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On Dr Browns side wrote:

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Sophiee, Dawn and others who have been interested,

There is most definitely proof that Jesus existed,

The reality is that there is no such 'proof'. But before we get into that issue, define your terms. What do you mean by "Jesus"? As the NT describes him? Well you have a walking on water, crazy man, who lived somewhere between 3 BCE and 32 CE. That everyone flatly rejects.

No historian would argue such nonsense. Firstly, there is no 'evidence' for any individual person during this time. Aside from the internal inconsistencies in the NT narrative - like placing Herod in the same time frame when Herod was already dead, or placing Gamliel, with Paul.

In fact, we have the most reliable sources you can get, on the subject - the Roman historians like Tacitus etc. They all speak of a xian GROUP that existed. Which fits in very well with history. the facts are that the individual that Jesus is portrayed in the NT simply doesn't fit any logical historical pattern, or the facts. Facts are routinely mistaken.

proof contained within and outside the Gospels. Based on the following, the overwhelming majority of scholars, historians included, conclude that there is no doubt Jesus existed, even Jews, and extreme skeptics like the Jesus Seminar.

The overwhelming majority of scientists accept biological macro evolution as a viable, scientific biological process. And when Hitler came to power, he was voted in with a majority. The majority of the scientific community accepted that there could be no other planets beyond Uranus.

All these things show that majorities amount to 0 evidence. Your argument from majority shows that your position is untenable. There is no proof, and in fact, scholars, namely historians often disagree on whether individuals existed (cf. Plato vs. Aristotle, Shakespeare vs. Marlowe).

Firstly, the New Testament itself provides evidence.

This is the wrong forum. The NT is not the truth, and it is certainly not an historical document. Which even the Catholic Church admits to. In fact the NT is a load of rubbish. It makes little sense, and what can be made out of it is simply wrong.

I have never seen a historian ever claim that the NT is a valid historical document. The facts are that the NT was redacted around 250-400 CE, and seen 400 years of editing, revising and changing before reaching its final form. To say it represents historical events in 30 CE is ludicrous.

This is not a claim that the New Testament is accurate, but that it provides evidence.

You therefore admit that the NT is not accurate. Lets assume that it is not. What can possibly be evidence if its inaccurate? A basic fact, such as the date of herod's death, is something that the writers, if they actually lived at the time, would not only have known, but would have been known throughout Israel. They got it hopelessly wrong. Now, what is this evidence exactly? that the writer's are a bunch of 2nd Century monks who made up fanciful lies to cover up the real story behind their religion?

Perhaps. But it is no evidence of the events in 30 CE. So you've now contradicted yourself.

But lets assume that the NT is accurate. So what did you accomplish? You basically proved nothing. Because accuracy of a document is the basis for providing any concrete, reliable evidence. I tell you that George Washington, ate Turkey on Fridays, you say where is your evidence, and I show you a document that is inaccurate. What are you going to tell me? That its reliable? that it is evidence?

There is a difference. There are numerous criteria that numerous passages (pericopes is often the technical term used) in the New Testament fulfill which prove their authenticity.

You're mixing up two different concepts in textual analysis. When NT scholars talk about 'authenticity' they are not referring to the text of the NT, and what it says. For all they care, it could say that all chickens lay green eggs and that there is a great green egg in the sky. The point they're making, is that the textual witnesses of the document that we have are reliable. In otherwords, when you pick up your standard Nestle-Aland 28th Edition NT, you're reading a document that pretty much reflects the same thing that was written in 325 CE, at Nicaea.

What they didn't tell you is that it doesn't change much. It is basically a weak justification. They will ignore all the editing that came before Nicaea. But this is all textual criticism, and has nothing to do with the statements contained therein. So the statement that this is authentic, is only true to the extent that nothing has changed from Now until 325 CE, but before that there are fundamental changes. In fact, the Council had to vote on which books were in and which were out. They had to determine what was a book, and what text it was....if you do the research you'll find that there were many variant texts out there....some speculate that the Gospel of Thomas was originally a version of Matthew.

One important criterion is the criterion of multiple independent attestation. This means that a given passage in the New Testament which speaks about Jesus' teachings, deeds, or events surrounding him is found in numerous sources that are independent of one another. There are numerous passages that fulfill this criteria. In fact, John Dominic Crossan bases virtually all of his portrait of the "historical Jesus" on passages that are multiply, independently attested. So, the SAME traditions about Jesus (teachings of Jesus/stories/narratives) existed at the same time, but independently of one another, and often in different areas.

