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Did Jesus exist? (Poll)

Do you think Jesus existed?

  • I'm sure Jesus existed

    Votes: 7 14.0%
  • I think it's more likely, to some degree or other, that he likely existed than not

    Votes: 15 30.0%
  • Not sure either way

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • I think it's more likely, to some degree or other, that he didn't exist

    Votes: 13 26.0%
  • I'm sure he didn't exist

    Votes: 5 10.0%
  • No opinion

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 4 8.0%

  • Total voters
    50
What I want to know is who is going to sit humbleman down and tell him about Carpocrates, the Mar Saba Letter, and the Secret Gospel of Mark.

I'll bet he has no idea that a Gospel of Judas even exists.

So you just mentioned Carpocrates, Mar Saba Letter, Secret Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Judas...

You still don't get it, don't you?
Like today we have MSNBC, CNN, The Washington post... the ones you just mentioned were fake news... fake news...
 
What I want to know is who is going to sit humbleman down and tell him about Carpocrates, the Mar Saba Letter, and the Secret Gospel of Mark.

I'll bet he has no idea that a Gospel of Judas even exists.

So you just mentioned Carpocrates, Mar Saba Letter, Secret Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Judas...

You still don't get it, don't you?
Like today we have MSNBC, CNN, The Washington post... the ones you just mentioned were fake news... fake news...

Indeed. It is ALL fake news...All those gospels are made up stories. Made up stories with fictional authors. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. And Acts of the Apostles: FAKE NEWS! I get it. It's obvious that you do not.
 
Did the character described in the Bible exist?

No.

Clearly, the character in the Bible is a blending of several stories, including a number of fictional stories that predate Christianity. Can we say for certain that one of the inspirations for that character was not real rather than fictional? I don't think we can say that. As Hitchens pointed out, certain lies in the New Testament are easier to explain if you assume that the character of Jesus is at least in part based on a real person.

In other words, the protagonist is a fictional construct. It's really kinda cool because now everyone gets to create his or her own preferred Jesus of history. Religion has never been more real than that, and writing has never had a greater purpose than to engage the reader or listener. We have a lord, a liar, a lunatic and a legend all wrapped up in the same character.

Shakespeare eat your heart out.
 
So you just mentioned Carpocrates, Mar Saba Letter, Secret Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Judas...

You still don't get it, don't you?
Like today we have MSNBC, CNN, The Washington post... the ones you just mentioned were fake news... fake news...

Indeed. It is ALL fake news...All those gospels are made up stories. Made up stories with fictional authors. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. And Acts of the Apostles: FAKE NEWS! I get it. It's obvious that you do not.

Some people may find it hard to distinguish between real and fake news, which reminds of an interesting news vid, although not so much fake news but a friend pointed out at the time when Ron Paul was running for an election and he was in second place (if memory serves me right).

Remarkably certain news channels never mentioned his name even though he was 2nd place at the time. What was remakable; was that they skipped passed R.Paul and mentioned everyone else below his placing. :eek: Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories in general but you can't help noticing the very obvious.

I wonder if they skipped on the real news on Jesus back then? Considering when it comes to conflictions to politics and traditions (my pondering opinion of course).

:rolleyesa:
 
Did the character described in the Bible exist?

No.

Clearly, the character in the Bible is a blending of several stories, including a number of fictional stories that predate Christianity. Can we say for certain that one of the inspirations for that character was not real rather than fictional? I don't think we can say that. As Hitchens pointed out, certain lies in the New Testament are easier to explain if you assume that the character of Jesus is at least in part based on a real person.

What would he have said if the character from the other part/part based with Jesus as the real person? Certain lies (if that was his actual words) should then leave some (if not all) ...of the New Testament to be truth - is that what he is actually saying?
 
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In other words, the protagonist is a fictional construct. It's really kinda cool because now everyone gets to create his or her own preferred Jesus of history. Religion has never been more real than that, and writing has never had a greater purpose than to engage the reader or listener. We have a lord, a liar, a lunatic and a legend all wrapped up in the same character.

The Pharisees and Romans couldn't have said any better.
:p
 
What I want to know is who is going to sit humbleman down and tell him about Carpocrates, the Mar Saba Letter, and the Secret Gospel of Mark.

I'll bet he has no idea that a Gospel of Judas even exists.

So you just mentioned Carpocrates, Mar Saba Letter, Secret Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Judas...

You still don't get it, don't you?
Like today we have MSNBC, CNN, The Washington post... the ones you just mentioned were fake news... fake news...

Indeed. It is ALL fake news...All those gospels are made up stories. Made up stories with fictional authors. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. And Acts of the Apostles: FAKE NEWS! I get it. It's obvious that you do not.

Mm Mm!

