Outside of the Bible, is there any proof Jesus existed?

[Ignatius]

Originally Posted by Lui

I think from a historical perspective you can't be 100% sure that Jesus actually existed like Julius Caesar or Cleopatra which is an undeniable historical fact.
To believe that Jesus, Mary and the disciples actually existed .. .

Actually, If you sincerely want to know the truth, It's really not a difficult exercise to determine the reality of Christs existence. Just use the same methods that are used in determining the reality of any other ancient historical figure. Fore instance compare the evidence for Jesus with that for some other historical figure for which there is no doubt among those knowledgeable of ancient historical figure like Hannibal of Carthage. Just make a comparison list for both Hannibal, Caesar or any other ancient hostorical figure and Jesus Christ with all contemporary evidence for their existence and compare them.

[atheistgirl]

Originally Posted by Ignatius

Just make a comparison list for both Hannibal, Caesar or any other ancient hostorical figure and Jesus Christ with all contemporary evidence for their existence and compare them.

I think that's a very weak arguement. The comparative weakness or otherwise of evidence of some obscure historical figure is not justification for claiming another historical figure actually existed, just because the evidence is equally as vague.

And again I come back to the point I made earlier, whether or not Hannibal existed, in terms of the salvation of your soul, is neither here nor there.

But if it is necessary to believe in God/Jesus in order for your soul to be saved, to my way of looking at things, the evidence of his existence should be unequivocal and beyond any dispute or debate.

And unfortunately, to my mind, it's not.

Within the pages of the Bible, of course, all the proof you need is there. But outside of the Bible, which would be an important source for me, personally, no so.

Sarah x

[Lui]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

I think that's a very weak arguement. The comparative weakness or otherwise of evidence of some obscure historical figure is not justification for claiming another historical figure actually existed, just because the evidence is equally as vague.

I agree. Also the evidence the existence of Caesar(from a historical point of view) is overwhelming and undeniable while the existence of Jesus can be a matter of dispute. NO ONE on earth would ever deny Caesar's existence(except maybe the ignorant never who heard of him), just like the existence of Cleopatra.

[Renzo]

Originally Posted by Pieman333272

The Church has also not said the Shroud is a forgery. It's neutral. If anything, your comment was irrelevant.

No, it is not irrelevant. This post is about Jesus historical existence, someone cited the shroud as evidence of His existence. Since, as you clearly admit, the Church is neutral about it, then it can not be cited as evidence, ergo my argument is valid.

Clarification: I am catholic, and even if i wasn't i would find hard to believe that Jesus didn't exist as a historical figure, but a bad argument is a bad argument.

[JJ59]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

I think that's a very weak arguement. The comparative weakness or otherwise of evidence of some obscure historical figure is not justification for claiming another historical figure actually existed, just because the evidence is equally as vague.

And again I come back to the point I made earlier, whether or not Hannibal existed, in terms of the salvation of your soul, is neither here nor there.

But if it is necessary to believe in God/Jesus in order for your soul to be saved, to my way of looking at things, the evidence of his existence should be unequivocal and beyond any dispute or debate.

And unfortunately, to my mind, it's not.

Within the pages of the Bible, of course, all the proof you need is there. But outside of the Bible, which would be an important source for me, personally, no so.

Sarah x

I invite you to respond to my last post, #133.

God bless,

[atheistgirl]

Originally Posted by JJ59

I invite you to respond to my last post, #133.

God bless,

Hi - ok, well my response is:

Tacitus - the document has been called a pious fraud, some claim the altering of the text from Chrestos - meaning the good, to Christians - others say it's genuine, so it not an indisputable reference; Also he's writing a hundred plus years after the events, making it unreliable and subject to conjecture, hearsay, and legend.

Pliny the Younger - not contemporary again - the fact that he recorded observations about how a certaini group of people behaved, is not evidence that the person who founded these beliefs existed, nor is it proof even if he did exist, that he was who he claimed to be.

Modern census' show hundreds of thousands of people are ''Jedi'' ... does this mean Darth Vader must have existed???

The fact that they would be willing to die for their beliefs is also not evidence - people have been willing to die for all sorts of causes and beliefs throughout history.

Josephus - that passage may not be a fraud according to Holding and others, but many many other scholars accept it as a later insertion. The fact Holding doesnt proves nothing, other than once again, that reference is at the very least disputable.

