Craziest things atheists/non-believers have said about the Christian faith.

[celticfan1888]

enemy attestation whom?

eyewitness acounts whom?

conversions to Christianity whom?

There's more evidence for him existing than not existing.

[Kasatkin fan]

proofs outside the Bible regarding Jesus ?

Quite a bit. Many of the Apocrypha mention him, often focusing on him.

If you're making the common secular demand for non-religious works that speak of him (I believe Josephus mentions him), you should realize that you're asking for, he was a religious figure and everything speaking of him is going to have that tinge.

It would be like asking for evidence of Octavius from non-political writings, or Julius Caesar from non-military-political sources. I doubt you'll find many non-religious sources that mention Mohammed either.

In fact for the first two of those very important historical figures, the amount of evidence for their existence is far less than for Christ (I have no idea about Mohammed, I'd assume about the same), so if you want to take the position that there is no acceptable evidence that Jesus ever lived, you must of necessity doubt the existence of every historical figure before 1500, and many after.

[lost]

proofs outside the Bible regarding Jesus ?

Quite a bit. Many of the Apocrypha mention him, often focusing on him.

If you're making the common secular demand for non-religious works that speak of him (I believe Josephus mentions him), you should realize that you're asking for, he was a religious figure and everything speaking of him is going to have that tinge.

It would be like asking for evidence of Octavius from non-political writings, or Julius Caesar from non-military-political sources. I doubt you'll find many non-religious sources that mention Mohammed either.

In fact for the first two of those very important historical figures, the amount of evidence for their existence is far less than for Christ (I have no idea about Mohammed, I'd assume about the same), so if you want to take the position that there is no acceptable evidence that Jesus ever lived, you must of necessity doubt the existence of every historical figure before 1500, and many after.

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Mohammed afaik has more historical validity than Jesus.He was an historic figure, involved in military campaigns.

[Achronos]

Josephus was Jewish...

[Irish Hermit]

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Here is a Wiki site which will get you started with investigating the historical evidence...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

[Achronos]

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Here is a Wiki site which will get you started with investigating the historical evidence...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Father if I may add, certain saints like Jerome placed their own misguided pride over the judgment of the Church which in turn would cause a think tank like the Jesus Seminar to come. What I mean by this instead of looking to the LXX for the OT which was approved by the Church, Hebrews, etc to create the Vulgate he instead looked to the Jews of his day for assistance, like the Masoretic text.. So consequently because of his poor scholarship, it's as if the Church couldn't be trusted for one man's voice superseded that of the Church. And of course certain other figures were just adding more fuel to the fire to further create a schism between both western and eastern churches culminating to the Great Schism.

[NicholasMyra]

proofs outside the Bible regarding Jesus ?

Have you considered that the New Testament is 27 separate documents that were only later accumulated into one text?

Because many odd people today consider "the Bible" to constitute a single ancient source.

[Volnutt]

proofs outside the Bible regarding Jesus ?

Quite a bit. Many of the Apocrypha mention him, often focusing on him.

If you're making the common secular demand for non-religious works that speak of him (I believe Josephus mentions him), you should realize that you're asking for, he was a religious figure and everything speaking of him is going to have that tinge.

It would be like asking for evidence of Octavius from non-political writings, or Julius Caesar from non-military-political sources. I doubt you'll find many non-religious sources that mention Mohammed either.

In fact for the first two of those very important historical figures, the amount of evidence for their existence is far less than for Christ (I have no idea about Mohammed, I'd assume about the same), so if you want to take the position that there is no acceptable evidence that Jesus ever lived, you must of necessity doubt the existence of every historical figure before 1500, and many after.

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Mohammed afaik has more historical validity than Jesus.He was an historic figure, involved in military campaigns.

Josephus was Jewish and is considered a trustworthy source for events of his own lifetime such as those of Jesus' life. Real historians don't discount an entire source because it's "religious."


As for secular sources, Tacitus and possibly Suetonius both mention Jesus. Lucian also. Hardly sympathetic sources. Also significant is the fact that no early sceptic (Trypho, Celsus, Porphyry, etc.) was using the argument that Jesus never existed, otherwise the Christian apologetic literature would certainly reflect a rebuttal.

Then there is the Jewish Talmud, a hostile source, which again contains a denigrating treatment of Jesus but not a denial of his existence.

[Volnutt]

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Here is a Wiki site which will get you started with investigating the historical evidence...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Father if I may add, certain saints like Jerome placed their own misguided pride over the judgment of the Church which in turn would cause a think tank like the Jesus Seminar to come. What I mean by this instead of looking to the LXX for the OT which was approved by the Church, Hebrews, etc to create the Vulgate he instead looked to the Jews of his day for assistance, like the Masoretic text.. So consequently because of his poor scholarship, it's as if the Church couldn't be trusted for one man's voice superseded that of the Church. And of course certain other figures were just adding more fuel to the fire to further create a schism between both western and eastern churches culminating to the Great Schism.

That's going a little too far imo. Yes, the Masoretic (which comes centuries after St. Jerome, though I'm guessing you mean its text family) is inferior but it's not so terrible as to throw the entire Church into doubt.

And AFAIK the Jesus Seminar paid little attention to manuscripts, mostly relying on the RSV, which many Orthodox teachers use.

