True or False?

Question

If Jesus actually existed and did all the miraculous things he is said to have done then surely many people would have written about it during and immediately following Jesus' life. Writing was common at the time, yet an extensive search by many scholars over centuries has turned up nothing. The very few references to Jesus that allegedly date back to his lifetime are clearly forgeries, forged no doubt hundreds of years later by people who realized this embarrassing lack of evidence needed to be rectified (see Joseph Wheless Forgery in Christianity).

Even if we ignore the evidence that they are forgeries, the very small number of these questionably authentic writings that allegedly date back to his alleged lifetime are still far too few. There should be a huge wealth of writing about this person that was written during his lifetime.

Jesus allegedly had crowds of thousands follow him around. Once he fed 5000 people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish (Mark 6:39-44). Later he repeated the miracle again feeding a crowd of 4000 people (Mark 8:1-9). Jesus cured sick people miraculously and raised people from the dead. He changed water into wine at a wedding reception. He exorcised demons. He commanded 2000 pigs to rush into a lake and drown themselves, inciting the people of the nearby town and countryside, who asked him to leave. (No mention is made of what happened to the poor pig hearder whose livelihood must have been ruined. Mark 5:1-20).

Wherever Jesus went a crowd gathered and wondered in amazement who this person was. Jesus was a very controversial person. Finally he got himself into so much trouble that huge crowds of Jews demanded his execution. There was a controversial trial followed by his public execution. Three days later he is seen walking around alive again. And no one wrote any of this down when it allegedly happened?

Even the earliest full account of Jesus in the Bible, the Gospel of Mark, is admitted by the Catholic Church to date to at least A.D. 70, a full 40 years after Jesus' alleged death and resurrection. (Mark makes reference to an event that happened around A.D. 70, so it could not have been written any earlier. Modern scholars now date the Gospels as being written near A.D. 170, a full 140 years after the alleged event, since no one makes any reference to a Gospel of Mark, or any other Gospel, prior to this time.)

It's inconceivable that no one at the time bothered to write down anything about the most important person in the whole of human history. Writing was common back then. People wrote letters. Historians wrote commentaries on current events. The Romans wrote and kept legal documents about trials. It's considered one of the best documented periods of history. Yet no one wrote anything about this Jesus; no one painted a portrait of this Jesus; no one drew a sketch of this Jesus; no one cast a coin depicting this Jesus; no one made a statue of this Jesus; no one makes any reference whatsoever to this Jesus. The historical evidence is overwhelming—the Jesus of the Bible never existed.

Answer 1

So I'm to take it that you do not believe in Jesus, Well I don't care about the evidents or the lack of it, All I know is 22years ago I should have died, I was vary sick with cans er, only a miracle could have saved me, and it did, I had an out of body experience and I believe in Christ and God and Heaven, Why because I've been there, It's a beautiful place, I hope to get back to some day. If you don't want to believe, that's fine by my, cause when it comes down to the wire, the only person that I can save is myself, to the rest of you, I'll pray for you and hope to see you all in Heave some day. Good Luck.

Answer 2

Check the writings of Falavius Josephus, the Jewish Roman Writer, He is the first one who writes abouts a Rabbi named Jesus Bar Joseph who was crucified by the Roman Administration.

Though you are right that there is no written records that seem to confirm Jesus' existence but there is evidence that the other people existed but there are very few records of that period. They didn't even prove that Pontius Pilate was a real person until 1974. Most of the records of that time are lost in the fall of Rome and the Bar Hocba rebellion.

Anyways we have four records of Jesus live they are the gospels and though they were written 40 to 60 years after Jesus' birth we also have the writings of the Apostle Paul who was writing one-seven years after Jesus death. Paul admits that he got help for those apostles who were in Jerusalem after the Crucifixion and Ascension. I guess they had to know.

If you are concerned about lack of hard evidence remember that at that time writing was not well spread and the people of Judea would not have been well educated Peter only seems to have bought 1 letter and not as long as Paul's Epistles.
So the records of Jesus would have been scared to begin with.

