Is denying that Jesus existed, the atheist equivalent to creationism?
To think, all this Jesus stuff started with some bitch lying about getting knocked up.
>>290641
Not really. You can at least make plausible arguments grounded in historical knowledge that Jesus didn't exist: which will be stronger or weaker depending on how much of the Jesus figure portrayed in the Gospels has to have actually happened for it to count.
Creationism, on the other hand, is just dismissed as flat-out insane even by most religious people, let alone nonbelievers.
>>290641
Pretty much, yeah. As the creatheists why they think academics continue to say Jesus existed and you get Christian conspiracy theories.
As >>290663 said the only way to even make a case is to play semantics games, but then you're still leaving academic thought - historians are interested in recreating the historical Jesus in a way that explains the available historical documentation of Christianity and fits in with his time and place, not on word games.
>>290641
Is there anyone that actually believes that Jesus didn't exist, in this day and age? Is this some kind of American thing?
>>292537
>>292537
(You)
>>290919
>>291905
You guys do realize that I disagree with the equation of Christ Myth to Creationism, right?
One is very plausible if probably untrue. The other is just ridiculous. And especially since I've never even seen how far the "historic" Jesus has to deviate from the popular/Gospel image of Jesus for it to no longer count leaves me with profound doubts.
Some atheists really like to claim Jesus never existed in any form whatsoever, because that means they can completely discredit every form of Christianity, even the ones that aren't insane.
The New Testament is pretty sound as far as religious documents go: Jesus never tells his Disciples to go out and kill infidels or anything; he preaches equally to men and women, and he mainly focuses on morality.
Really, the worst thing he does is say some stuff about hell, but it's not really fire and brimstone type preaching.
With this, they can't really argue the supposed preachings of Jesus are inherently "evil" like you can about the old testament and the Quran where you get laws telling you it's okay to stone people
>>292623
>inherently evil
>moral absolutism
>in 2015
come on now
>>292640
That's why I put it in quotes, you mong.
The kind of zealous atheists who try to discredit religions rely on such arguments.
>>292623
Wtf New Testament are you reading, Jesus advocated a violent rebellion against the Romans
>>292640
>moral relativism
>2015
come on, it's 2015
>>292537
>quoting Chick on anything
>>292655
>Jesus advocated a violent rebellion against the Romans
Then I suppose by, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" he was actually referring to sick ass beat downs, right?
>>292655
>"Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, give unto God what is God's"
>"Turn the cheek"
>"Love one another"
>advocating rebellion
>>292668
Not him, but there are more than a few commentators who equate the statement with "The Romans should be staying in Rome, and shouldn't be near the Kingdom of God."
![[Mwees externally].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/41wfg22.jpg "[Mwees externally].jpg")
>>292674
He's probably referring to the time Jesus instructed his followers to purchase swords.
This then falls apart, because they buy all of two, which he claims is enough, and then rebukes them for attempting to actually use them in a violent manner.
>He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one
...
>When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
>But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
>>292680
Yeah, okay, but the literal translation of ἀποδίδωμι is to render or to give up.
Those commenters mean little, unless they were actually Jesus.
I'm not saying no Christian has ever twisted the purported words of Christ to their own gains, that's obviously not true.
Jesus may have not cared that the Romans were in Judea, but I'm guessing some of those commenters weren't so aligned.
>>292623
Daily reminder; Jesus wrote none of the bible
>>292680
The Christians were massacred by the Jews for refusing to join in their rebellion because they thought it went against Christ's will.
>>292709
>Yeah, okay, but the literal translation of ἀποδίδωμι is to render or to give up.
Yes, and? What is Caesar's? What does he rightfully own?
>Jesus may have not cared that the Romans were in Judea, but I'm guessing some of those commenters weren't so aligned.
And how do you know this? Or anything about Jesus's intentions? The only statements we have of his come from manuscripts that appear well after he died, written by people who almost certainly weren't eyewitnesses, and who very well may have had their own agendas they were pushing.
>>292740
>Eusebius of Caesarea wrote that Christians were killed and suffered "all kinds of persecutions" at the hands of Jews when they refused to help Bar Kokhba against the Roman troops.[30][31]
>>292723
Well, no shit.
The Gospels can't be taken as a one hundred percent accurate account of Jesus' life. Even the Early Church fathers knew this.
it's simple reasoning, as they don't all say the same thing and sometimes contradict one another.