Great so the NT writers have a few pithy historical facts at hand. That doesn't prove anything. And the facts are that what ever historical Jesus you want to portray, it doesn't fit the historical facts. Jesus was not born on Dec 25, nor in 4 BCE.
The church admits that Jesus was probably born on Sept 11. Scholars have postulated that it was more likely in 190 BCE.

The point is that it is undeniable that the facts the NT reports are simply wrong. For example, the NT makes Herod alive after 3 CE
Yet Herod was already dead by 4 BCE.


There are also, variously named, the criterion of offesiveness, which would be passages apparently offensive to the church,

There was no church, it was a creation of Paul and Peter. In fact, there is wide disagreement among the scholars as to when a church was actually created. It was however, long after 30 CE. You see the disagreement between Paul and Peter. This was going on in the 50s. You can't tell me that John the Baptist (who lived in the 30s), was doing something offensive to a creation that was non-existent?

like Jesus' baptism by John; the criterion of embarrassment, that is, passages the early church would not have made up because it would be apparently embarrassing, like the disciples fleeing from Jesus at his arrest, or Jesus being accused of being possessed by demons; and several other criteria used by historians. Moreover, it is clear that these traditions came from contemporaries of Jesus, and most likely eye-witnesses to him. Paul spoke with the disciples, and his writings appear in 50 C.E.

As does Philo, and Philo wrote on everything. The joke is that Philo wrote about you if you sneezed. Not one word is mentioned by Philo, strange!

Paul did not speak to the disciples, if he did, he was not convinced by them.
Paul's letters are placed in 50 CE. which makes them already 20 years after the events. That does not make Paul contemporous with Jesus. In fact, you see that he never heard about him at the time the events happened....is a sure sign that they didn't.
I heard about September 11, at the time the events happened.

Paul interviews a 5000 or so witnesses.
1. These are about 0.042% of the population. That is about the same percentage of legal Cubans in America.
By comparison:
It should be noted that Mass revelation at Sinai, resulted in 100% of the population.
It should be noted that the revelation at Carmel, with Eliyahu the prophet, was probably about 62% of the population.

2. These witnesses are unnamed, unidentified, and for all we know, irrelevant. If Paul interviewed a bunch of Roman legionaries, he wouldn't get the same result as if he interviewed fishermen from the Galilee. Yet no information is given. Worse, we never hear of them again, and Christians don't have a tradition claiming that the original witnesses have descendants today.

In short, Paul's argument is fatally flawed. There was no critical mass of people witnessing the events, and therefore we have little or no reason to accept the story, and the people that did witness it are unidentified, making it impossible to verify - another reason to reject it.

Remember, Paul lived at the same time as Jesus, even though he didn't see him.

Thats like saying Joe Soap lived in Greece at the same time as JFK, and now you want to make out that Soap knew JFK?

Don't accept Paul as a source? No problem.

Paul is your only source and he makes a fine job of shooting himself in the foot.

The Q source, which is dated to 50 C.E., contains traditions of Jesus, and is dated to the same time as Paul's writings, meaning that people alive during the time Jesus lived, preserved traditions about him.

Serious extrapolation to avoid the issue. Paul is rejected already. On his own terms. Not to mention the fact that he directly contradicts the Torah.

Now we move on to Q. Q is a theoretical text, that Scholars have used to explain how the NT developed. There is no real Q text, it is a figment of a scholar's educated guess of what might have been. For example, they have Mark Q which they allege to be originally in Aramaic. Now, you don't have an Aramaic text of Mark.

The earliest writings are Paul's letters, everything after that is written down from 62 CE to 125 CE. We're talking 30-100 years after Jesus' death. Not contemporous at all. In fact, Mark (the earliest Gospel), was only redacted around 100 CE. What you're reading is a translation of Mark of a copy of a copy of an edited, redacted and changed text that was written in the 100s. It is speculated that this was at stage written in 62 CE, and has, at its core individual Aramaic sources.

What did you gain with all of this? that your text that you're using is a outdated, and reflective of 200 years of editing.

There are also Semitisms, which demonstrate the Greek derived from an early Aramaic form.

And there are Hebrew words in English, such as Seraph. This doesn't prove anything other than that Mark probably originally had an Aramaic document that he was using to draw parallels from. i mean he was writing in Israel, and spoke Aramaic and Greek, its obvious that he would throw in a few Armaic words.
The fact that the Alphabet and Greek language has semitic origins is not dipsuted. It doesn't prove anything that you're saying.


