What About All The Extrabiblical References To Jesus?

[rocklobster]

im just going to link you guys to a website that just gives examples of this and who wrote them.

 

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_extrabib.html

 

of course this may not be the best resource, but im sure many of you will be familiar with the names in it.

 

what do you guys think of all these?

[BrotherJosh]

what do you guys think of all these?

 

Not much The only "extra-Biblical" source who could be a contemporary of Jesus is Josephus and those passages are heavily disputed. Any "evidence" for Jesus comes well after his alleged lifetime and are really only making references to Early Christians. At best he was a wandering apocalyptic preacher who was executed for stirring up political trouble and was buried in a mass grave. After his death various messianic and Greek influences slowly melded the story into what it is today (see any other infamous or mythic type figure throughout history who eventually becomes a legendary superhuman type of character..)

 

Whether or not he actually existed at this point is irrelevant since his existence is buried under Biblical forgeries, contradictions, myths and tradition that trying to tease out the real historical Jesus seems almost impossible. In my opinion, the only way we could know 100% if he existed is if we found undisputed writings of his, which all that establishes is that he existed and not that he is who he says he is. L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones and David Koresh all existed, doesn't mean their claims are true.

In fact, let's take a look at Matthew 27: 51-53," ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. ⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and^[c] went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

Funny, how there's no secular Roman or Jewish mention of this zombie attack on Jerusalem...

[Ouroboros]

im just going to link you guys to a website that just gives examples of this and who wrote them.

 

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_extrabib.html

 

of course this may not be the best resource, but im sure many of you will be familiar with the names in it.

 

what do you guys think of all these?

Jesus supposedly were crucified and resurrected sometime between 30-35 AD. The earliest extrabiblical person (Josephus) wasn't even born when Jesus died. I don't trust them to be good sources for Jesus's existence or not. They can only report on Christians, but not on Jesus (since they didn't even live at the same time). Right? Imagine if I started to write about Isaac Newton. Would my writings be trustworthy sources about Newton's existence or would my reports be based solely on other peoples' stories?

[JadedAtheist]

All of those but Josephus talk about Christians, not Jesus and even then the Josephus quote is pretty much unanimously agreed upon to be a interpolation (after all, would Josephus a non-Christian Jew remark on the appropriateness on calling Jesus a man?). As BrotherJosh mentioned, some weird and wacky shit went on in the NT yet we don't hear any of it outside of the Bible. The tabernacle curtains were torn asunder, people raised from the dead, healings and let's not forget about the murder of all those infants too and so on were happening but zero information in outside sources. Outside of Islam (as far as I can think of right now), all other religions have basically no evidence for the historicity of their founder.

[Foxy Methoxy]

There was a real man who was the son of God. He was born on Dec 25. He died and raised from the dead, taking the keys to Hades with him. His name is Mithra and if you accept his light and bathe yourself in his holy blood, he will grant you the gift of eternal life.

[JadedAtheist]

You're forgetting the sacrificing of the ceremonial bull!

[Foxy Methoxy]

Yes. Lots of bull is necessesary for believers.

[Vigile]

http://www.1channel.ch/watch-2727677-National-Geographic-When-Rome-Ruled-Rise-of-Christianity

 

 

National Geographic When Rome Ruled Rise of Christianity: Christianity conquered the Roman Empire. It catapulted from a persecuted mystery cult, viewed as a threat to the pagan ritualistic pantheon, to a turning point of victories over Rome's traditional religion. National Geographic unravels how the Christians infiltrated, endured and overran Rome; from the earliest martyrs to the first Christian empire, see how they spread their message.

[rocklobster]

There was a real man who was the son of God. He was born on Dec 25. He died and raised from the dead, taking the keys to Hades with him. His name is Mithra and if you accept his light and bathe yourself in his holy blood, he will grant you the gift of eternal life.

 

was mithra written before or after jesus?

[rocklobster]

http://www.1channel....of-Christianity

 

 

National Geographic When Rome Ruled Rise of Christianity: Christianity conquered the Roman Empire. It catapulted from a persecuted mystery cult, viewed as a threat to the pagan ritualistic pantheon, to a turning point of victories over Rome's traditional religion. National Geographic unravels how the Christians infiltrated, endured and overran Rome; from the earliest martyrs to the first Christian empire, see how they spread their message.

thanks for the video, ill probably watch that tonight actually

[mwc]

You can read this on the Africanus mention. Hopefully it will show you how just little bits and pieces don't hold up if you look at the larger picture.

 

For example, no one questions "christians" but the origin(s) of said "christians" is in question. How many your external references become less important? Most of them? What early xians were and where they came from is really the heart of the matter. Look at early xian sources. They describe all sorts of "xians" but only the author and his pals are really, real "xians."

 

mwc

[Foxy Methoxy]

There was a real man who was the son of God. He was born on Dec 25. He died and raised from the dead, taking the keys to Hades with him. His name is Mithra and if you accept his light and bathe yourself in his holy blood, he will grant you the gift of eternal life.