As for the rest of Holdings apologetics, it's very weak and comes across as desperation actually to me.

Nothing has been put forward that is indisputable, irrefutable and unequivocal, either for his existence, or for the claims of who he was.

For people of faith this is not an issue, for people like me, this is a huge issue.

It remains inexplicable to my mind, that a man, in constant dispute and discussions with learned Jews of the day, coming to the attention of the Romans, and who, in front of these people, raised dead bodies, fed thousands of people with fishes and loaves, healed the blind and the lepers, and who was himself raised from the dead, a short while after the graves of hundreds if not thousands broke open and the dead arose and went to the city and spoke to people, would not have a single contemporary historical record made of a single one of these events - by anybody - anywhere.

Sarah x

[You]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

...
It remains inexplicable to my mind, that a man, in constant dispute and discussions with learned Jews of the day, coming to the attention of the Romans, and who, in front of these people, raised dead bodies, fed thousands of people with fishes and loaves, healed the blind and the lepers, and who was himself raised from the dead, a short while after the graves of hundreds if not thousands broke open and the dead arose and went to the city and spoke to people, would not have a single contemporary historical record made of a single one of these events - by anybody - anywhere.

Sarah x

All the contemporary accounts were gathered together in the 300's and translated into Latin and bound into a codex, now called the Bible.

[atheistgirl]

Originally Posted by You

All the contemporary accounts were gathered together in the 300's and translated into Latin and bound into a codex, now called the Bible.

The question was about evidence outside of the Bible.

But regardless, as I understand it not even the letters and books of the Bible were written contemporaneously, all being written after the life of Christ, and with a few exceptions, most of the authors are not even known.

Again, this makes for high levels of unreliability in my mind.

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by alwayswondering

I was clicking around YouTube today, and came across a video, which I can not find now, that was about Jesus not existing. So, just out of curiosity I googled "proof Jesus existed" and "proof Jesus did not exist". 78 million + pages came up for proof Jesus did not exist, while less than 2 million came up for Jesus existing. Of course, this troubled me, so I'm just curious....what proof is there Jesus existed? What is the proof that he is who he said he is?

I know many people say "you need faith, not proof" but this is not a sufficient answer for me. I've always been a person that needs at least some sort of evidence....I was in the LDS church for a while and "walked by faith" and obviously that got me nowhere. So please, I understand in some situations I need faith, but I'm not going to be totally blinded either and just shrug my shoulders and say "well, I guess I'll go along with this" when there is no proof or evidence or anything.

Thank you!

Let's take a look at Julius Caesar, one of Rome's most prominent figures. Caesar is well know for his military conquests. After his Gallic Wars, he made the famous statement, "I came, I saw, I conquered." Only five sources report his military conquests: writings by Caesar himself, Cicero, Livy, the Salona Decree, and Appian (and Appian was second century, more than 150 years after Julius died). Why didn't more writers mention his great military conquests? In 150 years his death, more non-Christian authors alone comment on Jesus than all of the sources who mentioned Julius Caesar's great military conquests within 150 years of his death.

Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar (Nov. 16, 42 BC – March 16, AD 37), was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution, and died less than 4 years after Jesus died in 33 AD. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same time. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of 9 each. (Tiberius's number reduces from ten to nine since Luke is a Christian source.)

Craig Bloomberg, who served as the editor for and contributor to a large scholarly work on the Gospels (Gospel Perspectives), provided four reasons why more was not written about Jesus in his time: "the humble beginnings of Christianity, the remote location of Palestine on the eastern frontiers of the Roman empire, the small percentage of the works of the ancient Graeco-Roman historians which have survived, and the lack of attention paid by those which are extant to Jewish figures in general" (Bloomberg, Historical Reliability, 197. See Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 64-67).

What we have concerning Jesus is actually quite impressive. We can start with approximately nine traditional authors of the New Testament. If we consider critical thesis that other authors wrote pastoral letters and such letters as Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, we'd have an even larger number. Another twenty early Christian authors and four heretical writings mention Jesus within 150 years of his death on the cross. (Clement of Rome's letter to the church in Corinth; 2 Clement whose author is unknown; the seven letters of Igantius; Polycarp's letter to the Philippians; The Martyrdom of Polycarp; Didache; the letter of Barnabas; The Shepherd of Hermas; Fragments of Papias; the letter of Diognetus; the Apocalypse o Peter (not to be confused with the Nag Hammadi text of similar name); the Gospel of Peter; the Epistula Apostolorum; and the works of Justyn Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, and Melito of Sardis. The four heretical writings are the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, and Treatise on Resurrection-see Habermas, Historical Jesus, 208-15.

