrote after the death/resurrection of Jesus or whether Jesus was a real historical figure.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I was away fishing in Canada all last week. UMMM, I don't think so. The passages in Josephus have been shown by quite a few scholars to not be real reliable. If this is the best you got you have got some trouble.As for the Caesar issue. There have been numerous posters here claiming that Jesus has more historical evidence than Caesar. I wanted to nip that thought in the bud.My arguments still stand. There is tons of external evidence for Caesars writings on the Gallic wars that is contemporary to shgow that it is legitimate. The oldest existing copy has no bearing on the legitimacy of the writings

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

NP for the delay time, I understand it is vacation time hehe You have any names about who those scholars could be ?? I know I named one earlier (GA Wells), who probably has been the most prominent one to argue about the historicity of Jesus, all this debate pretty much stems from him I believe. But as I've also said, even Wells abandoned this idea in 2003 ... Ok, I understant your response now. But I would suggest that you simply answer to what I say and not what others usually say when debating this subject. Of course, and I totally agreed with you, suggesting that this last statement should also be equally applied to any historical documents, even biblical manuscripts.

But you can not show this with biblical manuscripts. You want names? If my list of names is longer than your list do I win? Do some objective research on the issue.

quote:

---

"The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations."

​

- Catholic Encyclopedia.

---

SourceAny names I bring up you will assault as having some sort of anti-christian agenda. Do a simple search on google. Josephus debunk. Read the evidence. Can you do that?

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I went to a website on The Credibility of Josephus.
The authors seem to be Israeli researchers.There was a long article with discussion on possible exagerations of Josephus writings. I think if there was question about the reference to Jesus it should have been found at this site from Jewish scholarship. I noticed none.This was the closing paragraph of the article on The Credibility of Josephus But the Internet has a lot of information and misinformation on it. So I will examine your source above to be fair.

Theodoric, Exactly WHAT in that article are you claiming I should pay attention to to discredit the reference to Jesus by Josephus ? What should I derive from this non-commital summary of the contraversy ? Am I suppose to get from that that the matter IS settled and the passage has positively been identified as a forgery ?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Are we off topic yet ?

Since there is such a controversy I think you christianists would think twice about using such a tenuous easily questioned source.Your condescension does not reinforce your argument. There is no need to be an ass.Josephus is a questionable resource to use for the historicity of Jesus Christ. I find the evidence of a later interpolation is overwhelming.You might actually want to read other sources and READ the arguments. I have yet to read an argument that uses actual reasonable arguments to show that they are not later interpolations. If you know of one please let me hear it.These sites use actual historical and literary analysis to look at the evidence.
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm
Non-Christian Testimony for Jesus? – From the authentic pen of lying Christian scribes !!Is there a problem with their arguments? If so what?

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Why would questioning christian sources for historicity of Jesus be off topic?There can be no divinity without existence.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Ok, I have been reading on this for the entire night and I find a little bit of irony that someone such as you would give into believing something as the christ myth.THis is because, from the historians perspective, there is as much a debate about the existence of Jesus as there is a debate between creationism/evolution inside the scientific community from an evolutionist point of view: there is no debate.There are two major proponents of the christ-myth: GA Wells, who is not a historian but a professor of German (who has recanted his beliefs that Jesus never existed in 2003, and so is not a proponent of this view anymore) and Earl Doherty, who has a Bachelor's degree in history. That is pretty much it. All the arguments from other proponents pretty much come from these two.Opposed to their view is all the rest of the community of historians around the world. This fact by itself is of course no proof about which side is true or not. but it is enough for anyone to have serious doubts about the claims of Wells and Doherty.Here is a link from James Hannan who has a PhD in history, and who discusses the christ-myth:Refuting the Jesus MythIt isn't the most complete, but he defends remarquably well the question at hand: the two references of Jesus by Josephus. Which is in the first part (the other 3 parts, though related, discuss other subjects. But you can read them if you want to)

Amazing.First of all to say that GA Wells Earl Doherty are the only proponents of the Jesus Myth is ludicrous. It is disingenuous at best and and an outright lie at worst.I am not going to get into a listing of proponents for or against the theory. This is not a numbers game. It is a strength of argument game.As for your link, I am not sure where to start. First of all if you are going to use someone as a reference maybe you should actually know their name. His name is James Hannam, with an M not an N. He has published one book. This has just been published by a small boutique publisher in Great Britain. I can't tell you a thing about his research on that book.I can tell you about his webpage. His arguments have nothing to back them up. He makes assertions, but has nor references or backing documentation. His main support for Josephus comes from Origen who was born in 182 C.E.(not a contemporary).Hannam's arguments. Lots of supposition. NO evidence.As for his arguments of James the Just again he provides no evidence.

quote:

---

And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.

---

Origen never stated where he got this info. This does no exist in any extant copies of Josephus writing. No where does Josephus say that the destruction of the Temple was tied to the execution of James. This whole idea seems to have originated with Origen. Eusebius later used this and quoted it as coming directly from Josephus.

quote:

---

“These things happened to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, called Christ, for the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.”

