"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!"
- Dan Barker
Do you watch TV? People love "murder mysteries" right? Well the greatest story ever told is also the greatest "murder mystery" ever.
Want to know about it? This is the behind-the-scenes of the greatest story ever told that will never appear on TV.
It goes like this... The most popular figure in western civilization, claimed to be so important and so revered by so many people for thousands of years, apparently was never known to anyone during the time when he was supposedly alive.. Seriously! Even though there are records before, during and after this time...
Where are the contemporary accounts of Jesus' life?
The Gospel story, with its figure of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot be found before the Gospels.
In Christian writings earlier than Mark, including almost all of the New Testament epistles, as well as in many writings from the second century, the object of Christian faith is never spoken of as a human man who had recently lived, taught, performed miracles, suffered and died at the hands of human authorities, or rose from a tomb outside Jerusalem.
There is no sign in the epistles of Mary or Joseph, Judas or John the Baptist, no birth story, teaching or appointment of apostles by Jesus, no mention of holy places or sites of Jesus’ career, not even the hill of Calvary or the empty tomb.
This silence is so pervasive and so perplexing that attempted explanations for it have proven inadequate.:
- Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle
In my book "The Plain Truth About God-101" (What the church doesn't want you to know) we take a long hard look at the Major Western religions and a cursory look at the Eastern philosophies!
One of the main points I make is the lack of physical evidence for both Jesus and Mohammad.
Actual written accounts of their deeds and exploits were not documented until well after their deaths, and in both cases not even second hand but more like fourth and fifth hand!
This article sums up what we know about Jesus with a succinct and no-nonsense account of the historical record of the man.
It may surprise Christians to learn that there are no contemporary historical documents for 'Jesus, the Christ'. Even though there are writings that have survived from the time periods, before, during and after Jesus, and the Christian church has these records!This, my friends, is why the Catholic church uses a phrase that is the biggest cop-out in history................. "THE MYSTERY OF FAITH!"
The writings of Paul are not contemporary accounts: they do not appear until years after the purported time of Jesus and they include a concession that Paul never actually met Jesus.
The Gospels come much later (as evidenced by the fact that Paul never cites them) and there is good reason that all four of the surviving, accepted Gospels are based on Mark, which in turn is likely to be a form of 'Midrash', not historical documentation.
While some apologists attempt to wave this problem away by claiming that "Jesus" would not have been a noteworthy figure, this apologetic tactic contradicts what the Gospels say about Jesus.
One cannot hold, at the same time, that the Gospels are true eyewitness accounts of actual events, AND that the Jesus figure in those works would not attract the attention of men like Philo, Pliny or Seneca. It's an absurd contradiction.
Even the relatively sober account of Jesus found in the first gospel, The Gospel of 'Mark', presents us with a Jesus who garnered quite a bit of attention.
Consider for example, Mark 2:1-12, where the crowd coming to see Jesus is so great, that a paralytic has to be lowered through the roof of a building Jesus is in, in order for Jesus to see him.
Elsewhere Mark tells us that the crowds that Jesus drew were so overflowing that he has to lecture from a boat on the Sea of Galilee.
When Jesus travels from Bethany to Jerusalem, throngs of people line the roads to welcome him. Mark also tells us of how Jesus performed miracles before thousands: on two different occasions Jesus feeds thousands through miracles.
In short, 'Mark' gives us a 'Jesus' who is bigger than the Beatles, and I believe the Beatles analogy is a good one: we even have a nice parallel between the story of Jesus' lecture from a ship at Galilee, and the Beatles famous 'rooftop' audition, where they were forced to play an impromptu concert on a rooftop, lest the crowds that would rush to see them cause a riot.
In both cases, the crowds had reached, hysterical, historically noteworthy, proportions.
Yet, John E. Remsberg, in 'The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence' makes the curious observation that no one from this era wrote a single word about the Jesus Hysteria.
Remsberg notes: "(While) Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library, (no where)... in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged brief passages in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ."
There are Christians today who hold that Remsberg has 'been refuted' because many on his list either were not contemporaries, or were 'not the sort who would have been interested in Jesus'.
They tell us, straight faced, that writers who were mainly interested in drama, or reporting war stories, wouldn't have bothered to write down anything about a crowd-drawing, miracle-working, godman striding the earth.
Leaving aside this bit of insanity, it is a red herring to respond to this problem by saying "Remsberg has been refuted", for no matter how many problems one may be able to point out concerning his famous list, no matter how many people one removes from the list, there remain people on his list who should have noticed, and their silence is glaring.
And yet, nothing at all exists to point to a real Jesus.
READ MORE......
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Clifford N. said;
Rubbish. Utter foolishness. Does not deserve a serious reply.
Allan Janssen said;
Clifford, when you saw the light......... did that blind you to any outside thoughts?
Ae you blinded by the light?
I know that to accept a concept that takes away the very foundation of your faith is hard and I don't like to do that, but instead of always just saying, (As the Muslims do) ........"Insha'Allah," meaning, "If it is God's will," to every one of life's little problems, I think it's time we grew up as a race and started to take a little responsibility for our own actions.
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E! and H E R E! And as a paperback H E R E ! and H E R E !
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