Moreover, nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within 150 years: Joseph, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion (highly regarded in a British Museum). In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death. (see Habermas, Historical Jesus, ch. 9).

You can even add more on top of that. We know only about half of what Roman historian wrote in the first century about an ancient Mediterranean history has survived. Suetonius is aware of the writings of Asclepiades of Mendes, yet, his writings are no longer available. Herod the Great's secretary, Nicholas of Damascus, wrote a Universal History in 144 books, none of which has survived. Livy, the great Roman historian, has suffered a similar fate. (Documented by Paul Maier, Distinguished Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University, for the information on Nicholas of Damascus and Livy.)

http://biblocality.com/forums/showth...r-Their-Deaths

[You]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

The question was about evidence outside of the Bible.

But regardless, as I understand it not even the letters and books of the Bible were written contemporaneously, all being written after the life of Christ, and with a few exceptions, most of the authors are not even known.

Again, this makes for high levels of unreliability in my mind.

When they were written they were all outside 'the Bible', as there was no Bible, just many contemporaneous accounts - both written and spoken accounts.

Concerning the value of the authorship;
for example; If you knew the authors name was pliny the elder or the younger or anyone else it would make not a jot of difference as the author knew things about the volcano eruption which have been verified by archaeology and history. Any such account would be of immense value to historians studying that period and the authors name, while of passing interest, would not be important. The content is the only important part as it alone offers a glimpse into an otherwise unknown past.
Likewise with the contemporaneously written biblical accounts, they describe an ancient world well known by their authors and that world can be discovered by our own contemporary archaeologists and this gives veracity to the biblical accounts.

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by alwayswondering

I was clicking around YouTube today, and came across a video, which I can not find now, that was about Jesus not existing. So, just out of curiosity I googled "proof Jesus existed" and "proof Jesus did not exist". 78 million + pages came up for proof Jesus did not exist, while less than 2 million came up for Jesus existing. Of course, this troubled me, so I'm just curious....what proof is there Jesus existed? What is the proof that he is who he said he is?

I know many people say "you need faith, not proof" but this is not a sufficient answer for me. I've always been a person that needs at least some sort of evidence....I was in the LDS church for a while and "walked by faith" and obviously that got me nowhere. So please, I understand in some situations I need faith, but I'm not going to be totally blinded either and just shrug my shoulders and say "well, I guess I'll go along with this" when there is no proof or evidence or anything.

Thank you!

We also know of several Christian writings no longer available. For example, an influential church leader in the early part of the second century named Papias wrote five books that are quoted by several early church fathers. (Papias, Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord. See Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross, 1026-45). However, none of these books have survived. Only a few citations and slight summary information remain. (See Fragments of Papias). Quadratus was as Christian leader who wrote a defense of the Christian faith to the Roman Emperor Hadrian around 125. However, if Eusebius had not quoted a paragraph and mentioned his work, we would be totally unaware of its composition (Ecclesiastical History, 3:37; 4:3). The five books of Recollections, written by Hegesippus in the second century, have likewise been lost. Only fragments have been preserved, mostly by Eusebius.

http://biblocality.com/forums/showth...r-Their-Deaths

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

Hi - ok, well my response is:

Tacitus - the document has been called a pious fraud, some claim the altering of the text from Chrestos - meaning the good, to Christians - others say it's genuine, so it not an indisputable reference; Also he's writing a hundred plus years after the events, making it unreliable and subject to conjecture, hearsay, and legend.

You may like to look at this refutation of skeptical claims:
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html

This is a general point. A.N. Sherwin Wright, a professional historian who wrote 'Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament' says Roman and Greek histories are generally biased and removed one or two generations or even centuries after the events they record. Ys he says historians reconstruct with confidence Greek and Roman history. For example the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great written by Arrian and Plutarch were written 400 years after Alexander's death, yet classical historians still consider them trustworthy.