Answer 3

You kind of have to put yourself in their position. Say today some kind of weird looking long bearded guy comes HUMBLY down the street, he was born in a barn and not in royalty which was big then and then He says He was born of immaculate conception and was the Son of God. Wow, would you believe HIm .And I've asked the same question, but if you consider today's world, people who live by the "kiss butt" rule because they want to be high and mighty , they don't get there by truth, they get there by saying what makes others feel good, so the Pharisees were the highest and mightiest and they didn't care if Jesus did perform miracles, they would just deny it and as they did and crucified him for what ? There were also magicians in those days like when Moses made his staff into a snake, so did the magician, so the miracles they might have thought were preset magic tricks. you really have to try to bring Jesus into our world. How would He come that would impress you, born in a barn ? of a carpenter ?? and said his mother was a virgin:??? Kind of hard to believe huh ? You could have some homeless person come up to you and it could have been Jesus and you denied him because He was different and unusual. It is the kiss butt life that messes things up. They deny truth and tell lies to get high and mighty. I would like to see one day where everyone had to tell the truth, oh my !

Answer 4

The great majority of people throughout history have been illiterate, and this was especially true in the time of Jesus.

The great majority of common people back then could not read or write, including soldiers and slaves.

Answer 5

if u want to believe that then do. but the most spoken subject of times for the last 2000 years is JESUS

there for he did existed.

Answer 6

In pc language && returns real most effective while each are real, wherein as || returns real if any of them is right. Its Truth desk is one million acts as True & zero acts as False For AND zero && zero = zero zero && one million = zero one million && zero = zero one million && one million = one million For OR zero || zero = zero zero || one million = zero one million || zero = zero one million || one million = one million

Answer 7

Not so fast with treating _everything_ as forgeries! Just a quick look in Wikipedia for possible non-Christian source material :

"Greco-Roman sources"

"See also: Yeshu and Yuz Asaf"

"Of the non-Christian writings from that time that have been preserved, very few mention Jesus or Christianity, and for that matter few of their authors showed much interest in Judea or the Near East in general. Nonetheless, there are passages relevant to Jesus in the works of four major non-Christian writers of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries – Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger – as well as others. However, these are generally references to early Christians rather than a historical Jesus. Of the four, Josephus' writings, which document John the Baptist, James the Just, and possibly also Jesus, are of the most interest to scholars dealing with the historicity of Jesus (see below). Tacitus, in his Annals written c. 115, mentions popular opinion about Christus, without historical details (see also: Tacitus on Jesus). There is an obscure reference to a Jewish leader called "Chrestus" in Suetonius. Pliny condemned Christians as easily-led fools."

"Josephus"

"Main article: Josephus on Jesus"

"Flavius Josephus (c. 37–c. 100), a Jew and Roman citizen who worked under the patronage of the Flavians, wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in 93. In it, Jesus is mentioned twice. In the second very brief mentioning, Josephus calls James, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ". This is considered by the majority of scholars to be authentic,[34] though a few have raised doubts."

"More notably, in the Testimonium Flavianum, it is written:"

"About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease [to follow him], for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day."

"Concerns have been raised about the authenticity of the passage, at least in part, and it is widely held by scholars that part of the passage is an interpolation by a later scribe. Judging from Alice Whealey's 2003 survey of the historiography, it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus, but that the text that has reached us is corrupt to a perhaps quite substantial extent. In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Flavius Josephus, "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." There has been no consensus on which portions are corrupt, or to what degree. In antiquity, Origen recorded that Josephus did not believe Jesus was the Christ.[37] Michael L. White argued against authenticity, citing that parallel sections of Josephus's Jewish War do not mention Jesus, and that some Christian writers as late as the third century, who quoted from the Antiquities, do not mention the passage. While very few scholars believe the whole testimonium is genuine,[39] most scholars have found at least some authentic words of Josephus in the passage.[40] Certain scholars of Josephus's works have observed that this portion is written in his style."

"Tacitus"

"Main article: Tacitus on Jesus"

Tacitus (c. 56–c. 117), writing c. 116, included in his Annals a mention of Christianity and Christ. In describing Nero's persecution of Christians following the Great Fire of Rome c. 64, he wrote:"

"Nero fastened the guilt [of starting the blaze] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius [14-37] at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."