Nope.

Gospel means "good news". Well, gospel (God's spell) is the English interpretation of εὐαγγέλιον (evangelion) "good news".

The gospel of Mathew, Luke, Mark and John are good news.

The writings you mentioned in your message are fake news.
 
Some people may find it hard to distinguish between real and fake news, which reminds of an interesting news vid, although not so much fake news but a friend pointed out at the time when Ron Paul was running for an election and he was in second place (if memory serves me right).

Remarkably certain news channels never mentioned his name even though he was 2nd place at the time. What was remakable; was that they skipped passed R.Paul and mentioned everyone else below his placing. :eek: Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories in general but you can't help noticing the very obvious.

I wonder if they skipped on the real news on Jesus back then? Considering when it comes to conflictions to politics and traditions (my pondering opinion of course).

:rolleyesa:

What I have found and understood, live Jesus in reality was just a hero in the neighborhood. His fame was around the area mentioned in the bible. In those times rumors run mouth to mouth, there was not a newspaper spreading the news to every block of the street.

The attraction or following was just scattered groups of people. If not because he has company -the apostles- surrounding him all the time, nobody should notice him, unless that he might was a tall dude as a descendant of King David.

For this reason, when he passed by thru certain street and neighbors heard about him, they themselves were asking about Jesus "as the son of the carpenter", a detail that reveals that his father Joseph was more known than Jesus, perhaps because people was more in need of a carpenter than in need of a miracle maker.

Jesus became really famous thanks to the priests who wanted multitudes on their side and against Jesus, and he became fully recognized by peoples of the area and far way places right after his resurrection.

That was an event that truly changed the minds of the apostles and other followers. They found out that Jesus indeed was telling the true about the resurrection stuff.

When the news about his resurrection run from mouth to mouth, it was expected having several people inventing fake stories about the hero.

From here, when Jesus was the "news of the daily rumor" someone made profit writing the "biography" of Jesus, telling his childhood, etc.

Decades and centuries later, others also made profit writing gospels, letters, and more.

Today, some people make profit denying that Jesus existed.
 
Indeed. It is ALL fake news...All those gospels are made up stories. Made up stories with fictional authors. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. And Acts of the Apostles: FAKE NEWS! I get it. It's obvious that you do not.

Mm Mm!

Nope.

Gospel means "good news". Well, gospel (God's spell) is the English interpretation of εὐαγγέλιον (evangelion) "good news".

The gospel of Mathew, Luke, Mark and John are good news.

The writings you mentioned in your message are fake news.

Sorry, wrong. The Gospel According to Judas is also good news. And the Secret Gospel of Mark is the secret good news according to the false construct Mark. They are all mythic constructs. Just like the four you have latched on to as somehow special. Products of midrash. Allegory. Heuristics. All of it.

There are shiploads of documents calling themselves 'gospel'. It might as well be a byword for 'faux news'.

When you figure out why you and yours privilege just four piece of partially contradictory documents out of a shipload more, maybe you'll figure out how to explain to all of us here why THOSE documents are so flippin' special? Why not Marcion's Apostolikon?...or his Evangelikon? They were both earlier and by the same reputed authors...Paul and Luke. Why not any of the other docuements unearthed with the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi finds? Who decided all that? I'll bet you haven't the foggiest.
 
Some people may find it hard to distinguish between real and fake news, which reminds of an interesting news vid, although not so much fake news but a friend pointed out at the time when Ron Paul was running for an election and he was in second place (if memory serves me right).

Remarkably certain news channels never mentioned his name even though he was 2nd place at the time. What was remakable; was that they skipped passed R.Paul and mentioned everyone else below his placing. :eek: Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories in general but you can't help noticing the very obvious.

I wonder if they skipped on the real news on Jesus back then? Considering when it comes to conflictions to politics and traditions (my pondering opinion of course).

:rolleyesa:

What I have found and understood, live Jesus in reality was just a hero in the neighborhood. His fame was around the area mentioned in the bible. In those times rumors run mouth to mouth, there was not a newspaper spreading the news to every block of the street.

The attraction or following was just scattered groups of people. If not because he has company -the apostles- surrounding him all the time, nobody should notice him, unless that he might was a tall dude as a descendant of King David.

For this reason, when he passed by thru certain street and neighbors heard about him, they themselves were asking about Jesus "as the son of the carpenter", a detail that reveals that his father Joseph was more known than Jesus, perhaps because people was more in need of a carpenter than in need of a miracle maker.

Jesus became really famous thanks to the priests who wanted multitudes on their side and against Jesus, and he became fully recognized by peoples of the area and far way places right after his resurrection.

That was an event that truly changed the minds of the apostles and other followers. They found out that Jesus indeed was telling the true about the resurrection stuff.

