Historical Jesus - What is Truth?

Question

I believe He existed and still does, I need NO Proof because he lives in my Heart..you would have to experience it to understand it..faith..but here is something very interesting for those who say He was a Myth:

Historical Jesus: A Recent Movement to Reinterpret the New Testament Record
The search for the “Historical Jesus” is a rather recent undertaking of so-called scholars and realists, who look to dissect the Biblical record and paint a real picture of the man, Jesus. For about the last 100 years, including most recently, the Jesus Seminar, intellectual debate has made its way into the mainstream media based on the supposed goal of “separating historical fact from mythology.” The problem is that the entire “Historical Jesus” movement is a product of the 20th Century philosophy of naturalism, in that all debate begins with a shared, yet concealed, presupposition – that anything outside the realm of natural explanation can never be backed by historical evidence.

In a nutshell, the movement holds that it's impossible for the Gospel accounts of Jesus to be historically accurate, because they record things that simply can't happen, like people walking on water, food multiplying, and people being raised from the dead. Of course, this is not scholarly evaluation of the historical evidence or Biblical manuscripts – this is strict adherence to the philosophy of naturalism.

Historical Jesus: The Unchanging Reality of the New Testament Record
When examined, the “Historical Jesus” movement of the last 100 years has unearthed nothing that undermines the Gospel accounts. There is no "new evidence" supporting the idea that Jesus was merely a “good man.” There is no “new evidence” debunking the accounts of miracles and the resurrection based on new analysis of “myth theory” over a long period of time. To the contrary, recent discoveries have given more credibility to the nature and content of the New Testament record than ever before. Actually, except for the propagated view of the mainstream media, the trend in the last two decades has been for liberal scholars to become more conservative in their views on the reliability of the New Testament record, not less

Recent finds in archaeology are showing more (not less) consistent detail of the time, culture, religion and politics at the time Jesus walked the earth. At the same time, Biblical manuscript credibility has taken great leaps forward (not backward). Do these things prove the miracles or resurrection of Jesus? No. However, when these things are combined with the record of historical accuracy, messianic prophecy, early church growth, Christian persecution, and extra-biblical sources, we see powerful substance (not mythology) underlying the claim that the writers of the New Testament record were eye-witnesses to the events themselves.

For instance, we know from sources outside the Bible that the Apostle Paul died during Nero’s persecution in 64 A.D. We also know that Paul was still alive at the close of Acts, so Acts must have been written sometime before 64 A.D. Since Acts was a continuation of Luke's Gospel, we know that Gospel must have been written even earlier still. Any scholar, including those in the “Historical Jesus” movement, will tell you that the Gospel of Mark predates the Gospel of Luke. This supports the writing of Mark in the 50s A.D., only about two decades after the crucifixion of Jesus. Outside the Gospels, no legitimate scholar will dispute that Paul wrote Romans in the mid-50s. Why is this important? Because Paul declares that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God in the opening lines of that New Testament letter. Galatians is another undisputed letter of Paul written in the mid-50s. Why is this important?

Because Paul discusses his interaction with Peter and James, two of Jesus’ primary disciples, at least 14 years earlier in Galatians 1:18 and 2:1. Finally, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Paul proclaims the earliest record of the Christian creed, in which Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised from the dead three days later. Why is this early creed so important? Because scholars, using the historical records of Paul and his early travels to Damascus and Jerusalem, place the above creed at about 35 A.D., just 3 to 5 years after the death of Jesus Christ

Historical Jesus: The True Record
The “Historical Jesus” movement holds that the Gospels were fabricated or seriously distorted as the stories of Jesus evolved into the late 1st or early 2nd century. However, this theory is not supported by the evidence. Time and again the New Testament writers claim to be eyewitnesses to the facts, giving detailed geographic, political and cultural details to bolster the record. All of the manuscript evidence presented above is dramatic, because it establishes that basic Christian doctrine developed far too quickly for a myth to intervene and distort the historical record, especially when so many witnesses were still alive to contradict the alleged errors or myths