The reason we use the Gospels to attempt to reconstruct Jesus' life and identity is because they're the only documents which attempt to actually portray the words and actions of the possible Historical Jesus.
>>292741
>Yes, and? What is Caesar's? What does he rightfully own
Well, that passage in particular was about Taxes, and Jesus instructed that the Taxes were to be paid.
That was the specific passage, Matt 22:15-22 ,but if you wanted to expand it, it could be expanded to include anything Caesar, or any secular authority, could demand through his earthly power. That lands and taxes may belong to and be taken by a number of different secular authorities, but one's actions and faith belong only to God.
Those commentators you talk about attempt to twist it into saying all the Romans should pack up their togae and hit the brick are not actually attempting anything more than to find a passage in the bible that justifies resisting Roman Rule.
Jesus never outright fights roman rule, he is much more concerned with the religious world. He ousts the merchants from the temple, not the Prefect from the palace.
>>292740
Well obviously they wouldn't accept Bar Kokhba as the messiah if they thought Jesus was
>>292783
Actually, it's in both Matthew and Mark, and in both, Jesus notes the "hypocrisy" of the crowd, and specifically asks for a Roman penny, before telling them they should render it.
It goes into a hell of a lot more than a simple question about taxes, or whence would the hypocrisy come from? Why does he ask whose image is on the coin if it's purely a matter of tribute and taxes, surely money is money?
>Jesus never outright fights roman rule, he is much more concerned with the religious world. He ousts the merchants from the temple, not the Prefect from the palace.
Unless you note things like how Mark's prisoner who gets released instead of Jesus is "Jesus Barabbas". Funny, isn't it, how there are two Jesuses in the prison at the same time, who are both called the son of the father. Dumps a lot of weight on poor coincidence, doesn't it? And when one happens to be a rebel/bandit, well, that really gets you thinking.
>>290641
I like it.
I will use this from now on.
>>292784
You didn't have to accept him as the Messiah to join the rebellion. Only a few people thought he was, he didn't say he was himself.
Let's face it: your hypothesis is completely incompatible with Christ's delight at being told by the Roman soldier about authority, and absolutely incompatible with how Pilate treats him. If Christ said this, then Romans 13 would never have scowed among Christians.
>>292836
>specifically asks for a Roman penny
He actually asks for the coin for the tax, and is brought a denarius in Mathew, after which he then goes into his spiel, but you are right about Mark where he asks about it by name.
I guess the Mathew passage could have implied that it was a denarius, which would have been the coin used for taxing, so I'll take your word for it.
I guess you could see it as you have, or you could see him asking about the likeness as a recognition of Caesar's earthly authority.
Caesar struck the coin and put it into circulation into Judea, so it can be seen as only just to deliver it back when he asks for it is his in the first place.
Using this, one could see Jesus' claim of their hypocrisy as referring to the fact that they would have to ask whether or not it is just to not pay back something which isn't really theirs in the first place.
Assuming this, or rather considering it as any assumption is probably unwarranted in this matter, the hypocrisy is then extended from the coin to the religion, perhaps a claim that the pharisees were holding back something which belongs only to God, holiness, perhaps(?).
>>292851
Buddy Christ is pretty rad
>>292866
Crucified for sedition? Giving him a crown and asking if he's the king of Jews? Yeah, Pialte didn't treat him like a rebel at all.
>>290919
So you believe in the immaculate conception?
>>292897
>Yeah, Pialte didn't treat him like a rebel at all
It's clear in the narrative bible has the Romans having no idea what the fuck Jesus was doing.
Just because they may have seen him as a rebel doesn't mean he was one in our sense, you know, a violent person trying to overthrow a regime.
They seemed to have this vague notion that he was calling himself God, and that's what that referred to.
>>292905
Well, that has nothing to do with the conception of Jesus. That's not even in the bible.
>>292915
It's also clear from the narrative that the Gospels have no idea what 1st century Palestine or Judean society was like.
John mentions that the Priests don't want to go into Pilate's palace because it would make them impure and unable to render up the Paschal sacrifice; this wouldn't be the case unless Pilate left corpses lying around the place, and you'd think someone would have mentioned that. Mark repeatedly calls the various petty rulers kings when their title was "tetrarch". You get repeated Gospel recital of the "Pharisees" getting mad at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, when the wrongfulness of such an act was a Sadducee, not a Pharisee position.
Just because the Gospels say his mission was wholly spiritual and he had no earthly ambtions doesn't mean that this was the case for the actual, historic Jesus.
