What Did Jesus Write?

For those who feel they are fairly knowledgeable on the Bible what's your opinion of these two clips?

YouTube - Skeptic Bible Study: Jesus Never Existed

YouTube - Re: Jesus Did Exist



This is from his website. It goes into more details on his position.

http://godvsthebible.com/chapter08

 

Who are some other people in history who have also raised some of the questions that John Armstrong has raised? I'am assuming there have been others who had questions on this.

I haven't had a chance to research this more myself but is it true when he points out that:

1. Jesus himself never wrote anything directly?

2. That the Jewish philosopher/historian Philo never mentiones Jesus? Should Philo had mentioned Jesus considering they were of the same era?

3. There are no Roman state or government records that mention Jesus?

 

There are a few letters, including one that gives a physical description of Jesus.

This have not been authenticated so debate about them continues...

http://www.docrob.100megsfree5.com/descrip.htm



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Good videos. I guess I'm more of a gnostic, as I don't find concrete historical evidence necessary to my faith. If I were one of those christians who went around preaching to everyone, and freaking out when people disagreed with me, or when evolution was taught in schools, I would certainly feel the need for historical evidence to back me up, because my faith would be based on the assumption that Christ actually existed. It's no wonder so many christians get insecure about their faith.

Personally, I'm ok with the fact that there's no historical evidence for jesus. That was 2,000 years ago, it would be very difficult to figure out if Jesus wrote anything himself, if much of the writings on him were left out (i.e. the gnostic bibles), or how exactly the bible was edited after the Council of Nicea (sp?).

My faith can allow for this, because it is dependent not on historical fact, but on a story which has been passed down through the culture I was born into which I happen to draw stark similarities from with regards to my own life. I had a liver transplant 3 years ago; I understand dying in order to be reborn in a way that many other christians do not. I understand suffering as a necessary teaching tool which God employs regularly, whether people recognize it as such or not. I understand Jesus as a savior in the form of a metaphorical mirror for humanity. Jesus was the mirror that God held up to humanity's face, as a way of saying, "Look what you're doing; look what you've become."

I use the writings on Jesus, whether accurate or not, as examples of the potential for good that all humans have within them. Jesus represented the ideal human: kind, but not cowardly; devoted, but not passive; powerful, yet not manipulative.

I suppose you could say that I am in love with the story of Jesus, rather than the historical figure, because this is where his power truly lies--it is in the hearts of those who understand his message, and strive after it daily, that Jesus is resurrected.

 

What about the Buddha? Did he exist? What did he write. I don't know of any better documentation for the Buddha than for Jesus. There are Roman sources that mention Jesus--Pliny the Younger,Tacitus, Seutonius--but they were written some time after his death and were probably relying on Christian sources. There is, of course, Josephus Flavius, but at least one of his references to Jesus is believed to have been doctored by Christians. That leaves Christians, themselves, the first of whom to write about Jesus being Paul and Luke, who were in contact with James, Peter, and others who claimed to have known Jesus personally. James was the leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, and was accepted as Jesus' brother. Ordinarily, having a brother implies that you exist. We can either believe these people were making Jesus up out of whole cloth, or that there was such a person, which I find to be the more plausible alternative. Why didn't Philo of Alexandria write about Jesus? Why didn't Jesus get more coverage in Roman sources? This was before the days of the organized press corps, when it was hard to get contemporaneous news. Jesus was an itinerant Galilean peasant preacher from a backwater Roman province. It would have been extraordianry for him to be noticed by important contemporary scholars. To say, as our UTube guy does, that Philo wrote about Pilate, why not Jesus, ignores the fact that Pilate was a provincial governor, whom most people would know, and Jesus was a peasant preacher whom mostly peasants would know. What did He write? Nothing that anyone knows of. Why not? Possibly because He was illiterate. Most of his followers were!

 

It smells bogus to me.

 

The works of Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and a few other classical writers include numerous references to Jesus. Of them, The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1995) says: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.”

As for Jesus not writing any thing down, men of action seldom do, they tend to leave that to others or to their old age, which Jesus didn't reach.

In this video he states as fact that Herod died in 4 B.C.E., when this date is debatable and he could have died as late as 1 B.C.E.
As for Quirinius, it seems he could have been governor of Syria twice, the first time somewhere between the years 4 and 1 B.C.E., probably from 3 to 2 B.C.E.
This Jesus means could have been born in 2 B.C.E. and Luke did not have to be mistaken.

As for when John died and when Jesus started his ministry and how long etc, you should be able to look that up for yourselves.