READ IT ALL BEFORE YOU ANSWER..THANKS

Translucent,,,,your mixed up Jesus is the reason for Christan, how could there be christians before him, your statement makes no sense..

honshu01...have you ever read...JOSEPHUS Antiquities, Book 18, ch. 3, par. 3. or LETTER OF MARA BARSARAPION: (73 A.D.) How about the gospel accounts? Did you know the first gospel account (Gospel of Luke) was actually recorded while Jesus was alive but was not transcribed as a full text until around 50-60 AD. That's less than 20 years after the crucifixion of Christ

alanagkelly....a collage course on Jesus existence..I see they are gonna try to prove it and not be bias, get real.
I suggest you read the post I listed above yours . did they show you that in collage?

Answer 1

The Bible, Old and New Testaments, tells us about the only important aspects of Jesus' life. I see no point in mankind dissecting, altering or explaining the details 2000 years later.

P.S. For those who don't know when the books of the New Testament were written, there's a book with many scholarly views called "The Case for Christ," by Lee Stroebel. I highly recommend it.

Answer 2

There is no historical Jesus.

I took a college course on this very issue and there is no information on Jesus outside of the bible. Whatever you feel in your heart is great, but that does not make it historically accurate.

You must be careful what you use to justify the "truth" of the bible. Otherwise, many things will appear to be true.


Edit: Don't belittle my education for one. It makes you look ignorant and void of any real argument. You have no idea what I have learned.

Secondly, It was not a course on Jesus's existence. Since there is no evidence, there wouldn't be enough information for the class. It would be a single lecture.
I do not know is I read what you posted in my course, but you have given your information more then it deserves. You cannot use the bible to justify his existence. That is ridiculous.
I am unbiased. I just know what I have learned and researched and written many a papers about. Of course, since I don't agree with you there is really no point. You are obviously biased and have already made up your mind.

Answer 3

You don't have to believe only if there's rational evidence. One can have faith whether there is evidence or not. But wouldn't it be nice to know what there is evidence for and what there isn't?

The quote you give is not accurate. The claim that Jesus was an historical figure is not a supernatural claim, it is a natural claim. So in examining the evidence for whether or not Jesus did live we need only rely on natural evidence. There isn't a lot of historical evidence to show even that.

Now reason (what your source calls "naturalism") says that in order to have enough evidence to show that the supernatural happened you need extraordinary evidence. This is just common sense. If I tell you that yesterday I ate two Pop Tarts brand toaster pastries you will believe me. Why? there's nothing extraordinary about this claim, I'm not trying to found a religion on it, it's a perfectly natural event and requires little evidence to be convincing. If I told you, on the other hand, that two Pop Tart brand toaster pastries spoke to me yesterday and told me that the end of the universe is near unless we start wearing socks on our hands you would require far more evidence to believe me. Is this some sort of naturalist bias? It's just being reasonable- we have a long history of knowing that things with mouths and vocal chords talk and pastries do not. So there's a lot of evidence that this probably didn't happen. It would take a lot more than my telling you it did for you to believe me if you are relying on reason.

As it happens, there's barely any evidence to show that Jesus actually lived. There certainly isn't enough evidence to show, using reason, that Jesus did miracles. You can still believe he did, but that requires faith. you can't reach that conclusion using reason.

Answer 4

Only God could walk on water, feed 5000 with a young man's lunch and raise many people from the dead. Historical Jesus was God their Creator and the Creator of everything. Just like the Word of God tells us in the Holy Bible.

When the Lord returns, I want all of the Secular Humanists and Naturalistic believers to remember their comments about Him.

The Word of God says "that He walked among His own and His own knew Him not." John said that He did so many miracles that He could not write them all down. Many were healed and raised from the dead. The blind made to see. The lepers cleansed. The lame walked. The mental retarded had their demons cast out. Today, these same miracles should be happening on every corner if Christians would believe the Word of God.

