Jesus: Liar, Lunatic or God?

[Fallen]

These are the three questions that must be asked when making up our minds about Jesus.

We know he was an historical figure, there is more evidence for his existence than for any other person in history. And, if the New Testament is fiction then (quoting C.S. Lewis) "...someone must have came up with the modern novel writing technique 1500 years before anyone else."

Jesus himself even claimed to be God, so he gives us the reasons to ask the questions. Liar? Lunatic? or God?

You can only come to one conclusion. Either he was deliberately deceiving people with lies about his divinity, he was raving mad and had hallucinations of God, or he was actually who he claimed to be.

So, what do you think he was?

[Lycan T]

If you have never viewed the Monty Python movie the Life of Brian...you should. The same happened to the man called Jesus...
The truth be known...I belive he was neither of the 3. History embellishes him...but that does not make him a god. Only xtians do that!

[RA]

Where is all this evidence of the life of Jesus? Historians of the period never mention him. The dead sea scrolls do not mention him. There is not a bibliography written during his time. As a matter of fact I can not find one single piece of historical information about the life of Jesus. I seriously doubt he ever existed!

We have historical data recorded in the works of Ceasar, Cicero, Livy and Josephus. We have the detailed dead sea scrolls explaining the calander to the sabbath and even describing a rendition of armageddon in the war scroll. The war scroll explains how the end of the world is near and thought to happen when the jews unite to throw the Romans out of their country.

Amazingly none of this documented history mentions Jesus! Not even a side note! I would think his every word and movement would be recorded and the records kept safe.

If you know of information on the life of Jesus (outside the bible) that can verify his existence please let me know. If you do not answer this post then I will have to assume you have no idea what you are talking about.

[0ddity]

I am one of the only people that flat out denies that Jesus ever existed as a person. There is NO evidence he did, just because he caused a lot of ruckus in a book, is not proof he walked the earth. Or water.

[Pitchforkpat]

I vote for lunatic

RA,

Actually, I need to look again at my sources, but I do believe a Jesus of Nazareth is mentioned in several historical documents including Josephus. Certainly it is well argued in several books that each mention is far from proof because of many reasons. In fact in the case of Josephus, many believe the mentioning of Jesus is a later addition, because if you take that passage out, the exterior passages flow better.

The point for me is that, though a Jesus of Nazareth MAY have existed, he did not perform any miracles, did not raise from the dead, and certainly was not the son of God.

Fallen,

I've heard that many times before and it's a clever little saying. However, you must remember (or maybe you don't know), that schollars are virtually united in the knowledge that the gospels were written as "articles of faith" and not as historical documents. That is why many gospel events (like Jesus and the money-changers) differ chronologically from gospel to gospel and why even the events surrounding the finding of the empty tomb also differ from gospel to gospel.

So was Jesus a liar, lunatic or God? You left out man. If he lived, he was a man. Otherwise, Fallen, as I've reiterated from the mouth of Jesus himself, you could tell a mountain to move and it would move. I challenge you to do that. Just think how many souls you could save! You'd certainly save me from the fires of Hell. Now isn't that worth a little mountian movement? Well maybe not.

[Amergain]

Originally Posted by Pitchforkpat

I vote for lunatic

RA,

Actually, I need to look again at my sources, but I do believe a Jesus of Nazareth is mentioned in several historical documents including Josephus. Certainly it is well argued in several books that each mention is far from proof because of many reasons. In fact in the case of Josephus, many believe the mentioning of Jesus is a later addition, because if you take that passage out, the exterior passages flow better.

I think the Talmud story is very compelling. It tells of a Yeshua (Jesus) who was born in the 2nd century BC in reign of King Alexander Jannaeus, before the entry of the Romans on the Palestinian stage. This Yeshua is reported to be the son of Miriam (Mary) of Magdala (Mary Magdalene) but not virgin born or fathered by a god. He studied sorcery in Egypt and returned to Israel to perform great wonders, heal people, and raise the dead. The Jewish priesthood tried him for sorcery and stoned him to death. Then they hanged him to a tree for all to see. Of course he didn't resurrect. He had a cult of followers, and this Cult was present when the Romans entered Israel in the mid-first century BC. Aye, a Jesus cult before the Biblical Jesus was born.

