Christmas, why celebrate it?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Ya, your right. I think it would have been spring. However, we don't know if it even happened at all. All we have is the bible. To know more, we would need another source to cross reference.

There are about 500 different documents and accounts the four you refer too, Gospels of Mark, Mathew, Luke and John are four separate documents written at different times by different people...don't treat it as one big document just because it was shoved together a few hundred years later...

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
There are about 500 different documents and accounts the four you refer too, Gospels of Mark, Mathew, Luke and John are four separate documents written at different times by different people...don't treat it as one big document just because it was shoved together a few hundred years later...

The argument doesn't mean that much to me. I will leave it up to you to read the 500 documents and get back to me with a report. I'm working on a CD and that takes all of my time. 😄

Oh you don't have to read them, its hard these days to find a credible historian who disputes the birth of Jesus.

Because it's a tradition and a oppertunity to show love to you relativs to stress off and enjoy that for even a moment the World seems less chaotic. So it's a religious reason kind of...

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Oh you don't have to read them, its hard these days to find a credible historian who disputes the birth of Jesus.

So, do you think that Jesus was born in the winter?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
So, do you think that Jesus was born in the winter?

Its hard to find a credible historian who says Jesus was born in winter...especially since all the sources suggest it was during winter/summer...what with the mention of lambs...

Christmas is a religious holiday you see.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jesus_as_myth

"Christ a Fiction" Robert M. Price

"Did a Historical Jesus Exist?" Jim Walker

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
"Christ a Fiction" Robert M. Price

"Did a Historical Jesus Exist?" Jim Walker

All the links and quotes etc you need

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
All the links and quotes etc you need

Not only is the language of the entry heavily biased, but it primarily cites the works of Bible scholars.

Moreover, had you bothered to read either of the articles I posted, you would know that the entry in question does not adequately refute either of them.

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
Not only is the language of the entry heavily biased, but it primarily cites the works of Bible scholars.

Moreover, had you bothered to read either of the articles I posted, you would know that the entry in question does not adequately refute either of them.

It wasn't really the article I wanted you to read...rather the links at the bottom...I also note your first article didn't state than Jesus was non-existent but that the true person of Jesus was now distorted by myth .

Encyclopedia Brittanica supports his existance...so its not just wikipedia.

Try this article,

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
It wasn't really the article I wanted you to read...rather the links at the bottom...I also note your first article didn't state than Jesus was non-existent but that the true person of Jesus was now distorted by myth .

Encyclopedia Brittanica supports his existance...so its not just wikipedia.

Try this article,

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

This article is not helping you.

Why should we celebrate it?

Because we get gifts and drunk.

The only reason.

Originally posted by Nod
Why should we celebrate it?

Because we get gifts and drunk.

The only reason.

👆

I also like giving gifts.

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
This article is not helping you.

I was trying to give you some material to through at me, rather than just giving me links to results of "does didn't exist" or something you typed into google.

However you probabally don't care much either way for this topic and probabally aren't interested in debating it...owell.

heres another link you might enjoy...

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

Here on Wiki some people have already debated this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jesus#Historicity_of_Jesus

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
I was trying to give you some material to through at me, rather than just giving me links to results of "does didn't exist" or something you typed into google.

My post:

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
"Christ a Fiction" Robert M. Price

"Did a Historical Jesus Exist?" Jim Walker

Is a refutation of this post:

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jesus_as_myth

Feel free to begin using legitimate sources, i.e. not Wikipedia.

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
My post:

Is a refutation of this post:

Feel free to begin using legitimate sources, i.e. not Wikipedia.

Wikipedia was a middle-source to other reputable sources. There are about five pro and five anti links at the bottom of the page...I just wasn't really wanting to get into a link battle, i doubt you read either of the essays you posted so it wasn't really a rebuttal...especially since one conceded Christ probably existed.

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Wikipedia was a middle-source to other reputable sources . . .

A Bible scholar is an authority on the Bible, not whether or not a historical Jesus existed. Therefore, in an argument about whether or not a historical Jesus existed, a Bible scholar is not a reputable source.

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
. . . i doubt you read either of the essays you posted so it wasn't really a rebuttal...especially since one conceded Christ probably existed.

"Christ a Fiction" Robert M. Price

So, then, Christ may be said to be a fiction in the four senses that:

[list=1][*]It is quite possible that there was no historical Jesus.

[*]Even if there was, he is lost to us, the result being that there is no historical Jesus available to us.

[*]The Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own" is an imaginative visualization and in the nature of the case can be nothing more than a fiction.

[*]"Christ" as a corporate logo for this and that religious institution is a euphemistic fiction, not unlike Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, or Joe Camel, the purpose of which is to get you to swallow a whole raft of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors by an act of simple faith, short-circuiting the dangerous process of thinking the issues out to your own conclusions.[/list]

"Did a Historical Jesus Exist?" Jim Walker

We simply do not have a shred of evidence to determine the historicity of a Jesus "the Christ." We only have evidence for the belief of Jesus.

Which article concedes that Jesus existed?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
AFAIK there were no Christians in the bible. They were reform Judiasm.

* there are Christians in the Bible, Acts 11:26...

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I'm not sure how you can view the mass slaughter of the people of Egypt a symbol of peace.

* the peace was also offered to the Egyptians, they refused, they did not believe Moses... if only they had blood of lamb painted on their houses and believed Moses, that would not have happened...