Christopher Hitchens and the true core of the Jesus myth.

A number of reasons to believe the supposed Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?i...esus-myth-christopher-hitchens-freedomfest-1=

 

Unfortunately, my phobia about plug ins prevents me from knowing the reasons to believe my Lord and Savior never existed, but I'm familiar with a lot of reasons put forward by various writers like Wells, Doherty, Freke, Gaudy, and Price. Here's why I still believe there really was a Jesus.

First, many of the writers who don't believe stress the scarcity of independent evidence, but it would be highly unusual for an itinerant peasant preacher in a backwater province of a subject kingdom to attract much attention by scholars of his day, who tend to focus on the rich and famous. There were no mass media, professional journalists, or even professional historians in the modern sense. We do have references by a number of Roman historians, including Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger, although they were decades after the fact and probably relied on Christian sources. Admittedly the evidence is slender, but so is the evidence for other historical figures in whom I believe, like Socrates and the Buddha.

Second, we have some indirect evidence from early sources I consider credible. Paul, who knew Jesus only from a vision, did report exchanges with people who credibly claimed to know Jesus directly and were prominent leaders in the early decades of the churcheter/Cephas, whom early Christians regarded as Jesus designated choice for leader; James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Christians in Jerusalem; and the apostle John. Paul's encounters with some of these people were not always friendly, lending greater credibility to the accounts. Furthermore, although there is reason to doubt the authenticity of a passage by Josephus Flavius discussing Jesus directly, most scholars are convinced of the authenticity of Josephus' account of James, the brother of Jesus, who was a prominent Jewish leader before the revolt against Rome. Ordinarily, if a person's brother existed, it's reasonable to conclude that that person existed, too. There are also some early church figures like Pappias (c.90) who claimed to have interviewed many of the apostles and others who knew Jesus. There is even an account in the Babylonian Talmud defending the fairness of a trial and execution of "Yeshu the Nazarene", who bears a resemblance to Jesus. Maybe they were all making it up, but it rings true to me, and if we reject it, we might as well reject a lot of other stuff we read about in the history books--like Socrates and the Buddha.

Third, the accounts of Jesus in the Gospels contain elements that seem credible. Most other mythical figures I know of were not like Jesus--a poor peasant preacher who was executed like a common criminal (I know there are claims that every god and his dog were crucified, but they're all fabrications). It's not the sort of thing mythmakers are likely to make up, especially in a culture that expected a more soldierly messiah. Whether or not the miraculous happenings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are true is another story, but the idea that Jesus was entirely mythical, made up out of whole cloth from earlier myths, strikes me as implausible.

 

Is this relating to sodomy?

Out of these three which ones claimed to be divining delivered wisdom?

To be fair you seem to have a very biased opinion on what would be considered crediable when it would come to questions of the bible.

At one time the world seemed flat to many people.

Says who?

You've never seen the Life of Brian have you?

I thought you were not able to watch the video, how can you judge it before you view it?

 

Didn't Hitchens conclude that due to the intensity of the effort to convince, that there must have been some historical figure, albeit deluded according to him, around who this effort was fashioned?

 

Yes but was that person the son of god as Jesus proclaims?

They say all heros are based on Beowulf but I wouldn't say that Beowulf is all heros.

Did that even make sense, colonopin day, nuff said.

 

Religion is like Highlander, for most of them to make any sense when the supposed shit hits the fan there can be only one.

 

Is the question the existence of Jesus, the man, or the reality of Jesus, the myth? I think there's substantial evidence that Jesus the man existed--enough that a reasonable person could believe it. What he said and what he did are in dispute. The folks at the Jesus Seminar think he only said and did twenty percent of what's attributed to him, but that's not chopped liver. The Jesus (and Buddha and Socrates) I care about is Jesus (and Buddha and Socrates) the myth, which could be true and is the reality I've built my life around.

 

Wasn't Beowulf written around the seventh century?

 

All I know is that its old as fuck.

 

If you want to question the mundane existence of Jesus, I suggest a study of Dr. John Allegro.

 

Jesus was a mushroom? I think Allegro may have been partaking in too much sacrament! Seriously, my problem with Allegro, as with other writers disputing the existence of Jesus, is not that there's nothing to their arguments but that they carry them too far. I think there are indications that Christianity as it developed was influenced by pagan beliefs (Justin Martyr noticed some similarities, but attributed them to Satan trying to confuse us), and I think a number of scholars (Wasson, Irvin, Rush, etc.) have shown plausible links between religious practices from a variety of cultures and the influence of mushrooms, marijuana, and other mind altering substances. To jump to the conclusion that Jesus was a codeword for amanita muscaria used by a cult of mushroom users to evade Roman narcs is sloppy scholarship.

 

At least a mushroom has substance and form.

 

Which is more than can be said for Allegro's thesis.

 

I do not think anything substantial can be known about any of it. I certainly do not have an time for the revealed wisdom of scripture, which is really what we are talking about, on this issue. Allegro,s not the only arse.

Messiahs are very annoying as they routinely and predictably befoul the world and its long suffering inhabitants when ever they exploit a chance or opportunity to play in the big league. We know that much at least.