The point for me is that, though a Jesus of Nazareth MAY have existed, he did not perform any miracles, did not raise from the dead, and certainly was not the son of God.

I think that followers of the earlier Yeshua ben Pacheria (Pandira) of 140 BC kept his memory alive. I think he was the model for the possibly fictional Jesus of Nazareth. Alternatively there could have been a second Jesus born in 4 BC. But their common association with a mother named Miriam, and an association with a Miriam of Magdala, makes me think the earlier one is the genuine McCoy. Parallel to all of this, there were messianic Jews who wanted a messiah-King and hoped Yeshua would return to drive out the new invaders, the Romans. Also in the Empire the major religion of Romans soldiers and politicians were Mithraists. The believed in a god man 1000 years older. Ahura Mazda the Zoroastrian God, fathered Mithra in a human virgin (or a rock in some versions). Mithra was god and man, born in a cave, placed in a manger, attended by shepherds, and visited by three Zoroastrian Magi. That is the Christmas story almost exactly. Mithra later is slain, but resurrects from the dead in three days. That is the Christian Easter story.

I think further that in Palestine, the cultural mix of Jews, Romans, Messianic cults and pagan god-man cults resulted in what usually happens. The Romans for whatever reasons joined Messianic cults. The names became interchangeable. There were various versions. The Ebionites kept Yeshua as a Messiah but not a god. One version perhaps that originated at or near Nazareth were the Nazarites who made Jesus more special but not quite god. He was already picking up some Mithraic Zoroastrian features. Soon the biography of Mithra was grafted onto Yeshua (Jesus) ben Pacheria. Jesus was updated to the Roman period, possibly because it was mostly Romans who started Christianity. He became Yeshua of Nazareth. He might have retained some of the parables and sayings of the earlier Yeshua the sorcerer. The growing segment of converts from Mithraism soon put a Mithraic spin on the Jesus dogma. Mithra's 12 apostles representing the Zodiac, his "lamb of God" nickname, his "saving grace", and Mithraism's 7 sacraments were soon Christian.

Being pacifists, the Jesus Cultists of the early centuries were no match for the militant Mithra Christians. Mithraism had Mithra's Soldiers and appealed to the Imperial army. Now there were "Christian Soldiers." They had no problem killing off the opposition. Converting the Emperor Constantine the Great, sealed the fate not only of the rival Jesus cults but of the pagans as well. Ebionites, Nazarites, and Essenes were eliminated first. Then the Mithraic Christians turned on the Egyptian religions of Isis, Horus, Osiris, Atum, Ra, and Kneph. Then they turned on the Neo-Platonists and the Gaulish, Spanish, and British Druids. There is not much evidence for their attacking the mainstream Mithraists. But Mithraic shrines all over the Empire peacefully became Christian Churches. It seems that Mithraists were not persecuted out of existence, they merely converged and merged with Trinitarian/Athanasian Christianity. The Gospels written late in the first century already show this with the adoption of the Mithra birth story and the Mithra death and resurrection stories.

I've heard that many times before and it's a clever little saying. However, you must remember (or maybe you don't know), that scholars are virtually united in the knowledge that the gospels were written as "articles of faith" and not as historical documents. That is why many gospel events (like Jesus and the money-changers) differ chronologically from gospel to gospel and why even the events surrounding the finding of the empty tomb also differ from gospel to gospel.

We would expect errors in chronology or sequences of events in oral stories recorded by 4 different scribes. What is interesting is what they have in common. Despite hundreds of technical errors and contradictions they all agree on the Mithraic borrowed stories as the biography of Jesus. But there were many gospels rejected by the Catholic Church. Most were destroyed. We can only guess why. I speculate that they didn't have the Mithraic components or may have had a Jesus messiah not god-man, or revered the older Talmudic Jesus. After Emperor Theodosius I and II, and Justinian, all of the old dissenting Jesus Cult documents and most pagan ones were destroyed. Much of what we know about them comes from their refutation by Christian apologists. In rebutting the Neo-Platonists, Manichaeans, Donatists, Ebionites, Greek Olympic Religion, and Gaulish Druidry, the apologists first posed the arguments of those they refuted. So inadvertently those dissidents and pagans were not lost totally to history.