[Asteriktos]

enemy attestation whom?

eyewitness acounts whom?

conversions to Christianity whom?

You're not going to find much, because there wasn't much, until far too late afterwards...

[lost]

religion won`t do... the most convincing evidences are the historical ones... Josephus won`t do eighter he was a christian.. impartial and neutral sources are that which are convincing...

Here is a Wiki site which will get you started with investigating the historical evidence...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

from your link : There are Greco-Roman pagan passages relevant to Christianity in the works of three major non-Christian writers of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries – Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. However, these are generally references to early Christians rather than a historical Jesus. Tacitus, in his Annals written c. 115, mentions Christus, without many historical details (see also: Tacitus on Jesus). There is an obscure reference to a Jewish leader called "Chrestus" in Suetonius. (According to Suetonius, chapter 25, there occurred in Rome, during the reign of emperor Claudius (c. AD 50), "persistent disturbances ... at the instigation of Chrestus".[66][67] Mention in Acts of "After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome."

Charles Guignebert (Professor of the History Of Christianity at the Sorbonne), while rejecting the Jesus Myth theory and feeling that the Epistles of Paul were sufficient to prove the historical existence of Jesus, said "all the pagan and Jewish testimonies, so-called, afford us no information of any value about the life of Jesus, nor even any assurance that he ever lived.

[vamrat]

There are not a whole bunch of historical forces for Jesus...if you throw out the Bible.  Now, for your homework, find some contemporary sources for Alexander the Great.  There are probably more sources about Jesus than there are for Alexander the Great if you accept sources written hundreds of years after the fact.

(And the only people who debate whether Alexander existed believe that Aliens built the pyramids, Atlantis was a real place, and wear their pants on their head...to hold the tinfoil in place.  I hold people who don't believe Jesus existed in about the same regard...)

[Achronos]

There's more manuscripts of the NT than there are any other documents from antiquity.

If Christ never lived there would be no Church. Why would Jews be tortured and killed for something that was just a myth? And taken as a whole, Christianity must be the cruelest hoax ever invented if you subscribe that it was created.

[celticfan1888]

And the only people who debate whether Alexander existed believe that Aliens built the pyramids...

They're space ships I tell ya! 

[Asteriktos]

Why would Jews be tortured and killed for something that was just a myth?

People die for abstract ideas and concepts all the time. It's amazing how pliable people are.

[JamesRottnek]

Well yes, but why would the Jews have been outraged at other Jews believing in a symbolic person who was both God and man, and symbolically died and rose again.  At least, why would they be so outraged as to persecute the Christians?

[Asteriktos]

Well yes, but why would the Jews have been outraged at other Jews believing in a symbolic person who was both God and man, and symbolically died and rose again.  At least, why would they be so outraged as to persecute the Christians?

It was blasphemy, and they weren't restricted by modern ideas of freedom and sensitivity and all that stuff.

[orthonorm]

Well yes, but why would the Jews have been outraged at other Jews believing in a symbolic person who was both God and man, and symbolically died and rose again.  At least, why would they be so outraged as to persecute the Christians?

It was blasphemy, and they weren't restricted by modern ideas of freedom and sensitivity and all that stuff.

Oh to be so unshackled!

[Achronos]

Why would Jews be tortured and killed for something that was just a myth?

People die for abstract ideas and concepts all the time. It's amazing how pliable people are.

But realistically speaking would someone honestly be crucified, behaded, tortured, etc for just an abstract idea or concept? Wouldn't the very act of being exposed to being killed immediately put into question how much veracity is in the claim that Christ rose from the dead?

I'm trying to picture the hysteria whence upon seeing the Risen Christ.

[Volnutt]

Charles Guignebert (Professor of the History Of Christianity at the Sorbonne), while rejecting the Jesus Myth theory and feeling that the Epistles of Paul were sufficient to prove the historical existence of Jesus, said "all the pagan and Jewish testimonies, so-called, afford us no information of any value about the life of Jesus, nor even any assurance that he ever lived.

I think he's smoking crack, but even if he's right, why don't agree with him re: Paul?

[JamesRottnek]

Well yes, but why would the Jews have been outraged at other Jews believing in a symbolic person who was both God and man, and symbolically died and rose again.  At least, why would they be so outraged as to persecute the Christians?

It was blasphemy, and they weren't restricted by modern ideas of freedom and sensitivity and all that stuff.

Belief in a symbolic person was blasphemy?  Wouldn't it also, then, be blasphemy to think of Moses seeing the backside of God, given that God has no body?

[Asteriktos]

Well yes, but why would the Jews have been outraged at other Jews believing in a symbolic person who was both God and man, and symbolically died and rose again.  At least, why would they be so outraged as to persecute the Christians?

It was blasphemy, and they weren't restricted by modern ideas of freedom and sensitivity and all that stuff.

Belief in a symbolic person was blasphemy?

Sure.

Wouldn't it also, then, be blasphemy to think of Moses seeing the backside of God, given that God has no body?

You'd think so, wouldn't ya? *shrugs* I can't explain people...

[NicholasMyra]

It appears Asteriktos wants to avoid easy, unsatisfactory answers.

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