About the Jewish philosopher/historian Philo never mentioning Jesus and should Philo have mentioned Jesus considering they were of the same era?

Historians pretty much write what they want remembered, not necessarily all that actually happened. Early American historians didn’t mention the accomplishments of black men in the history of their times, does that mean that blacks had no accomplishments and that George Washington Carver didn’t exist?

 

In the first clip and at 4:41 what books is he referring to that were burnt by some Christians?

 

John Armstrong touches on these people and their records. The main problem he has with those particular sources is that none of them were contemporaries of Jesus. He says that he has yet to find any mention of Jesus by a contemporary outside of the Bible. All of those above Tactius,Suetonius,Josephus and Pliney The Younger were all born after the crucifixtion date of 31 AD. So none of them had actual contact with Jesus during their lifetimes.

 

I think they fail to see the obvious. Would Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and other disciples write stories and followed an imaginary leader. Or is it that they didn't exist either. You need to remember that all of the books were written after Jesus death. Timelines can get fuzzy after the fact. My goodness if you ever the bible it is really hard to believe in all the tales, but personally I feel you need to take it on faith. The stories are to teach and to glorify god's greatness. The old testament is really violent. Besides being a christain is the easiest of all religions. All you need to do is believe in jesus(trinity) and ask for forgiveness and you get to go to heaven. Deal me in. Be Kind:hat:

 

Being a Christian is easy? I think you need to rethink brother what being a christian is all about. I think using the Gospels are proof of Jesus isn't the best. Besides, the authors are as far as I understand, anonymous and only Tradition attributes these authors to them. Probably the best way to find out about he earliest Christian communities is to read the undisputed Pauline letters.

 

Romans
First Corinthians
Second Corinthians
Galatians
Philippians
First Thessalonians
Philemon

Paul's undisputed letters. There are sections that people say may have been added later (the anti-woman sections in Corinthians) but for the most part these are pretty great.

 

These are the responsible Christians who did not follow Christ's original writings which were intensely versed on the question of human right: does God care? we at last can believe that He did about Abraham.

 

For those familiar with the Gnostic Christians is it true that they didn't view Jesus as an actual person but as an spirit? Why didn't they view him as an actual person?

 

Because matter/material is evil. Gnosis is all about freeing ourselves from the material evil world and entering into the spiritual realm. Women were also evil that is why in one gnostic text Jesus says he will make mary a male...

They claimed (among other things) that Jesus only appeared to be human. Other non-Mainline early Christians (but not gnostic ones) denied his full humanity saying he left his humanity at the baptism. Others denied his eternal divinity saying he is gods adopted son.

 

The perspective of Gnosticism is tied to the history of Roman Empire, and when it speculates about events in Palestine, they are working out the narrow details of finding the Church in the present day West at issue with it's Doubt at empiricism over and against the empirical enacted by science.

But I can check with what St. Sophia had in mind in realizing the post Jesus period with meditations about the responsibility for justice in our Self- concernful-Conscience. We can be ultimately at self-concern and at a loss of one's own Ego.

 

I mentioned them because I don't know who John Armstrong is but I do recognize The New Encyclopædia Britannica as something of an authority on the subject and without any agenda.

The New Encyclopædia Britannica seems to think that the writtings of Tactius, Suetonius, Josephus and Pliney The Younger give evidence of Jesus existance.

 

. Now I'm lazy again. What can you do?

 

The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1995) says: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.”

It’s also interesting to note that, the gospels were written between 41 CE and 98 CE well with in the lifetime of those that could have been alive when Jesus was alive and in fact Matthew was written less than 10 years after Jesus death.

So where is the outcry of false, fake and lies?

The Jewish philosopher/historian Philo never mentioned Jesus, where is the outcry from him that it’s all a fake? Some may say that he didn’t mention Jesus because he didn’t exist but yet the writings existed and Christianity existed, yet still no outcry of fake?

From the contemporaries of the time or even close to the time there is only mention of his existence, so once again where is the outcry from even those that oppose Jesus that he didn’t exist?

Why did it take 1800 years to finally bring up the subject? 1800 years after the death of any eye witnesses that could have told them they were wrong.

 

The Bible does speak of Christians burning books at Acts 19:18-19 but they were books on spiritism and magic and had nothing to do with whether Jesus was real or not.

But I believe he is talking about the time of the Inquisition when the Catholic Church went insane with power and tried to get rid anything or anyone who opposed them, even others who called themselves Christian.