Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderball
To be fair, (and yes, I read your articles) there is indeed evidence that a Jesus of Nazareth did exist. The record is in the Roman census around the time of his birth, give or take 5 years... Whether or not this Jesus of Nazareth is the Jesus of the bible, or whether or not anything in the bible actually happened is a totally different argument. There's a ton of reasons why you could be right, and there's a lot of reasons to explain the absent record of his death... one I heard was that Jesus didn't use his actual name when preaching for unknown reasons (I really didn't look into this cause I don't really care, I studied religions in High School and University cause it was easy marks)...and was only referred to by his real name by his closest followers, and ergo, Jesus in the bible could equal Joe Schmo in the Roman records.
Note that your source makes no mention of whether or not a Jesus was ever born, simply that there's no record of him being sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate.
I'm not a real devout Christian, and I lean more towards the Jesus as a con man rather than Jesus as the Son of God side, but there are facts to prove someone of that general description did exist.
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Well actually if you did read what I posted you would find the exact proof you suggest wasnt there. Regardless...it is a VERY long read and understandable that most would bore of it within a few paragraphs.
troutman has posted many links on the roman census, as has Cowperson and myself. Here are some facts...
--the Apostle Paul, by his own admission, never knew the person Jesus but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision he claimed came to him about Jesus’ resurrection;
--the Gospels do not provide any physical description of Jesus;
--the year of Jesus’ birth is unknown and, based on available evidence, indeterminable;
--there is no historical validation of King Herod’s supposed slaughter of Jewish children at the time of Jesus’s alleged birth;
--Jesus’ ancestry is illogically tied back to King David through Jesus’ father Joseph;
--the author of Matthew was clearly not Jewish, as evidenced by his mistranslation of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s virgin birth;
--the overall credibility of the Matthew and Luke nativity stories are seriously in doubt;
--there is no reliable evidence for the alleged crucifixion of Jesus;
--the writings of Roman historian Tacitus concerning the alleged historicity of Jesus are neither clear or specific;
--the observations of the Roman governor of Bithynia, Plithy the Younger, do not provide reliable evidence of Jesus’ actual existence; and even
--the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus on the allegedly historic Jesus have undeniably been adulterated by others with a pro-Christian spin.
Former evangelical minister Dan Barker points out in his book, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, “[T]here is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.”
Did Jesus Exist?
Further...if you have proof of Jesus Christ being recorded in any census please let the Historians know...because if you do have something its likely a fabrication.
Roman history records no census
ever in which each man was required to return to the city where his ancestral line originated. That’s not how the Romans did things.