2006-12-26 10:55:40 · 23 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Ok in a nutshell here's a summary.. my knowing comes from tons of research, and there are volumes of works out there on this subject:
1. Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel story cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only in the late first century.
2. There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of the first century) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.
3. The early apostles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus as a spiritual, heavenly being revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man. Paul is part of a new ‘salvation’ movement acting on revelation from the Spirit.
4. Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.
5. The ancients viewed the universe as multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, containing spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things. Paul’s Christ operates within this system.
6. The pagan ‘mystery cults’ of the period worshiped savior deities who had performed salvific acts which took place in the supernatural/mythical world, not on earth or in history. Paul’s Christ shares many features with these deities.
7. The prominent philosophical-religious concept of the age was the intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the ultimate transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish Wisdom were models for Paul’s heavenly Christ.
8. All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts of the Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.
9. The Gospels are not historical events, but constructed through a process of ‘midrash,’ a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture.
10. ‘Q,’ a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, made no reference to a death and resurrection and can be shown to have had no Jesus at its roots: roots which were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the kingdom of God, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was linked to the heavenly Jesus of Paul in the Gospel of Mark.
11. The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual Christ shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the religious trends and philosophy of the time, not as a response to a single individual.
12. Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a human man as an element of their faith. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical.”
2006-12-26 11:29:43 · answer #1 · answered by Kallan 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I don't know. I just suspect it since there is no outside documentation from the time and the Bible was written several generations later by people who weren't even there.
It really doesn't matter to me rather there was such a person or not. But the Romans didn't document anything about him. He certainly wasn't very important in their eyes. And I am quite sure that he wasn't what the Christians are claiming.
2006-12-26 19:00:48 · answer #2 · answered by Alex 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
excuse me? I know jesus is real if jesus wasnt real he probaly would of been a myth a legend but no he aint hes still alive deep inside our hearts and i know hes looking down at us right now up there in heaven next to God. and everyone knows Jesus wasnt a phony hes definetly real.
2006-12-26 19:56:40 · answer #3 · answered by mamas_grandmasboy06 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
do you believe in God or just not Jesus questions like that pop into my head i know hes real because of all hes done for me and the Bible is real and the people in the Bible are real or the temple of jerusalem is not real and records have been kept to educate the nonbelievers if your jewish your not supposed to beleive Jesus has come till the rapture (according to Bible)
one day in your life he'll give you a revealation
asking questions like that would make me scared ill die in my sleep!
2006-12-26 19:06:37 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
He may have existed. I believe that its more than likely Jesus was a real person. I just don't believe he came from a virgin birth or performed the miracles as described in the bible. Also I don't believe he rose from the dead and went to heaven on a cloud.
I do believe he taught religous lessons and had a following.
2006-12-26 19:00:57 · answer #5 · answered by ÜFÖ 5 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Because [I am assuming you mean a messiah] there were several men named Yeshuah starting up cults in the same time period. To top that, long before him, God-men saviors were doing the same things in myths. Read up what the Greek Dionysus did, you'll find out that the gospel is several centuries behind the times.
2006-12-26 18:59:26 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Thats not the right question. How do you know he is real? You have the burden of proof. I believe in what I have seen.
2006-12-26 19:03:57 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Jesus was a real person who walked the earth if that's what you mean...
2006-12-26 18:58:09 · answer #8 · answered by WINGS 4 · 2⤊ 2⤋
God is real Jesus is real.Pray 'bout it go to hurch talk to the pastor try a seventhday advintist church or sunday church but mostly pray
2006-12-26 19:13:29 · answer #9 · answered by corbin bleu's girlfriend 1 · 0⤊ 3⤋
I know he was real 2000 years ago. there is documentation. Bless the Romans and their anal attention to detail
2006-12-26 19:00:35 · answer #10 · answered by judy_r8 6 · 1⤊ 2⤋