[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by HOZ

Is that all I said? Hmm...

You built up a straw man to knock him down. You have basically said you don't trust any biblical or extra-biblical documents because they are to far removed from Christ's life and their for unreliable. And since there are no true, in your opinion, "Documented facts" about him he is a myth. Since you don't trust them you have left us with nothing. You need more proof...something that is not coming. Why?

When you have the mightiest empire of the age commit the first "signed sealed and documented" genocide in Israel...how many documents do you think would survive this? (We have the Dead Sea scrolls.....) Especially when they sacked Jerusalem and it's temple? When the Romans were carting off the booted from Solomon's temple do you think they stopped to check for documents purtaining to Jesus of Nazareth (or Galalie) on their way out?

Peter who was the "Rock which Jesus would build his church" travelled to Rome. Due to pursecution they had to meet in caves and crypts beneith the city of Rome. How many documents do you think survived the Lions in the Arena?

Back to Homer. As I am sure you know, Oral tradition not written tradition was the way stories, history and lesson were taught. Why? Not many people could read. So more than likely the History of Christ was transmitted orally...until someone had the great idea to write some of them down. Leads to mistakes, embellishments, etc. Back to Homer. Do you believe than Athena, Mars, Zeus really were on the fields of battle back then? Probably not. Yet Homer described the city that was dug up in Turkey to a T....for Troy.

You need Jesus' "Troy" to be dug up to believe in him since the documents about him are not reliable, in your opinion.

I said I find it difficult to beleive that a mere myth would be strong enough to survive the Roman empire persecution (remember they empied a country of their people and massicered 500,000 Guals), barbarian invasions (see Vikings, and others on the History channel...awesome viewing!) and massive plagues.

Well, lets examine your rant a bit further.

First, is it possible for a religion to be founded out of myth and survive thousands of years?:

Some critics doubt that a historicized Jesus could develop from myth because they think there never occurred any precedence for it. We have many examples of myth from history but what about the other way around? This doubt fails in the light of the most obvious example-- the Greek mythologies where Greek and Roman writers including Diodorus, Cicero, Livy, etc., assumed that there must have existed a historical root for figures such as Hercules, Theseus, Odysseus, Minos, Dionysus, etc. These writers put their mythological heroes into an invented historical time chart. Herodotus, for example, tried to determine when Hercules lived. As Robert M. Price revealed, "The whole approach earned the name of Euhemerism, from Euhemerus who originated it." [Price, p. 250] Even today, we see many examples of seedling historicized mythologies: UFO adherents who's beliefs began as a dream of alien bodily invasion, and then expressed as actually having occurred (some of which have formed religious cults); beliefs of urban legends which started as pure fiction or hoaxes; propaganda spread by politicians which stem from fiction but believed by their constituents. Scientology provides a glaring modern example of a cult founded by a science fiction writer that has now progressed to a full fledged religion within just 50 years!

People consider Hercules and other Greek gods as myth because people no longer believe in the Greek and Roman stories. When a civilization dies, so go their gods. Christianity and its church authorities, on the other hand, still hold a powerful influence on governments, institutions, and colleges. Anyone doing research on Jesus, even skeptics, had better allude to his existence or else risk future funding and damage to their reputations or fear embarrassment against their Christian friends. Christianity depends on establishing a historical Jesus and it will defend, at all costs, even the most unreliable sources. The faithful want to believe in Jesus, and belief alone can create intellectual barriers that leak even into atheist and secular thought. We have so many Christian professors, theologians and historical "experts" around the world that tell us we should accept a historical Jesus that if repeated often enough, it tends to convince even the most ardent skeptic. The establishment of history should never reside with the "experts" words alone or simply because a scholar has a reputation as a historian. If a scholar makes a historical claim, his assertion should depend primarily with the evidence itself and not just because he says so. Facts do not require belief. And whereas beliefs can live comfortably without evidence at all, facts depend on evidence.

As to your second point Hoz, if Jesus was such a wonderous guy, why isn't he in any record from his time, including the notoriously volumnious Romans?:

What appears most revealing of all, comes not from what got later written about Jesus but what people did not write about him. Consider that not a single historian, philosopher, scribe or follower who lived before or during the alleged time of Jesus ever mentions him!

If, indeed, the Gospels portray a historical look at the life of Jesus, then the one feature that stands out prominently within the stories shows that people claimed to know Jesus far and wide, not only by a great multitude of followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod who claims that he had heard "of the fame of Jesus" (Matt 14:1)". One need only read Matt: 4:25 where it claims that "there followed him [Jesus] great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jersulaem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." The gospels mention, countless times, the great multitude that followed Jesus and crowds of people who congregated to hear him. So crowded had some of these gatherings grown, that Luke 12:1 alleges that an "innumberable multitude of people... trode one upon another." Luke 5:15 says that there grew "a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear..." The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes, including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but helped in his alleged crucifixion. (see Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13). The multitude of people thought of Jesus, not only as a teacher and a miracle healer, but a prophet (see Matt:14:5).

So here we have the gospels portraying Jesus as famous far and wide, a prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people who knew about him, including the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the area, and not one person records his existence during his lifetime? If the poor, the rich, the rulers, the highest priests, and the scribes knew about Jesus, who would not have heard of him?

Yes. Quite a riddle that one. A real logic box. Please squirm here. Your only defence in your post above seems to revolve around hoping the dog ate the homework.

And any other point you want to reference is likely adequately dealt with at the link below, which I'll produce for the fourth time in this thread. (Lest you think I'm relying on this individual, I simply finds he covers fairly simply, but in detail, what you can find at a myriad number of other places. The bottom of the article includes a great number of referenced individual experts questioning the existence of Jesus.)

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

By the way, the straw man is your creation, not mine. I'm just sitting here answering objections. The burden of proof is on the person asserting a fact.

The Italian court has ordered a Priest to prove that Jesus existed. You would think that would be a slam dunk. Its obviously not.

This isn't about being anti-Jesus. Like others, I would have started this assuming Jesus was a factual figure. Obviously there is tremendous debate and obviously their is no contemporary physical evidence of his existence or even contemporary written evidence. That's not my formulated or biased opinion . . . . . that's the opinion of quite a mittful of experts which I have placed in front of you.

Cowperson