Pliny the Younger - not contemporary again - the fact that he recorded observations about how a certaini group of people behaved, is not evidence that the person who founded these beliefs existed, nor is it proof even if he did exist, that he was who he claimed to be.

Pliny wrote that he tortured and executed Christians, that is not evidence alone that Jesus existed, but when you add all the other evidence, it becomes ridiculous to say that Jesus did not exist.

Modern census' show hundreds of thousands of people are ''Jedi'' ... does this mean Darth Vader must have existed???

Depends if there is any historical evidence for Darth Vader. Is there?

The fact that they would be willing to die for their beliefs is also not evidence - people have been willing to die for all sorts of causes and beliefs throughout history.

True.

Josephus - that passage may not be a fraud according to Holding and others, but many many other scholars accept it as a later insertion. The fact Holding doesnt proves nothing, other than once again, that reference is at the very least disputable.

Some think the passage is a complete interpolation, some think it is authentic. I believe the general consensus among scholars is that Josephus made some mention of Jesus but it became distorted over time.

As for the rest of Holdings apologetics, it's very weak and comes across as desperation actually to me.

Nothing has been put forward that is indisputable, irrefutable and unequivocal, either for his existence, or for the claims of who he was.

For people of faith this is not an issue, for people like me, this is a huge issue.

It remains inexplicable to my mind, that a man, in constant dispute and discussions with learned Jews of the day, coming to the attention of the Romans, and who, in front of these people, raised dead bodies, fed thousands of people with fishes and loaves, healed the blind and the lepers, and who was himself raised from the dead, a short while after the graves of hundreds if not thousands broke open and the dead arose and went to the city and spoke to people, would not have a single contemporary historical record made of a single one of these events - by anybody - anywhere.

Sarah x

I heard something interesting from Fr. Robert Barron on 'World Over Live' on Friday. C.S. Lewis said if anyone thinks the Gospels are the myths they have not reads many myths. Star Myths is a myth, its set in a Galaxy far far away, long long time ago, like 'once upon a time.' A myth is a presentation of basic truths about life and nature, its not a historical document. When you say in the Gospels that Jesus was born when Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome, Quirinius was governor of Syria, that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that matters, they are saying these are not mythic statements, these are historical claims. We have more reliable historical evidence for Jesus than we do for almost any ancient figure. When you see the wealth of evidence we have., and the texts that go back so far and are so consistent, to say the Gospels are myths, legends, lies is crazy.

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

The question was about evidence outside of the Bible.

But regardless, as I understand it not even the letters and books of the Bible were written contemporaneously, all being written after the life of Christ, and with a few exceptions, most of the authors are not even known.

Again, this makes for high levels of unreliability in my mind.

Another point, here is a list of quotes from modern atheist historians, who reject the idea that Jesus never existed: http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm

For whatever reasons they don't believe Jesus as God because they are atheists, maybe they are anti supernaturalists and that can be refuted, but to deny the existence of Jesus is ridiculous and even these atheists acknowledge that.

[atheistgirl]

Originally Posted by _Abyssinia

but to deny the existence of Jesus is ridiculous and even these atheists acknowledge that.

Ive never denied the existence of Jesus - well, I hope I havent because that's not my position. My position is there is no clear-cut unquestionable evidence - lots of circumstantial evidence can be brought together to show to a greater or lesser extent that he existed, or not, depending on your interpretation of the evidence.
I dont think there is a sufficiently strong case to categorically say Jesus never existed, precicely because evidence offered up is so debatable, disputable, equivocal, and in some cases unreliable,
It makes it all but impossible to know for sure.

And for me personally, that's not good enough evidence.

But Ive never said Jesus did not exist.

[atheistgirl]

Originally Posted by _Abyssinia

When you say in the Gospels that Jesus was born when Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome, Quirinius was governor of Syria, that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that matters, they are saying these are not mythic statements, these are historical claims.

Yes, and historical contradictions and anomolyes have been highlighted in the two birth accounts. Forcing apologists like Holding to jump through hoops - but for the person of faith, it's irrelevant, the Bible is the inspired inerrant word of God. So there cant be any mistakes in it, even if history can prove Herod was dead long before Jesus was born..... and for me, personally (I do not speak for or on behalf of other non believers) it really is a big deal.