"Tacitus simply refers to "Christus" the Latinized Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Messiah", rather than the name "Jesus", and he refers to Pontius Pilate as a "procurator", a specific post that differs from the one that the Gospels imply that he held—prefect or governor. In this instance, the Gospel account is supported by archaeology, since a surviving inscription discovered at Caeserae states that Pilate was prefect."

"Concerning Tacitus' source, it was likely an imperial record, and it has been controversially speculated that this may even have been one of Pilate's reports to the emperor. R. E. Van Voorst noted the improbability that later Christians would have interpolated "such disparaging remarks about Christianity"."

"Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman summarized the historical importance of this passage:"

" "Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign. We learn nothing, however, about the reason for this execution, or about Jesus' life and teachings." "

"Suetonius"

"Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas (c. 69–140) wrote the following in 112 as part of his biography of Emperor Claudius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars about riots which broke out in the Jewish community in Rome around 49 or 50: "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome". The event was noted in Acts 18:2. The term Chrestus also appears in some later texts applied to Jesus, and Robert Graves, among others, consider it a variant spelling of Christ, or at least a reasonable spelling error. On the other hand, Chrestus was itself a common name, particularly for slaves, meaning good or useful. Some scholars believe it just as likely that this passage is not a spelling error and does not refer to Jesus or Christians."

"Because these events took place around 20 years after Jesus' death, the passage most likely is not referring to the person Jesus, although it could be referencing Christians, whom Suetonius also mentioned in regards to Nero and the fire of Rome. As such, this passage offers little useful information about Jesus."

"Pliny the Younger"

"Pliny the Younger, the provincial governor of Pontus and Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan c. 112 concerning how to deal with Christians, who refused to worship the emperor, and instead worshiped "Christus". The name "Jesus" is not used."

"Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ."

"They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations."

"Others"

"Thallus, whose identity is difficult to determine, is known to have written a history from the Trojan War to his own time, which was sometime in the first or early second century. His work has been lost. In discussing Jesus' crucifixion and subsequent darkness, Julius Africanus, writing c. 221, referenced the lost work of Thallus:"

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in his third book of History, calls (as appears to me without reason) an eclipse of the sun."

"Lucian, a second century Romano-Syrian satirist, who wrote in Greek, wrote:"

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day — the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account… You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws."

"Celsus, though a late second-century critic of Christianity, accused Jesus of being a bastard child and a sorcerer; yet he never questions Jesus' historicity even though he hated Christianity and Jesus." He is quoted as saying that Jesus was a "mere man"."

"The Acts of Pilate is a lost text, purportedly an official document from Pilate reporting events in Judea to the Emperor Tiberius (thus, it would have been among the commentaii principis). It was mentioned by Justin Martyr, in his First Apology (c. 150) to Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius Verus, who said that his claims concerning Jesus' crucifixion, and some miracles, could be verified by referencing the official record, the "Acts of Pontius Pilate". With the exception of Tertullian, no other writer is known to have mentioned the work, and Tertullian's reference says that Tiberius debated the details of Jesus' life before the Senate, an event that is almost universally considered absurd. There is a later apocryphal text, undoubtedly fanciful, by the same name, and though it is generally thought to have been inspired by Justin's reference (and thus to post-date his Apology), it is possible that Justin actually mentioned this text, though that would give the work an unusually early date and therefore is not a straightforward identification."

"Jewish records"

"Main article: Yeshu"

"The Talmud Sanhedrin 43a, which dates to the earliest period of composition (Tannaitic period) contains the following:"

"On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. Forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried: "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover."

"The name Yeshu (ישו) uses the same letters as the abbreviation "Y.Sh.V." (יש״ו), which scribes use to stand for the longer phrase, "his name will be erased and its memory" (ימח שמו וזכרו Yemakh Shmo V-zikhro), which signifies a Jew convicted of enticing to idolatry, whose name has been blotted out.[citation needed] Thus, this may be referring to somebody other than Jesus."

"Historicity of Jesus : Earliest known sources" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Greco-Roman_sources