When the news about his resurrection run from mouth to mouth, it was expected having several people inventing fake stories about the hero.

From here, when Jesus was the "news of the daily rumor" someone made profit writing the "biography" of Jesus, telling his childhood, etc.

Decades and centuries later, others also made profit writing gospels, letters, and more.

Today, some people make profit denying that Jesus existed.


:ROTFLMAOAY:

Today, some people make profit by shaking down their congregations for shit like personal jets.

They sure ain't Jeebus deniers.

What we have here in you is an allegorical Wallenstein MX-130. I'll bet you even have your own tiny congregation, now don't you?
 
In other words, the protagonist is a fictional construct. It's really kinda cool because now everyone gets to create his or her own preferred Jesus of history. Religion has never been more real than that, and writing has never had a greater purpose than to engage the reader or listener. We have a lord, a liar, a lunatic and a legend all wrapped up in the same character.

The Pharisees and Romans couldn't have said any better.
:p

Yeah, but Albert Schweitzer actually did a much more thorough job of it, pointing out that most 'Jesus scholars' were engaged in doing exactly that. He built on his own faith, and the work of Bauer and Wrede, and pointed out that scholars tended to reconstruct the Jesus they saw in their better selves. That the Jesus figure is an archetype of what we desire to be. An exemplar. I think that inkling still apposite.
 
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In other words, the protagonist is a fictional construct. It's really kinda cool because now everyone gets to create his or her own preferred Jesus of history. Religion has never been more real than that, and writing has never had a greater purpose than to engage the reader or listener. We have a lord, a liar, a lunatic and a legend all wrapped up in the same character.

The Pharisees and Romans couldn't have said any better.
:p

Yeah, but Albert Schweitzer actually did a much more thorough job of it, pointing out that most 'Jesus scholars' were engaged in doing exactly that. He built on his own faith, and the work of Bauer and Wrede, and pointed out that scholars tended to reconstruct the Jesus they saw in their better selves. That the Jesus figure is an archetype of what we desire to be. An exemplar. I think that inkling still apposite.

And lets not forget Jefferson, a man who dispensed with all the religious woo and invented an individual of the Enlightenment. Had Jefferson been aware of all the different Jesus constructs that existed during those early centuries Jefferson may well have been the first person to declare the gospel protagonist a phantom.
 
Some people may find it hard to distinguish between real and fake news, which reminds of an interesting news vid, although not so much fake news but a friend pointed out at the time when Ron Paul was running for an election and he was in second place (if memory serves me right).

Remarkably certain news channels never mentioned his name even though he was 2nd place at the time. What was remakable; was that they skipped passed R.Paul and mentioned everyone else below his placing. :eek: Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories in general but you can't help noticing the very obvious.

I wonder if they skipped on the real news on Jesus back then? Considering when it comes to conflictions to politics and traditions (my pondering opinion of course).

:rolleyesa:

What I have found and understood, live Jesus in reality was just a hero in the neighborhood. His fame was around the area mentioned in the bible. In those times rumors run mouth to mouth, there was not a newspaper spreading the news to every block of the street.

The attraction or following was just scattered groups of people. If not because he has company -the apostles- surrounding him all the time, nobody should notice him, unless that he might was a tall dude as a descendant of King David.

For this reason, when he passed by thru certain street and neighbors heard about him, they themselves were asking about Jesus "as the son of the carpenter", a detail that reveals that his father Joseph was more known than Jesus, perhaps because people was more in need of a carpenter than in need of a miracle maker.

Jesus became really famous thanks to the priests who wanted multitudes on their side and against Jesus, and he became fully recognized by peoples of the area and far way places right after his resurrection.

That was an event that truly changed the minds of the apostles and other followers. They found out that Jesus indeed was telling the true about the resurrection stuff.

When the news about his resurrection run from mouth to mouth, it was expected having several people inventing fake stories about the hero.

From here, when Jesus was the "news of the daily rumor" someone made profit writing the "biography" of Jesus, telling his childhood, etc.

Decades and centuries later, others also made profit writing gospels, letters, and more.

Today, some people make profit denying that Jesus existed.


:ROTFLMAOAY:

Today, some people make profit by shaking down their congregations for shit like personal jets.

They sure ain't Jeebus deniers.

What we have here in you is an allegorical Wallenstein MX-130. I'll bet you even have your own tiny congregation, now don't you?

Calm down.

Don't let anxiety and fanaticism control your thoughts.

Re-read your messages, find how it happened, and when you start writing again, at this time try it with more coherent messages.

There was no reason to invent the existence of a son of a god becoming flesh, to make miracles even walking over waters, to end nailed into wood and cry loud his misfortune dying the way he was: just a human being.