>>292674
>Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, give unto God what is God's"
This could be pretty rebellious, depending on your reading of the passage. Jesus was an anti-Roman messianic Jewish priest. He emerged in a time of dissent and rebellion against the Romans. To many incredibly pious people, probably including Jesus, Roman occupation was seen as something that needed to end because it didn't have anything to do with God. The passage could easily be read as Jesus kind of weaseling out of answering the question because to him, nothing really belonged to Caesar. He was entirely concerned with Jewish traditions and didn't give a shit about some foreign ruler who supported false gods. He could have just been using a nicer way of saying "nothing belongs to Caesar, if you're serving Rome, you're not serving God."
>>292942
>You get repeated Gospel recital of the "Pharisees" getting mad at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, when the wrongfulness of such an act was a Sadducee, not a Pharisee position
Yeah, but I have to wonder if such mistakes were because of distance or of the ignorance of the people recording them.
Most of Jesus' direct followers weren't scholarly men, and we have little idea how much the average Jew knew about the actual minutia of Jewish rites. It's not like they had Wikipedia or anything.
The writers of the Gospels could have been getting second or third hand information and cobbling narratives together from that.
There are a lot of could haves and what ifs, and you're correct, Jesus could have been any thing or anyone.
It's clear that he wasn't immune to anger, from his outburst at the temple at the very least.
Trying to suss out the complexities of Jesus as an individual is very difficult, as it is for any ancient, and we really only have several vague impressions from any direction.
I personally believe the Christ Myth theory is a bit too sweeping, but I suppose it can't be expressly disproven either. Jesus could be an elaborate hoax, the actual incarnate god, or we could all be hooked up to a box being fed artificial stimuli. We will probably never know.
It's still fun to talk about though
Christians BTFO
>>293029
>not knowing Biblical Greek
>>292942
The Sadducees were the ultra-liberal Jewish school.
>>293153
Not really. There's no one simple classification as to which of the two sects were more "liberal". The Sadducees were simultaneously more literal in their approach to the Torah and the old law, but at the same time were more open to foreign influence: the Sadducees hellenized a lot more than the Pharisee, so they were more liberal in that sense. But it was the Pharisees, not the Sadducees, who pushed for loopholes around the sabbatical debt laws that were strangling the economy, the money payments for personal injuries, beliefs in the afterlife, and that life is more important than almost all of the commandments, sabbath included.
>>292879
An argument I've heard raised is it's interesting that Jesus actually has to ASK for a denarius to demonstrate his point.
Which could be read as implying some message of economic passive resistance.
While Ceasar smelt the coin, and therefor deserves it back, I bet he'll be pretty freaking mad if the Jews decide his money is no good here anymore.
>>293029
>an actor who always plays cringey roles thinking he has the right to tell Christians about anything
And no shit of course the Bible is going to be translated and edited. Not everyone is going to have the time to learn Latin, and of course words have very different meanings when translated between languages. I daresay King James was the only authoritative figure to change the Bible to suit his needs.
>>293029
The New Testament was not written in a dead Language.
Modern Greeks can read Koine Greek just fine.
>>293405
>He thinks the Bible was written in Latin.
Top pleb.
>>293029
The New testament is pretty consistent compared to its oldest fragments.
Granted the first attested scraps we have are about 30 years after the supposed death of Jesus, that's still pretty okay, comparatively.
I always find it funny how thoroughly scrutinized Jesus' existence was. I guess it comes with the territory, but still.
Zoroaster's dates vary by centuries and nobody gives a shit about him. I wish they did. Zoroaster is cool.
>>292709
>>292943
He means that he specifically came NOT to change the powers that rule the Earth but to teach about the powers that rule beyond that. He told them to pay taxes and submit to Roman authority because the kingdom of heaven was near and the New Testament is filled with the motif of submission. Paul thusly went forward and spelled that out more clearly on more than one occasion.
>>293683
>Paul
into the trash it goes.
Peter was right, t.b.h.
>>293664
this
people act like it was something out of the ordinary for personal accounts to be written largely after the fact
do we throw out Grant's memoirs as a primary source because they were written 35 years after the Mexican War? 20 years after the Civil War ended? No. They were oral traditions that were canonized at the end of the apostles lives. Literally no points of legitimate contention here, at least for Matthew, Luke and John.
