• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
The Evidence for Jesus (Part 2)
Evidence for Jesus (Part 2)
Response to Brian Flemming's DVD "The God Who Wasn't There"(below)Response to Earl Doherty's book 
The Jesus Puzzle
(below)
see also Part 1Pagan Parallel "Saviors" Examined
text texttext text summarize Raymond Brown, John P. Meier, N. T. Wright, Craig Blomberg, Luke TimothyJohnson, Robert van Voorst, Gregory Boyd, etctext texttext textJeffery Jay Lowder of Internet Infidels: “There is simply nothing intrinsically improbable abouta historical Jesus; the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) are reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus. On this point, it is important to note that even G.A.Wells, who until recently was the champion of the christ-myth hypothesis, now accepts thehistoricity of Jesus on the basis of 'Q'.” ("Josh McDowell's 'Evidence' for Jesus," also Wells
The Jesus Myth
[Open Court, 1999])Secular historian Will Durant: “The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the lettersascribed to Saint Paul....No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetingswith Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in hisflesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion....inessentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ....no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That afew simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so loft an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miraclefar more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel.” (
Ceasar and Christ 
, volume 3 of 
Storyof Civilization
)Graham Stanton of Cambridge: “Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, acceptthat Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to beweighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewishor pagan religious teacher.” (
The Gospels and Jesus
)Bishop N.T. Wright: “It is quite difficult to know where to start, because actually the evidencefor Jesus is so massive that, as a historian, I want to say we have got almost as much goodevidence for Jesus as for anyone in the ancient world....the evidence fits so well with what weknow of the Judaism of the period....that I think there are hardly any historians today, in fact Idon't know of any historians today [aside from G.A. Wells, etc], who doubt the existence of Jesus....No Jewish, Christian, atheist, or agnostic scholars have ever taken that [proposition]seriously since. It is quite clear that in fact Jesus is a very, very well documented character of real history. So I think that question can be put to rest.” ("The Self-Revelation of God inHuman History" from
There Is A God 
by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese
The Evidence for Jesushttp://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/JesusEvidence2.ht1 of 609-May-09 12:03 PM
 
[HarperOne, 2007])text texttext text
Response to Brian Flemming's DVD "The God Who Wasn't There"
text texttext textBF = Brian Flemming, Q = Question by interviewer, RC = Richard Carrier BF: "
Christianity was wrong about the solar system, what if it's wrong about something else too?
"text responseBF: "
Of course those aren't the only faces of Christianity.
" (pics of Charles Manson,Pat Robertson, Dena Schlosser, LaHaye and Jenkins, David Koresh)text responseQ: "
 After Jesus died and was resurrected, in your own words, what happened then? How did Christianity begin to spread?
"text responseBF: "
Why is it that Christians can be so specific about the life of Christ, but they'revague about what happened after he left?
"
 
"
 Aren't Christian leaders telling them the story?
"text responseBF: "
Mark was the first one written, and the other three are clearly derived fromMark.
 
Mark mentions the destruction of the Jewish temple which happened in the year 70, so the Gospels all came later than that, probably much later.
" (graphic appears tohave Mark 70+, Matt 80+, Luke 95+, John 110+)text responseBF: "
There's a gap of four decades or more. Most of what we know about this period comes from a man who says he saw Jesus Christ come to him in a vision. He was theapostle Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus.
"text responseBF: "
 Paul says the Lord told him to start spreading the word of Jesus Christ, and hedid it with a vengeance.
"
 
"
 Paul was a bit of a scold, but the salvation he offered through the God he called Christ Jesus was very popular. He traveled widely and in hiswake left behind groups of new Christians who formed the early Christian church. Paul wrote lots of letters about Christianity, in fact, he wrote 80,000 words about theChristian religion. These documents represent almost all we have of the history of Christianity during this decades long gap.
"
The Evidence for Jesushttp://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/JesusEvidence2.ht2 of 609-May-09 12:03 PM
 
text responseBF: "
 And here's the interesting thing. If Jesus was a human who had recently lived,nobody told Paul. Paul never heard of Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, Herod, John the Baptist. He never heard about any of these miracles. He never quotes anything that  Jesus is supposed to have said. He never mentions Jesus having a ministry of any kind at all. He doesn't know about any entrance into Jerusalem, he never mentions Pontius Pilate, or a Jewish mob, or any trials at all. Paul doesn't know any of what we would call 'the story of Jesus' except for these last three events
[graphic has Christ put on thecross, The Resurrection, and The Ascension].
 And even these, Paul never places onearth.
"text responseBF: "
 Just like the other savior gods of the time, Paul's Christ Jesus died, rose, and ascended all in a mythical realm.
"text responseBF: (shows on screen Hebrews 8:4, translated as) "If Jesus
had 
been on earth, he wouldnot even have been a priest." Hebrews 8:4text responseBF: "
 Paul doesn't believe that Jesus was ever a human being. He's not even aware of the idea. And he's the link between the time frame given for the life of Jesus, and theappearance of the first gospel account of that life. This is why you don't hear manyChristian leaders talking about the early days of Christianity. Because once youassemble the facts, the story is that, Jesus lived, everyone forgot 
[referring to decadesfrom 30 AD to 70 AD],
and then they remembered 
[referring to the Gospels beginningin 70 AD]."text responseBF: "
 But it gets even shakier than that. Allegorical literature was extremely commonback then
[again graphic shows the Gospels]."text responseRC: "
Mark himself probably did not believe he was writing history. He was writing a symbolic message, he was writing a Gospel, the good news, and symbolizing it using biblical parallels, using parallels to pagan religions, and so forth.
"text responseFrom this point, I'll letMike Licona's review and critiqueanswer the rest.See alsoSt. Justin Martyr's "Sons of Jupiter" (Zeus) and the meaning of "the devil imitated the prophecy"
Response to Earl Doherty's book 
The Jesus Puzzle
text texttext text
The Evidence for Jesushttp://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/JesusEvidence2.ht3 of 609-May-09 12:03 PM
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...