 

was mithra written before or after jesus?

 

Mithra is the messiah of a religion called Zoroastrianism which pre-dates Christianity by 3,000 years. It is based on an oracle named Zoroaster who prophesied every 3000 years, a child of the sun god would be born to a virgin. Any of this sound familiar? The religion originated in Persia where, coincidentally or not, was a land where Jews spent part of their exile (according to the Bible). Interestingly, the magi who visited Mary are believed to be Persian.

 

My personal feeling is the same myths have been circulating in that region for thousands of years. Jesus, Horus the younger, Mithra, Buddha, and Krishna all have remarkable similarities.

[hereticzero]

The only religions that claim Jesus was a real person are religions that have based their own religion off of the mythology of Jesus, such as Mormonism, and Christianity. Just because Islam's holy book mentions Jesus, this still doesn't make him a real person. Islam was created 600 years after Jesus time, in response to Christian incursion into the middle east. I don't know how many books I've read that mention Zeus, Thor, Odin, whoever. Just because a book mentions a name, does it make that person real? Not every mythological story began as a true story, some myths are just for entertainment, such as the one about something called a 'balanced budget.'

[Spectrox]

im just going to link you guys to a website that just gives examples of this and who wrote them.

 

http://www.rationalc...s_extrabib.html

 

of course this may not be the best resource, but im sure many of you will be familiar with the names in it.

 

what do you guys think of all these?

 

A character called Jesus is referred to in Monty Python's The Life of Brian. I found the whole account to be quite convincing actually. Especially the reference to Bigus Dickus.

[Ouroboros]

A character called Jesus is referred to in Monty Python's The Life of Brian. I found the whole account to be quite convincing actually. Especially the reference to Bigus Dickus.

Yes! Biggus Dickus was a real historical person. The movie proves it. ... "...always look on the bright side of life..."

[Falloutdude]

The josephus reference to Jesus was edited in later, we actually have proof of this. We have a document from around the time frame when it was written/and original, and then we have the one mentioning jesus. In essence it is a forgery.

[Foxy Methoxy]

The forgery was added by Sillius Soddus with the aid of Naughtius Maximus.

[mwc]

The josephus reference to Jesus was edited in later, we actually have proof of this. We have a document from around the time frame when it was written/and original, and then we have the one mentioning jesus. In essence it is a forgery.

We don't have any originals of any of these documents. It sure would be great if we did. The earliest Greek Josephus we have is from the 10th century if memory serves (I'm know I'm in the ballpark).

 

However, there is a lot of evidence that tends towards the TF as being a forgery. It was probably done by the time of Origen and then refined from there. There are some great places where it could have been used by apologists, and other items in book 18 were used, but this passage was not. But an argument from silence is not very strong. So we have to look at what is said. And the evidence tends towards the usage of "christ" by Josephus (he uses 3 times in all his works and only two times relating to a "messianic" figure...this particular one in two different books). Then the passage tends to "jump" around in location (even possibly appearing in Wars as opposed to Antiquities) based on what the authors who cite it have to say.

 

It really is a suspicious passage not just on content but for these other reasons. It's similar to the "Adulteress" passage in G.John which shows up late, moves about and even shows up in a copy of G.Luke. In spite of that it's deemed "authentic" which makes me wonder about people. Because this Josephus passage is given the same treatment. Likely because the James passage in Josephus relies on this and vice-versa. Remove one and the other needs to go.

 

mwc

[Falloutdude]

The josephus reference to Jesus was edited in later, we actually have proof of this. We have a document from around the time frame when it was written/and original, and then we have the one mentioning jesus. In essence it is a forgery.

We don't have any originals of any of these documents. It sure would be great if we did. The earliest Greek Josephus we have is from the 10th century if memory serves (I'm know I'm in the ballpark).

 

However, there is a lot of evidence that tends towards the TF as being a forgery. It was probably done by the time of Origen and then refined from there. There are some great places where it could have been used by apologists, and other items in book 18 were used, but this passage was not. But an argument from silence is not very strong. So we have to look at what is said. And the evidence tends towards the usage of "christ" by Josephus (he uses 3 times in all his works and only two times relating to a "messianic" figure...this particular one in two different books). Then the passage tends to "jump" around in location (even possibly appearing in Wars as opposed to Antiquities) based on what the authors who cite it have to say.

 

It really is a suspicious passage not just on content but for these other reasons. It's similar to the "Adulteress" passage in G.John which shows up late, moves about and even shows up in a copy of G.Luke. In spite of that it's deemed "authentic" which makes me wonder about people. Because this Josephus passage is given the same treatment. Likely because the James passage in Josephus relies on this and vice-versa. Remove one and the other needs to go.

 

mwc

 

 

 

I should have said we have one that predates the one that includes a reference to Jesus, which probably would have been more accurate