From outside the New Testament, we have most importantly, as you pointed out, Josephus. Now Sophiee, twice you stated: "Josephus didn't mention Jsus -- that was a later insertion by a Xian 'scribe.'" You then go on to quote Louis Feldman, whom you described as "the renowned Josephus historian" and "the pre-eminent Josephus scholar," and you proceed to conclude, after quoting him, "So much for Josephus being a source for the 'real' existance of Jsus." What you do not realize, or did not mention (which would be quite misleading), is that Louis Feldman concludes that the Testimonium Flavium (referenced either Antiquities 18.3.3, or Antiquities 18, 63f.) IS AUTHENTIC. The part about Jesus being Messiah or "if indeed one should call him a man" are questioned at times, but Josephus' mention of Jesus, i.e., that he speaks of the historical Jesus, is AUTHENTIC. He also explains that the James passage in Antiquities 20, 200 has been almost universally accepted as authentic, as he accepts its authenticity. Thus, there are two passages in Josephus which mention Jesus, both of which the pre-eminent Josephus scholar concludes are clearly authentic, along with many (the majority according to Feldman's survey) scholars in the first case and the majority in the second. So YES, Josephus DOES mention Jesus. These passage ARE AUTHENTIC according to the pre-eminent Josephus scholar.

The point is that scholars today are divided at precisely whether the statement by Josephus is authentic. Nonetheless, what does it prove? that a bunch of crazy, Jesus worshipping fundamentalists were around at the time of Josephus? Great! Fantastic! No-one disagrees with that. Remember - Josephus was born in 37, and was reporting facts that he heard.

On top of this historians point to Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius who mention Jesus. I will choose not to enter into debate concerning them since the Josephus conclusion is enough evidence.

No, no lets...
1. Pliny, Tacitus, etc. do not mention Jesus, they mention Jesus followers, which is a big difference.

As regards the external evidence.....lets grant you all the things you want. We'll give it you, but to summarize this is what you're taking:

Out of the major historians of the period, during and after, none mention Jesus in any great detail. We know more about Josephus, Herod and other major characters in the period than Jesus. Of the major sources, two are questionable as reliable and authentic, and what they talk about is simply a Christian group, that were somehow connected with Jesus.

Now, as regards, strong, reliable evidence, for who is probably the most influential religious figure in the Xian era, you have a document that doesn't reflect history, contains inaccuracies, is factually and historically wrong, and the individual it portrays, has little or no support in the external literature, other than a few scant mentions in passing of which two are questioned as authentic.

I can grant you all the external sources, but then you have to accept them as reliable, factual and correct. Jesus existed, but he was no walking-on-water, crazy prophet, but a common criminal, who had little or no claim to fame, and was used by Paul to prop up a religion that was on brink of destruction.

It is for these reasons that Jewish scholars and historians such as Lawrence Schiffman, Joseph Klausner, Jacob Neusner, David Flusser, Geza Vermes, Pinchas Lapide, among many many more, and extremely skeptical "liberal" scholars, such as Crossan, Morton Smith, Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Wilhelm Wred and Gerd Ludemann, do not even question Jesus' existence.

Good, so all these people are in agreement - they accept that Jesus was some guy who Paul created. He was a common criminal, and had little, if any, influence.

BTW, Neusner is no historian. Nonetheless being Jewish has nothing todo with making honest or correct statements. Marx was Jewish and was wrong, and just because you're a communist, doesn't mean that you represent the standard party line.

These people may be Jewish, but that doesn't mean anything, anymore than a bunch of Secularized Christians claiming that Jesus never existed. It belittles the discussion, you have to prop up your weak argument with arbitrary Jews. Neusner doesn't agree that that G-d wrote the Torah, and Vermes believes that the Torah was written by multiple authors, and doesn't agree that G-d wrote it. Now you wish to use Vermes as your source for knowledge and wisdom, so be it, but accordingly, the whole bible is not the Divine text, but a mismatch of pithy man-made collective traditions. Your OT, or NT are no exceptions.

This issue has been laid to rest by scholars across the spectrum for many years. Jesus DID exist, and there IS clear historical evidence of his existence. In fact, the very skeptical, liberal, and hugely influential scholar Rudolf Bultmann concluded that one is not at the mercy of one who would claim Jesus didn't exist.

Historians don't make claims, and in fact, they seldom make historical facts. Historians explain how processes function in a system, and focus on the patterns that move and shape history. No historian will tell you that the issue has been 'laid to rest' because that is not what history is. History is a process, and everyday, you understand more of that process underlying each causal relationship. For the historian, the NT is not a history book and is therefore not relevant to an historical discussion.