>>293708
>people act like it was something out of the ordinary for personal accounts to be written largely after the fact
It is out of the ordinary when extraordinary events like those described in the bible (days of darkness the mass rising of saints and earthquakes), as well as other less extordinary events but more likley to be recorded events (like a global tax imposed in Romans) are not discussed in any other source except ones produced decades later (and with no certain author) by a religious group.
>do we throw out Grant's memoirs as a primary source because they were written 35 years after the Mexican War? 20 years after the Civil War ended? No. They were oral traditions that were canonized at the end of the apostles lives. Literally no points of legitimate contention here, at least for Matthew, Luke and John.
Would you think Grants memoirs were accurate if they were the only record for the civil war ever occurring? That there was no government files, or deaths linked to the events and the like?
The reasons you put forward only are valid in the context where we have other sources backing up the general validity of the account given.
Its for that reason why if a president writes a novel we can tell whether its ficition or non fiction
>>293664
>>293708
The problem with the Gospels and Acts though, isn't that they surface far later than the events they depict, it's that they clash with each other and a lot of our other information about the area.
People get titles mixed up, they misquote religious law and the Old Testament scripture. The geography goes all funny, with a shitload of references to places that are known by those names literally nowhere else. Paul's biography in Acts doesn't mesh with what he says about himself in his epistles, and Acts contradicts the Gospels when it comes to whether or not the Sanhedrin had the authority to dish out capital punishment.
And when you have that much vagueness about details of day to day life in the area, it makes you wonder who did write it, since eyewitnesses who were there seem increasingly unlikely.
>>293970
>And when you have that much vagueness about details of day to day life in the area, it makes you wonder who did write it,
Can you give some examples on this? or links/videos?
>>294021
I'm not him but:
Sanhedrin court does not work the way it's detailed in the gospels.
Jesus conviction breaks a great deal of laws imposed by the court.
I think some of them were:
>Court held at night
>Court held in a private domicile
>Unanimous conviction works
>Jesus is convicted of blasphemy on his own testimony
>Jesus is turned over to roman authorities by the Sanhedrin
I guess that's not really day to day life though.
>>292942
>John mentions that the Priests don't want to go into Pilate's palace because it would make them impure and unable to render up the Paschal sacrifice; this wouldn't be the case unless Pilate left corpses lying around the place
No, it's because Pilate's palace was a pagan household. Jews were never supposed to enter those.
>>294021
Sorry about the delayed response, but went to bed, and only just now got an opportunity to get back online.
Examples:
Mark 1:2 says he's quoting Isaiah, but the quote is from Malachai.
Mark continually refers to the Old Law as coming "from Moses", which is a very pagan way of looking at it, any Jew, and you'd think even a former Jew, would know that Moses was acting as a spokesman, the laws came from God.
Golgotha and Gethsemane are names that are to be heard nowhere except the Gospels, and given that they're apparently right outside of Jerusalem, you'd think someone else would have mentioned the name somewhere at some point.
The episode where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbbath? And the "Pharisees" get mad at him? Doesn't violate the Pharisee view of Sabbath observance, where healing the sick trumps the Sabbath, it's a Sadducee position that you can't.
Supposedly, the Jewish court turns Jesus over to Pilate because they can't execute people in their own name, which is contradicted by both Josephus and Acts, later, where they're considering whether or not to lop off Paul and friends heads.
Mark talks about a terrible storm on the Sea of Galilee, which Jesus calms. It's a lake, and there's barely any boat transport over it, and storms just aren't something that happen there, the prevailing weather's very placid.
And then you have the meta-problem. Mark's got the most and a lot of the worst problems, but Matthew copies almost 92% of Mark, word for word, and Luke borrows from it a lot too. Why would eyewitnesses copypasta someone else?
>>294102
>No, it's because Pilate's palace was a pagan household. Jews were never supposed to enter those.
[citation seriously needed], because it's found in no Jewish source that I'm aware of that you can't enter a non-Jew's house. And certainly not a kind of Tumah offense, which would prevent Temple services.
>>290641
nice thought. I'd say yes.
>>295683
>Mark 1:2 says he's quoting Isaiah, but the quote is from Malachai.
He's quoting both. The Isaiah reference is 40:3
>Mark continually refers to the Old Law as coming "from Moses", which is a very pagan way of looking at it, any Jew, and you'd think even a former Jew, would know that Moses was acting as a spokesman, the laws came from God.
The Law generally referred to the OT. More specifically it sometimes referred to the Torah. It wasn't just the laws God gave Moses, in fact those are rarely mentioned, and when they are, the Christian perspective is very different from the Pharisaic one.
