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[transformergeek]

Hello,

I've heard people speak of documents that are used to prove the historical existence of Jesus. Does anyone know anything about this? What historical proof do we have, other than The Bible, that Jesus walked The Earth?

Thanks!

Comments

[epiphanyofhope]

Nothing to do with your question.. but... YOUR ICON IS GREAT! HAHAHHA!

[nosleepnever]

Agreed!!!

[foxmagic]

Actually ... if I may interject ... "The Case for Christ" is a terrible book. The arguments presented by the author are very one-sided, and he accepts them without ever seriously considering likely alternatives.

Go ahead and read it, but use it as an exercise in seeing past what you're presented with, and in looking at the author's observations in new ways that he didn't think of.

[dua]

I've been reading the case for Christ, and it does seem a little desparate in places. I'd be far more interested in a dialogue style book but I don't really know whether there are any around.

Having said that, it's a similar problem to reading academic papers in general. You have to read a whole lot of them to get an idea of what the prevailing view is, unless you trust the writers of review papers. Which (at least in my field) I'm not sure I do.

Woo, tangents.

[gunslnger]

I think "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" is a better presentation of the evidence along with arguments against the common refutations. I only have an early edition though, so I don't know how the newer editions are.

[foxmagic]

Using the Bible as historical evidence of Jesus's life would be like using the Harry Potter books as historical evidence of Harry Potter's life. What's needed are independent accounts to corroborate the details and find out what's fact and what's fiction.

[foxmagic]

I don't understand what you mean when you say "the historicity of the Bible has been authenticated" - could you explain?

[foxmagic]

See the Wikipedia article [[Historicity of Jesus]] for a fairly thorough treatment of your question.

The short of it is that, besides the Gospels, writings from only four contemporary authors have been found which even mention anything about Jesus in passing: Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Suetonius, and Tacitus.

And of the two passages in Josephus's histories (see [[Josephus on Jesus]]), one of them is generally accepted to be a clumsy forgery, because its style differs so much from that of surrounding paragraphs and because it lauds Jesus in a way that a Jew such as Josephus would not have done. This passage is thought to have been written by the fourth-century monk Eusebius.

It's interesting to consider that the fourth-century Church would have felt so little evidence of Jesus existed that it had to manufacture such evidence.

[foxmagic]

Yup, that's the one. :)

[ysgawen]

From what I have heard, the passage on John the Baptist is a forgery, but the Jesus one is probably genuine. A jew would probably have praised a man who was seen as good. However, Tacitus says Jesus existed too, and we know he hated Christianity.

[coreofgod]

Ravi Zaccharias does an excellent job of explaining...if you want the mp3, email me 7places at gmail.com