They didn't have Rush Limbaugh 2000 years ago.
*in-between eating whole apple pies and popping whole bottles of pills while getting divorced for the 6th time* So, we see this guy who says he can perform miracles. He says he is the Son of God. But you know what he really is? A thief and shylock. All he is trying to do is get tax exempt status. Well I say we burn down his house and crucify him.
This is a real life transcript of a Conservative talk show.
The Bible says... actually Jesus said that you will know that I am coming back soon when the whole world goes to war. The key word is soon. This is the Biblical Rapture. One will stay, and one will go. Airlines began placing pilots that are Christian with co pilots that were not, in case the Rapture is or, becomes true or vice versa.
Originally posted by CaptainStoic
The Bible says... actually Jesus said that you will know that I am coming back soon when the whole world goes to war. The key word is soon. This is the Biblical Rapture. One will stay, and one will go. Airlines began placing pilots that are Christian with co pilots that were not, in case the Rapture is or, becomes true or vice versa.
Yes, Jesus said soon... that was 2000 years ago. I don't think that 2000 years counts as soon. Also, we have already had two world wars and no rapture.
Jesus as fact
A few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure. Among the proponents of non-historicity have been Bruno Bauer in the 19th century. Non-historicity was somewhat influential in biblical studies during the early 20th century, and has recently been put forward in popular literature by a number of authors. Arguments for non-historicity have been advanced by George Albert Wells in The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth. Popular proponents have included the writers Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their books The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess. Other proponents of non-historicity are biblical scholar Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle ).
The views of scholars who entirely reject Jesus' historicity are summarized in the chapter on Jesus in Will Durant's Caesar and Christ; they are based on a suggested lack of eyewitness, a lack of direct archaeological evidence, the failure of certain ancient works to mention Jesus, and similarities early Christianity shares with then-contemporary religion and mythology.
Michael Grant stated that the view is derived from a lack of application of historical methods:
…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. ... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.
Non-historicity is regarded as effectively refuted by almost all Biblical scholars and historians.
In 2004, Burridge and Gould stated that they did not know of any "respectable" scholars that held the view today.
The points below highlight criticisms of various arguments for an ahistorical Jesus.
Michael Grant does not see the similarities between Christianity and pagan religions to be significant. Grant states that "Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths, of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit."
R.T. France points out that Christianity was actively opposed by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish authorities, and would have been utterly discredited if Jesus had been shown as a non-historical figure. He argues that there is evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.
In response to Jesus-myth proponents who argue the lack of early non-Christian sources, or question their authenticity, R. T. France counters that "even the great histories of Tacitus have survived in only two manuscripts, which together contain scarcely half of what he is believed to have written, the rest is lost" and that the life of Jesus, from a Roman point of view, was not a major event.
R.T France disagrees with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. He argues that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references to historical facts about Jesus's life in Paul's letters, such as that Jesus "who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David" (Romans 1:3, TNIV).
Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Indeed, clearly they were jumping on the anti-jesus bandwagon...but now that seems to have died down...even Richard Dawkins believes Jesus existed...
It also doesn't matter. The effect of Jesus has manifested its self in the Western world. This is the main reason I believe that Jesus was a living person 2000 years ago.
The same can be said about Buddha. How do we know that the historical Buddha really lived? We don't... All we have is the manifest effect in the Eastern world.
Biblical Christians do believe that Jesus was God; And Jesus Himself believed that He was God. Scripture supporting this is many, but here are a few examples:
"Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'" --John 8:58
By relying on Old Testament references, we find out that "I AM" refers to the name of God Himself, Yahweh (often translated in English Bibles as LORD). The Jews were quite familiar with the idea that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the eternally existent God. What was new to the Jews, was the identification of this designation with Jesus.
"Jesus answered... 'I and My Father are one.' Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, 'Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?' The Jews answered Him, saying, 'For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make yourself God.'" --John 10:25-33
"Philip said to Him, 'Lord show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, "Show us the Father"?'" --John 14:8,9
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist." --Colossians 1:15-17
Did Jesus exist?!
Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120) was a Roman historian who lived through the reigns of over half a dozen Roman emperors. He has been called the "greatest historian" of ancient Rome, an individual generally acknowledged among scholars for this moral "integrity and essential goodness." Tacitus's most acclaimed works are the Annals and the Histories. The Annals cover the period from Augustus's death in A.D. 14 to that of Nero in A.D. 68, while Histories begin after Nero's death and proceeded to that of Domitian in A.D. 96.
Writing of the reign of Nero, Tacitus alludes to the death of Christ and to the existence of Christians at Rome. His misspelling of Christ (Christus) was a common error made by pagan writers. Says Tacitus:
[size=2]"But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome." (Annals XV, 44)
A possible allusion to Jesus' resurrection is in this account. It is distinctly possible, that, when Tacitus adds that "A most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out," he is bearing indirect and unconscious testimony to the conviction of the early church that Christ who had been crucified had risen from the dead.
Another interesting sidelight about this passage from Tacitus: Pilate is not mentioned in any other pagan document which has come down to us.... And it may be regarded as an instance of the irony of history that the only surviving reference to him in a pagan writer mentions him because of the sentence of death which he passed upon Christ. For a moment Tacitus joins hands with the ancient Christian creed: "...suffered under Pontius Pilate."
Note that Tacitus's comments provide us with testimony by the leading Roman historian of his day, "independent confirmation that Jesus lived and was formally executed in Judaea in the reign of Tiberius and during Pilate's office as procurator (technically still a prefect, A.D. 26-36). That may not seem like much, but it is actually surprisingly useful in discounting two different theories which are sometimes advanced: first, that Jesus of Nazereth never existed; and secondly, that he did not die by the duly administered Roman death penalty."
Secular authorities-"pagan"-non-Christian, non-Jewish, and generally anti-Christian writers on Jesus' Historicity: Lucian of Samosata, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Phlegon, and Mara Bar-Serapion.
Jewish References to Jesus' historicity: The Babylonian Tulmud
Christian Sources for Jesus' Historicity (Post-Apostolic Writers): Clement of Rome, Ignatiius, Quadratus, The Epistle of Barnabas, Aristides, Justin Martyr, and Hegesippus.
Additional Sources for Christianity: Trajan, Macrobius, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Juvenal, Seneca, and Hierocles.[/size]
Originally posted by ShakyamunisonI would say we can be 99% sure of the historical existence of Buddha because he was written about by other people within a short time of his life.
It also doesn't matter. The effect of Jesus has manifested its self in the Western world. This is the main reason I believe that Jesus was a living person 2000 years ago.The same can be said about Buddha. How do we know that the historical Buddha really lived? We don't... All we have is the manifest effect in the Eastern world.
I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. But I don't believe that God and Jesus made up One the same God. I don't even believe that Jesus is the only true God Himself. I don't believe as well that Jesus is also God aside from the Father who is also God.
There are several, I mean many reasons written in the Bible, why I don't believe that Jesus is God, another God, nor God Himself.
1. Jesus Christ is a distinct being from God the Father. "It is written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me," (John 8:17-18)
2. Jesus Christ spoke of the Father, who sent him, as God, and as the only true God. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," (John 17:3)
3. Jesus Christ is declared, in unnumbered instances, to be the Son of God. "And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," (Matt 3:17). Can a son be coeval (the same age) and the same with his father?
4. Jesus is called the Christ, or the anointed of God. "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power," (Acts 10:38). Is he who anoints the same with him who is anointed?
5. Jesus Christ is represented as a Priest. "Consider the ….High-Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus," (Hebrew 3:1). The office of a priest is to minister to God. Christ, then, as a priest, cannot be God.
6. Jesus Christ is the Mediator between the "One God," and "men". "For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," (1 Timothy 2:5)
7. Jesus Christ, as the Saviour of men, he was sent by the Father. "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." (1 John 4:14)
8. Jesus Christ is also an Apostle appointed by God. "Consider the Apostle,...Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him," (Hebrew 3:1, 2)
9. Jesus Christ is represented as our intercessor with God. "It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us," (Romans 8:34)
10. Because the head of Jesus Christ is God. "I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God," (1 Corinthians 11:3)
🙂