Originally Posted by
Greenbeanz
Originally Posted by
VictorCharlie
Something that hasn't been addressed if all of what Green and Mars say is true why academics as a whole do not share their beliefs? One would also think that after all of these years it wouldn't be hard to find secular evidence of a conscience decision to fabricate the life of Jesus. I mean if true we are talking about possibly the biggest ruse in history. Seems like it would be a hard thing to cover up over the ages.
The fact is there is very little secular evidence FOR the existence of Jesus. The point is most academics do not consider the Bible a reliable source of historical evidence for anything. Even Christians insist that it cannot all be taken literally. It is not a conspiracy theory, it does not require a cover-up to doubt the existence "of the Jesus described in the Gospels". If even
one supernatural thing attributed to this Jesus is questionable, which it clearly is from a secular point of view, then the life of Jesus has already begun to be fabricated. Factor into this, the proliferation of messianic figures documented as existing during the same time period and this along with Judeo-Hellenic tradition of employing allegory and it is not difficult for someone without faith to assume that the Jesus figure talked about in the Gospels is a composite, a figurative head of a movement that wished he was the liberator of Isreal, something he did not turn out to be.
Again you are simply wrong. The Bible has proven itself an uncannily accurate source over and over again, and the there is more written material about Jesus than other ancient historical figure.
You seem to get confused about your quest for secular information. We have already proven he existed, Tacitus said so, and whether you think so or not Tacitus is the most important Roman historian and source of most of our information regarding the Roman world.
So we know he was historical.
What you are asking for is secular confirmation of the miraculous claims regarding Jesus, which is simply apalling logic, as as soon as somebody reports miraculous claims about Jesus they cease to be secular.
Also, you seem confused as to what the BIble actually is. It's not, as you seem to believe, one big book, rather it is a collection of 66 seperate works, written more than 1000 years apart, by multiple authors, in different counties and in different languages.
The New Testament alone has 9 seperate authors, all of the agreeing on the nature and claims of Jesus as Christ.
There are nine seperate works recording Jesus as the Son of God, not just one Bible as you seem to understand it. That is more written material than any other historical figure of that time period. Then we have the apocraphyal gospels and other writings as well. His historicity is attested beyond doubt, the problem for you, is that all of these dozens of scrolls and manuscripts present him as a Messiah, and are thus self falsifying for you.
But it remains impossible to provide evidence to convince you of an historical Jesus because, by definition, once someone reports him as such, to you they cease to be secular and thus are just speaking religious nonsense.
Even more strange is your denial of even the leading atheist in the world, who admits Jesus actually lived. You say you are not a follower of Dawkins as if that means your opinion counts equally with his.
It does not. Dawkins has written books and presented television series attacking the Christian faith, he is familiar with all the evidence against the BIBle and against Jesus. If he is forced to concede that Jesus was real then that is because the evidence of that is overwhelming.
Seriously, what knowledge of this subject do you suppose you have that Richard Dawkins wasn't aware of?
Finally, in that clip of Dawkins admission you then went on to say the man he was debating was an idiot talking nonsense, again showing you simply aren't understanding the nature of the problem.
What the Irish priest was saying was damning. He got Dawkins to admit that Jesus was a real man. He then confornted Dawkins with the claims that Jesus made about Himself. He claimed to be the Logos, God incarnate. He was forcing Dawkins to explain away the paradox of Jesus being real, and universally regarded as the wisest man who ever lived, and a force for good in the world, with the fact that He claimed to be God made manifest.
It's incredibly hard to really read the gospels, meditate on the words of Jesus, his wisdom and understanding of humanity, and not be moved by it. He was an amazing man, which is why he is revered in almost all faiths and cultures.
To dismiss him as a fictional character, although demonstrably false is so appealing to people because once they concede he was real, they are confronted with the claims He made about Himself. And that is uncomfortable.
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