---

This exists nowhere in Josephus' wrtings. But Eusebius presents it as a direct quote for Josephus. It is actually a rehashing of the writings or Origen. Not at all.This does not sound like PhD history level writing. He provides no evidence for his theories. It is classic apologetics. I guess that is explained by his motivation.Mr. Hannam makes it clear on his website that he has no intention of being objective.Here is his belief statement
My opinions, beliefs and biases

quote:

---

It is one thing to respect other religions and see God working through them. It is another to say that they are all 'equivalent'. For the avoidance of doubt I have printed below the Apostles Creed which is the oldest and simplest. In my opinion it is the minimum that one can say and remain within the broad Christian fold.

​

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary
Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried
He descended into hell
The third day he rose again from the dead
He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead
I believe in the Holy Ghost
I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints
The forgiveness of sins
The resurrection of the body
And the life everlasting.

---

Hardly an objective researcher and writer.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Do you expect me to believe that the Humanist Net is a great beacon of objectivity ?Is it your opinion then that G A Wells was mistaken to back off of his belief that Jesus Christ never lived?Are you positively taking a stand that the New Testament's Jesus Christ never lived? Or are you just throwing the concept out there as a hypothetical issue to be wrestled with ?I am also still interested in you naming someone during the first 800 years of the first century that went on record arguing that a Jesus of Nazareth never lived at all.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Ummm WTF? Well first of all you and slevesque are misrepresenting Wells. He still does not believe in the historical jesus you do.
Quick snippet form Wikipedia

quote:

---

However, Wells still argues that Paul's Jesus was "a heavenly, pre-existent figure who had come to earth at some uncertain point in the past and lived an obscure life, perhaps one or two centuries before his own time.

---

I still think he is wrong. Minucius Felix in Octavius.In it he disavows that christianity was based upon "a man that suffered death as a criminal"The key is how many people in the first 2 centuries of the common era did not mention this guy.By the way there are only 100 years in a century.Edited by Theodoric, : Fixed error

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Objectivity is something you fundies don't understand. Let me try to explain it to you. This is important because it ties into the whole ID thing.The people that post on sites like humanist.net tend to use evidence. Earl Doherty and others do not start with a premise. They, like scientists, go where the evidence takes them. They have no overarching statement of belief. They have come to their conclusions based upon the evidence they have in front of them. Sort of like scientists and the Theory of Evolution. Now if there were evidence counter to their ideas they would reconsider their ideas and reexamine their premise. This is objectivity. Going where the evidence takes you.Now people like Mr. James Hannam think they are objective, but his statement of belief refutes this. He, like you, are not going to consider any evidence that goes against entrenched belief. Like ID, on the subject of Jesus you have a conclusion you want to get to so you interpret, translate, manipulate, massage and change the evidence in order to get to a predetermined conclusion. That conclusion is the existence of the biblical Jesus. This is not objectivity. Maybe you are one of those fundies that believe objectivity has no place in a discussion about Jesus and christianity. There are many who believe an open mind is a very dangerous thing and to question is anathema.Back to evidence. I repeatedly asked you and sleveesque to provide contemporary, extra biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. Neither of you, and no one else, have or can provide this evidence. If you provide such evidence I would certainly examine the evidence and, if it was verifiable, reconsider my position on this subject. That sir is objectivity.A person that comes to a conclusion based upon evidence is objective. A person that searches for evidence to confirm a preexisting belief is not.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Theodoric, you're not getting off to the best start there. Diminative name calling ("fundie, fundie, fundie,") as you do repeatedly through your post, doesn't impress me that you are going to be a pristine example of a good teacher on objectivity.By the way, I don't mind that the experience of the divinity of Christ is a subjective one. The Apostle John makes it abundantly clear that the purpose for his writing is to bring the reader into a subjective experience of Christ as life. What could be more subjective to a person than the life he lives: I feel that I am coming to the Gospel of John in the proper way when I come looking for a subjective experience. He wrote these things not simply that I may have objective knowledge, even though it be accurate. He wrote them to me that I may believe and have sipritual life in the name of Jesus Christ. So I feel I am coming to the Gospel as it was intended for me to approach it.I think the people MOST prone, in the early years of the Christian church, to have the biggest stake in exposing the fictitious existence of Jesus, had it been the case, would have been the architects of First Century Judaism. They had the most to gain by exposing a totally fictitious Jesus of Nazareth.I don't see the rabbis of first century Judaism writing a lot about who in the world this Jesus of Nazareth could possibly. I can see them disputing His claims. I can see them saying that he was an illegitimate child of Mary and some soldier named Panthera. I do not see them wondering what the hoopla is all about concerning someone who NEVER EXISTED.Likewise, the early "deviants" against the Gospel are not seen arguing that Jesus never existed. Rather we get the impression that Jesus for them, was too good to be real flesh and blood. He was historical to them but had to be a fantasm or non-material manifestation.The early apologetics of the Christain church was not against people denying that a Jesus ever lived. It was against people claiming that He was too good to be physical like the rest of us.