Answer 5

According to the "Secret Bible" sequence produced by means of Discovery (or Nat Geo, i are not able to bear in mind which). Jesus did exist, he preached the gospel of affection and tolerance (or whatever like that). Then constantine remade him into the son of god. This used to be critical on the time because the Roman empire used to be tearing itself aside as a result of devout ideals. This new faith that the roman emperor announced has to have factors of the entire religions so as to be publicly and unanimously authorised. So sure, consistent with historians and artefactual proof, Jesus did certainly exist. Unfortunately, his usual literature (that he wrote) used to be misplaced and by no means recovered. *My opinion* one million. There is not any motive why Jesus did not exist. It is thoroughly fair that he did and preached the population. two. The old details insinuate that Jesus weren't instantly dependable for the Bible at present. Instead it used to be written by means of a handful of devout thinker "via the hand of god". three. The resurrection defined within the bible are believed by means of a few to intend that he didn't die on the crucifix. If you forget about the arena of magic and targeted powers. It is utterly believable that Jesus didn't die on the pass however rather used to be nursed again to well being. four. Yes there have been different messiah with an identical stature and have an impact on as Jesus, however Jesus received within the 'advertising' division. I is not going to pass into element right here. I suppose that is all I ought to say. I desire this is helping together with your religous perspectives. Please realize that faith is a advisor to lifestyles. You do not relatively ought to realize in which christianity come from. The factor being that it courses you to grow to be a well character and that's all there may be to it (IMHO). PS: When it involves faith and politics, Wikipedia is a deficient supply of infomation. IP monitoring bots observed that quite a lot of big corporations edits and omits content material as a rule. This results in questionable objetivity.

Answer 6

Your interminable "question" is very much like wishful thinking. Given that there was probably someone whose is called Jesus and whose "deeds" are recorded in the 4 gospels, there is absolutely NO evidence that he was born of a virgin, performed miracles, walked on water or rose from the dead. These are assertions with no evidence, though they are interposed in a more or less factual framework. It is obvious that the gospels, if examined chronologically starting with Mark, each become more elaborated, and more mythologised, and the facts and stories are more manipulated to fit in with the Old Testament messianic prophecies.

By the way, it is widely accepted by scholars that the quotes in Josephus that are supposed to refer to Jesus being Christ and rising from the dead were interpolated by early Christians to boost their case.

Answer 7

I have never seen such a long diatribe describing how confused the author is.

This recent movement you refer to is nothing of the kind. If it was, it would say there is no basis in fact of any content of the bible. Most of these archaelogists/historians agree that a flood of great porportions occurred .They agree that a man named Jesus did exist and have connections to the Essenes. In fact most of the characters of the bible have been established in fact.

What is not established fact is the scriptural spin put on them. Christ's divinity, global nature of Noah's flood, the genesis and so forth...

Answer 8

Jesus lives in your heart...but other hearts are home to Allah, or Ganesha, or Ahura Mazda, etc. That fact alone proves that the dogmatic interpretation of any given religion is shallow and superficial. Who are you to claim that your personal spiritual experience is any more objectively valid than anybody else's?

As for the "historical Jesus," there is precious little one can hang one's hat on. It seems that there was probably a man or men upon whom the accounts in the "gospels" were loosely based. Beyond that, virtually nothing is certain; and most of the assertions made by "Christians" regarding Jesus are antecedently absurd, and rightly met with skepticism.

To understand how non-Christians view your "Relationship with Christ," consider how you view the Muslim's attitude towards Allah.

Answer 9

Since all the accounts are from a few generations later, it is impossible to say one way or the other.

There probably was a man named Jesus, but it is a weak case. And you aren't going to convince me that anyone really has a good idea what he was like at all.

Answer 10

"with a shared, yet concealed, presupposition – that anything outside the realm of natural explanation can never be backed by historical evidence"

Look, aside from the miracle stuff, they at least are looking for some shreds of evidence of his existence. Something which has been lacking, given that all semi-reliable historical accounts are from a later date.

You should be happy they are at least willing to accept the proposition of Jesus' physical presence on earth.