Originally posted by ushomefree
[B]Mr. Smiley-The Christian faith is founded on Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Before the New Testament gospels were even written, the early Christian leaders declared their belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus through a statement of belief known as a creed. The earliest record of the Christian creed is presented by Paul and found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”
One of the biggest arguments against the Christian faith is that the resurrection story is a myth that developed over as much as a century after Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. It was originally thought that the gospel accounts were written as much as 100 years after Jesus walked the earth. Recent scholarship in manuscript reliability and textual criticism now places the gospels at 30 to 50 years after Jesus. Why is the above passage so important? Because Biblical scholars, using the historical records of Paul and his early travels to Damascus and Jerusalem, place the above scripture at about 35 A.D., just 3 to 5 years after the death of Jesus Christ. This is dramatic, because those same scholars would hold that this basic creed for the Christian faith developed far too quickly for a myth to develop and distort the historical record of the resurrection.
Since the foundation of the Christian Faith is Jesus Christ and His resurrection, then the historical veracity of His life, death and resurrection are tantamount. For as Paul declared later in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:14-17):
“And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”
The majority of sources provided in my previous message supporting the historical Jesus were "non-Christian." Your counter argument is baseless--completely false. It does not take all day to recognize sunshine, and I am at complete odds with people that deny the historical Jesus. Do your research, please. No pun intended. [/B]
With all due respect,you list a bunch of names,type in bold text,and quote some Bible passages.I have done my research long enough and a lot of these arguments have already been made.You offer the talmud as supporting evidence of Christ.This is very loosely based and can be debated either way.It mentions Yehoshua/Jesus,which isn't suprising.Josephus mentions no less than 10 jesus'.Passages have been translated to manipulate different Jesus' into one character in his writings through biased translations..They even call the man Yeshu the Nazarene.Again,nothing impressive.The Nazerens were a religios branch of the Jews and does not mean from Nazereth,as many have speculated. or guessed.The Talmud wasn't written until 200 CE.It was supposedly based on older writings but that is as old as it gets in terms of physical evidence.The chronology offered in the Talmud is very vague and some scholars have noted how the dates given to the Yehoshua of the Talmud very by 200 years.I could go on about more of your sources,but inimalist summed up in a paragraph what it would take me three pages worth of writing to do,so I will move on to the end of your reply to Debbie JO.
Did something big happen for so many people to be willing to die in the name of Christ?Why would so many offer their lives if nothing happened at all?Most Christ enthusiast bring this point up and belive it to be unique to the Christian faith,when in truth their is nothing unique about it at all.
Christians were offered up as sacrifices to the gods and were horribly executed for their beliefs.This same fate was handed upon the initiates of Dionysus as well.The followers of Mithra also went through terrible persecution for their beliefs.While many belive ther persecution of Christians lasted for a long time and that many were killed,we really know little about it.Looking back at the works of Origen he tells us that the Christians who died for their faith were easily numbered.
To say Christians are unique because they died for their beliefs offers little to nothing in terms of verifiying a historical Christ.It tells they belived in something,I will admit that,but we can apply this same fundementalist belief to religious fanatics flying planes into builings because they belive they will be blessed with virgins in paradise.We can apply this thinking to bizarre cults who commit mass suicide beliving they will be taken to higher intellegence on the back of a comet.We can apply this thinking to the iinitiates of Dionysus,who also died for their beliefs.In the end,you could attempt to verify any religion by these means.
What further complicates the history of Christianity is some of the earliest members of this faith.The Gnostics.To dispute matters even more,some Gnostic groups belived Christ never even exisisted,and many of these Gnostics were persecuted for this belief,which they held true.I can use the same arguement and claim Jesus couldn't have existed because Gnostics were persecuted and killed for beliving he didn't exist.