Jesus Existed

THE HISTORICAL METHOD I'll be showing how to apply the historical method to determine that Jesus most likely did exist. Here is the historical method guideline for you to use as a reference. First I'll start by examining the evidence and then we'll move onto applying the historical method to the evidence. "1.When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)? 2.Where was it produced (localization)? 3.By whom was it produced (authorship)? 4.From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)? 5.In what original form was it produced (integrity)? 6.What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?"[1] THE WITNESSES We have several pieces of evidence which act as a witness to a living breathing historical Jesus. There must be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question [1]. The bible meets this criteria as well. It has the 2 original sources for the gospels Q and Mark as well as the historian Josephus, the Apostle Paul, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Josephus Josephus was a historian who documented the Jews at the time. He documented the existence of Jesus in "the antiquities of the Jews book 18 3:3. [2] "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross,[9] those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day;[10] as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" Now at the time, a group of Christians were the keepers of the works of Josephus and based on the fact that it wasn't uncommon for somebody to add a little to ancient documents like this and that Josephus died a traditional Jew and was never converted to Christianity we know that a lot of this verse is just forged. Most scholars do agree that there was an original authentic nucleus to this writing from Josephus. [3] The original nucleus is typically agreed to mention Jesus's name and the crucifixion and not much else.[4] This verse also helps the later verse I'm about to mention ("the aforementioned Christ") make sense where it probably wouldn't of without a reference to it. [5] "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[6] (antiquities book 20 9:1) Tacitus A roman historian also happens to mention the crucifixion of Jesus in his final work "The Annals". "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, [7] [Annals book 15 chapter 44) Historians consider this source to be completely reliable and excellent in the fact that it is an outside source as well. [8] The verse refers to Christians as "abominations" and speaks in a very negative tone about them. This is not really something a Christian scribe would write in the book. Q and Mark The gospel of Q and Mark which all the gospels are written from using that as source material are accounts trustworthy as indicators of the existence of Jesus Christ. You can tell they were being honest about him existing for a number of reasons. Most importantly is the embarrassment factor which is something historians look for in determining reliability of a text. [9] The church would have incentive to cover up the embarrassment factor and you can actually see this with the gospels written later then Mark where Jesus cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit when it wasn't in season was left out (Mark 11:12), Or Jesus's first failed attempt at healing a blind man which makes him have to attempt it again (Mark 8:28). In the gospel of Mark John the Baptist, baptizes Jesus but the later gospels eliminate John the Baptist from the picture or the Baptism or try to down play his role. If this document was a work of fiction, this god man wouldn't have these personal flaws. The gospel of Mark says Jesus is from Nazareth but the church was embarrassed for him to be from that city and later on changed it to Bethlehem. Paul's Epistles Paul's letters are written between 40 AD and 50 AD.[10] These are probably the earliest Christian writings you'll find. The Epistle Paul knew Jesus's family. He talks of Jesus's birth and resurrection offhand and mentions encounters with Jesus's brother James. It's pretty unlikely that Paul would lie about this because his audience would have known of James and knew he was lying and not to mention these encounters with Jesus's brother really didn't go too well. Here are some verses by Paul which refer to Jesus as a flesh and blood man. ""Jesus was born in human fashion, as a Jew, and had a ministry to the Jews. (Galatians 4:4) "Jesus was referred to as "Son of God". (1 Cor. 1:9) "Jesus was a direct descendent of King David. (Romans 1:3) "Jesus prayed to God using the term "abba". (Galatians 4:6) "Jesus expressly forbid divorce. (1 Cor. 7:10) "Jesus taught that "preachers" should be paid for their preaching. (1 Cor. 9:14) "Jesus taught about the end-time. (1 Thess. 4:15) "Paul refers to Peter by the name Cephas (rock), which was the name Jesus gave to him. (1 Cor. 3:22) "Jesus had a brother named James. (Galatians 1:19) "Jesus initiated the Lord's supper and referred to the bread and the cup. (1 Cor. 11:23-25) "Jesus was betrayed on the night of the Lord's Supper. (1 Cor. 11:23-25) "Jesus' death was related to the Passover Celebration. (1 Cor. 5:7) "The death of Jesus was at the hands of earthly rulers. (1 Cor. 2:8) "Jesus underwent abuse and humiliation. (Romans 15:3) "Jewish authorities were involved with Jesus' death. (1 Thess. 2:14-16) "Jesus died by crucifixion. (2 Cor. 13:4 et al) "Jesus was physically buried. (1 Cor. 15:4)"[11] CONCLUSION Unfortunately I don't have enough character space to really dive into how these things show Jesus to be real when applying the historical method. I will leave it up there and in my argument so it can be referred back to. I do look forward to Envisage's arguments and assume they'll be interesting. This is a debate I've been wanting to do for a while and I'm glad he is the person I could debate this with. I doubt anyone else would give me as much of a challenge on this topic. sources [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikisource.org... [3] Evans 2001, p. 316. [4] Schreckenberg & Schubert 1992a, pp. 38"41. [5] Feldman & Hata 1987, pp. 54"57 [6] http://en.wikisource.org... [7] http://en.wikisource.org...(Tacitus)/Book_15#44 [8] Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation by Helen K. Bond 2004 ISBN 0-521-61620-4 page xi [9] Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14 [10] M. Coogan, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (Oxford University Press: New York, 2001), 309 NT [11] http://www.bede.org.uk...