After that, he didn't resurrect by his own power but the narration states he was resurrected by his father.

No pagan religion or belief is even closer to the narration about Jesus. The religion received by the Israelite was incapable to invent such an event. Even when the narration itself claims that many things "were predicted" before inside the Scriptures, no one had a single clue that those "predictions" should happen the way it happened.

You have a unique story which you might claim is similar to others, but after doing a deep scrutiny, you must recognize your claims are not true.

Your position is having a group of Jews inventing a story, and you assume that this story made by a humble fisherman and a despicable tax collector changed the history of the whole world.

You must be kidding or you must be a complete i...., i.... i.... ah you know what I mean.
 
I'm a strong atheist (I believe that gods do not exist).

Because of the census story, I have a lightly-held belief that Jesus did exist.

We know that the census didn't happen. And we also know that the idea of sending Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem to be counted is absurd. That kind of thing never happened.

What this suggests to me is that people knew Jesus was from Galilee, but prophesy required that he be from Bethlehem, so somebody cobbled up the fantastic census story as a way of claiming that a Galilean was also from Bethlehem.

I know that's not a strong argument. Nothing like compelling. But, to mind mind, it tips the scales in favor of believing that some real person named Jesus had to do with the formation of the myth.

To me it only indicates someone may have believed the story was real. Bigfoot fiction is no different.
Thanks for this response. It has influenced my thinking.
 
Just thought to add this article for anyone's edification.

Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up.

Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.
 
Just thought to add this article for anyone's edification.

Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up.

Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.

The sparseness of "evidence" that Paul's Jesus was human has always been telling IMO. Why not, "that time Jesus did this" or "Jesus always said this" or "when Jesus was little"? Instead...crickets.
 
I get the impression that apocalyptic scenarios tended to be all the rage at that time, particularly amongst the splinter Hebrew cults.

Of course, I don't know why everybody doesn't look back at the events of the middle of the first century CE in the region and think, "Wow...the Judeans brought their own apocalypse down on their heads." Did that not issue in the 'Kingdom of God' as per the rantings of Paul and his cultists? That happened 'within the lifetime of those hearing his gospel' with the Roman Army advance on Jerusalem, followed by the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, certainly seems to have fit the description of 'Armageddon'.

I think the destruction of the Temple reshuffled the whole relationship of the Jewish people and their erstwhile gentile neighbors. Those who had sought inclusion were rebuffed for their belief. They saw what happened with the Temple and co-opted their favorite stories and constructed a story about how the people of the Covenent had reviled the very prophet, their messiah, and irrevocably broken and disposed of their covenant with their god. He'd been here, on earth, already and the Jews had spurned him...there was a new covenant with the gentiles, thanks to Paul and the apostles. They got out their copy of the Septuaguint and text-proofed for every possible prophetic reference. From that, they reworked their prophet savior story to fit their interpretation of why they were now the "Chosen People"....as YHWH had turned his back on the Jews and abandoned his abode on Mt. Zion.
 
I get the impression that apocalyptic scenarios tended to be all the rage at that time, particularly amongst the splinter Hebrew cults.

Of course, I don't know why everybody doesn't look back at the events of the middle of the first century CE in the region and think, "Wow...the Judeans brought their own apocalypse down on their heads." Did that not issue in the 'Kingdom of God' as per the rantings of Paul and his cultists? That happened 'within the lifetime of those hearing his gospel' with the Roman Army advance on Jerusalem, followed by the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, certainly seems to have fit the description of 'Armageddon'.

I think the destruction of the Temple reshuffled the whole relationship of the Jewish people and their erstwhile gentile neighbors. Those who had sought inclusion were rebuffed for their belief. They saw what happened with the Temple and co-opted their favorite stories and constructed a story about how the people of the Covenent had reviled the very prophet, their messiah, and irrevocably broken and disposed of their covenant with their god. He'd been here, on earth, already and the Jews had spurned him...there was a new covenant with the gentiles, thanks to Paul and the apostles. They got out their copy of the Septuaguint and text-proofed for every possible prophetic reference. From that, they reworked their prophet savior story to fit their interpretation of why they were now the "Chosen People"....as YHWH had turned his back on the Jews and abandoned his abode on Mt. Zion.

The middle east today isn't much different. People must have been superstitious and ignorant in a mass psychogenic kind of way.

Serapis

1st century BCE Serapis sure looks a lot like you know who, and was worshipped by chrestians.
 
I think "Septaguint" is the most important part of your post.

Judaism was unique in its texts; any literate person could study it. And a literate person in that time and place usually meant Greek. A mixture of Greek and Jewish ideas. Cosmic Jesus seems more Greek than Jewish to me.
 
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