"He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so."
>Golgotha and Gethsemane are names that are to be heard nowhere except the Gospels, and given that they're apparently right outside of Jerusalem, you'd think someone else would have mentioned the name somewhere at some point.
Golgotha is a Greek version of an Aramaic word, there's not really much Aramaic writing.
As for Gethsemane, it means "oil press," and refers to the olive groves in Jerusalem, which were at the base of the Mouth of Olives. It was the site of the Jewish cemetery, so it held quite a bit of significance. It is heavily referenced in the OT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_of_Olives#Religious_significance
>The episode where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbbath? And the "Pharisees" get mad at him? Doesn't violate the Pharisee view of Sabbath observance, where healing the sick trumps the Sabbath, it's a Sadducee position that you can't.
You're going to have to source this. The Talmud would be okay with it, but the parts that are were written long, long after Jesus.
>Supposedly, the Jewish court turns Jesus over to Pilate because they can't execute people in their own name, which is contradicted by both Josephus
The Jewish clergy couldn't shed blood, no. That doesn't mean Jewish officials in general can't
cont
>>290641
CHRISTIANS != CREATIONISTS
CREATIONISTS ARE A SUBSET OF CHRISTIANS
>>295683
>Mark talks about a terrible storm on the Sea of Galilee, which Jesus calms. It's a lake, and there's barely any boat transport over it, and storms just aren't something that happen there, the prevailing weather's very placid.
http://professorwillis.blogspot
.com/2015/06/yahwehs-storm-psalm-29.html
This is the storm generally assumed here.
>And then you have the meta-problem. Mark's got the most and a lot of the worst problems, but Matthew copies almost 92% of Mark, word for word, and Luke borrows from it a lot too. Why would eyewitnesses copypasta someone else?
I don't think any Christian thinks the writers of the Gospels were eyewitnesses, even in Christian tradition their identities aren't that. The Christian position is that they did their research through eyewitnesses (who probably couldn't read or write) and other sources.
Yes.
>muh perfectly accurate roman execution records
>muh edited theological canon
GUESS THIS ALL MEANS THAT CHRIST NEVER EXISTED.
>>295683
>Mark talks about a terrible storm on the Sea of Galilee, which Jesus calms. It's a lake, and there's barely any boat transport over it, and storms just aren't something that happen there,
You think there's never storms in Israel?
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Weather-advisory-Heavy-rains-and-hail-hit-central-Israel-429994
>>295683
>And then you have the meta-problem. Mark's got the most and a lot of the worst problems, but Matthew copies almost 92% of Mark, word for word, and Luke borrows from it a lot too. Why would eyewitnesses copypasta someone else?
that's rather misleading:
>"Literary dependence can only be proven or disproven from the actual wording; one must restrict study to the linguistic data. Here it will not do to point to individual formulaic agreements encompassing just a sentence, or even a half sentence or just a few words. Such a practice often obscures the fact that there is no real contextual conformity at all from a linguistic point of view. Agreement in individual formulations does not automatically show literary dependence. That kind of clarity can be attained only after a general and thoroughgoing investigation of all data. The extent of agreement, as well as the differences, must be understood quantitatively if one wishes to come to an objective, well-grounded result. It is not enough to quantify by verses, which has been done, since considerable differences are found within parallel verses when one scrutinizes the actual wording rather than simply the general content. The basis for quantification should be the word as the smallest component of meaning."
>To illustrate this, consider the story of the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10.21-22 and Luke 18.22-23. Wenham points out that in these two verses there are more than a score of differences, although the meaning is obviously close. This is hardly evidence for literary borrowing [RMML:21-22]. And the story of the Great Banquet (Luke 14.15-24 and Matthew 22.1-14) is supposedly Q-material, but out of 180 words in Luke and 223 words in Matthew there are only eleven identical words. Wenham draws the point: "This is no basis for a theory of a common literary source" [RMML:73].
http://christianthinktank.com/litdep2.html
>>292741
>Yes, and? What is Caesar's? What does he rightfully own?
Jesus explicitly says that all earthly power comes from God. You can make bad or good use of it, but authorities exist and should be generally obeyed.
Sort of. They're both reactionary responses typically used by extremist believer to discredit people they see as being on the wrong side of an argument.
>Christianity is wrong, you idiots, Jesus never even existed!
>Science is wrong, God made everything and evolution isn't even real!
The intent behind both isn't very different. And both usually try to rely on fringe scholars to support their argument.
