Jesus: Why I believe He was a failure.

Hi Brian, I just picked out the first of your barrage of points and figured we could work our way through them. The truth is we have several extra biblical sources we can fall back on to support some of the claims made in the gospels and existence of the real Jesus.The writings of a non-Christian Jewish historian named Josephus, from the first century (AD. 93), were discovered which describe the stoning of a man named "James, the brother of Jesus, for transgressing the law of God." Josephus commented that "a wise man named Jesus, who performed many surprising feats, won over many Jews, was condemned to be crucified by Pilate, and that the tribe of Christians who called after him has still not disappeared to this day." Josephus' writings mainly reported on the Jewish/Roman war, so he did not mention much about Jesus. But historians have found him to be accurate with all of his other statements about the war and therefore there is no reason to doubt what he said concerning Jesus. What his report does help establish is that there was a "real" man named Jesus who had drawn many followers and supposedly did many surprising feats. It also establishes that He was in fact Crucified by Pilate just as the scriptures describe. This validated at least those portions of the four gospels and demonstrates that those parts of the Jesus story were not contrived.Some insist that the legend of His claim to deity did not develop until several centuries later. Enter the writings of a Roman historian from the first century named Tacitus. Tacitus stated that "King Nero used a Christian sect who were followers of Christus, a man who suffered the most extreme penalty under Pilate, as a scapegoat for the fires in Rome." He goes on to describe the spread of this religion which is based on the worship of this man who suffered this most ignominious death possible. So here we have a very important testimony from an unsympathetic witness to the success and spread of Christianity, based on a real historical figure--Christ. It's also important to note that Tacitus reported that an immense multitude held so strongly to their claims of his resurrection that they were willing to die rather than recant. So here we have evidence that belief in His deity and resurrection had developed before the end of the first century.Next we should take a look at the writings of a first century Roman governor named Pliny the Younger, who describes how he would ask prisoners if they were Christians, warning them that the penalty was death. He said if they admitted to it 3 times that he would execute them. He stated that they would honor Christ as God. Pliny's writings are further evidence that the early believers in Jesus were already calling Him God, and that this belief absolutely did not develop as a myth many centuries later.The fact that these beliefs about Jesus originated in the first century means that opposition that was there could have easily refuted the claims that the Christians were making about Jesus and His resurrection. To date no such refutations have been found coming from that time period. Some try to argue that refuting Christians was the least on their minds and none would have been bothered with such a task. My question then is how is it that they were so bothered that they went through all the trouble to hunt them down and execute them?Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.

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I would rather inspire one, than impress a thousand.

Hi Brian, thank you for your reply. I am aware that there is some controversy concerning one of the two passages known as the Testimonium Flavianum or the "TF"passage. But I think you are mistaken about it not being very well accepted. My understanding is that scholars just believe that early Christian copyists embellished small portions of the passage and that it is not an all out forgery. One top Josephus scholar named Louis H. Feldman, says that the TF passage "has been almost universally acknowledged" by scholars. See "Josephus," Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pages 990-91. No I agree with the scolars that the portion that has Josephus refering to Jesus as the Messiah is the portion which was obviously embellished by the copyists. Obviously the TF has a few Christian add ons that no Jew would have ever said, like "he was the Christ" and "he appeared to them alive again the third day." But I understand that the majority of scholars conclude most of the TF to be authentic. I didn't say he was flawless Brian. I just meant he was generally accurate with his reports on the war. To the contrary, this is evidence that belief in the resurrection and deity of Jesus came out of the first century and was not just myth that crept in, in the later centuries. I don't think myths form and take hold that fast. Take for example the myths that formed about Alexander the Great. The two biographies that historians consider generally myth free were written close to 400 years after the fact. It wasn't until 5 centuries after his death that the myths began to develop. I'm not sure why you referenced a late second century writer as a contemporary to the occurrences of the early first century? This is not really applicable to any purpose that I know of.My only point to all of this was to demonstrate that your opening comment to this thread where you stated was incorrect. I believe I have well achieved this goal.regards
Brad

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I would rather inspire one, than impress a thousand.