So was Jesus a liar, lunatic or God? You left out man. If he lived, he was a man. Otherwise, Fallen, as I've reiterated from the mouth of Jesus himself, you could tell a mountain to move and it would move. I challenge you to do that. Just think how many souls you could save! You'd certainly save me from the fires of Hell. Now isn't that worth a little mountain movement? Well maybe not.

Jesus was a man, and a sorcerer. The historical Jesus had a mother named Miriam. The Mythical Christ was a merger of Mythical Mithra and Historical Jesus.

Amergain

[Galphanore]

Before I answer your question I would like to ask one of my own, based off the below statement by you.

Originally Posted by Fallen

Jesus himself even claimed to be God, so he gives us the reasons to ask the questions. Liar? Lunatic? or God?

Where exactly does he make this claim? I've read the bible, and talked to many people who have also done so, and I do not ever recall him once claiming to be god. Not even once.

Originally Posted by Fallen

You can only come to one conclusion. Either he was deliberately deceiving people with lies about his divinity, he was raving mad and had hallucinations of God, or he was actually who he claimed to be.

So, what do you think he was?

I think he was either a fictional charactor, or he existed and helped people but then later someone else took his works and wrote them down, exagerating as people are wont to do, and made him out to be the son of god.

[Numberoneson]

Originally Posted by Fallen

These are the three questions that must be asked when making up our minds about Jesus.

We know he was an historical figure, there is more evidence for his existence than for any other person in history. And, if the New Testament is fiction then (quoting C.S. Lewis) "...someone must have came up with the modern novel writing technique 1500 years before anyone else."

Jesus himself even claimed to be God, so he gives us the reasons to ask the questions. Liar? Lunatic? or God?

You can only come to one conclusion. Either he was deliberately deceiving people with lies about his divinity, he was raving mad and had hallucinations of God, or he was actually who he claimed to be.

So, what do you think he was?

Been reading Josh McDowell, eh? That one's been rehashed hundreds of
times.

Ever heard of a false dichotomy? Well, this argument is a false trichotomy.

As if there were ONLY 3 possibilities... How about these?

1. How about the possibility that Jesus was entirely fiction?

There are no reliable outside sources mentioning Jesus. No one besides
the people who wrote the New Testament seem to have heard of Jesus,
even though various people have LIED about Jesus and tried to put him in
history books through forgery.

If the people who actually thought Jesus was a God would LIE about
him, then couldn't the people who were trying to convince others
that Jesus was the Messiah also LIE?

2. Maybe Jesus is fiction based loosely on a historical character.

There were lots of LIES written about George Washington, including the one
that he never told LIES, and yet no one denies that George Washington was
a historical character. It's just that some people were so eager to glorify
our first president that they made up fantastic stories about him in order
to teach people "important" lessons, such as not to LIE, that they thought
it was O.K. to make up LIES to do this

After all, it was for a good cause, just like Christianity. Would Christians
LIE for a good cause?

3. Jesus could be fiction based on fulfilling previous prophecies in order to
make him look like the Jewish Messiah.

No one likes their holy books to look foolish. If they predict something,
then, BY GOD, it had better happen. If it isn't happening, then in order
to make the prophecies look good, someone had better make it look like
it's happening.

The stories about Jesus could be manufactured self-fulfilling prophecies
designed to fill a very pressing desire for a powerful leader in the Jewish
community.

The Jews have seen many "false" messiahs. Jesus is just one of the lot,
who was very successful with one group of Jews.

This could explain why so many Jews did not convert to Christianity
as well. Since Jews were there, they knew the stories Christians wrote
about Jesus were lies.


4. What about the possibility that those who wrote about him were the
true Liars and Lunatics?

Ever heard of "hero worship"? Ever met a true Elvis fan? People make
up stories about their heros all the time.

The same is true for religious figures as well.

------

Pick any of the above and you are more likely correct than the Lord,
Liar, Lunatic trichotomy. There may be even more possibilities.

After all, we only have second hand info on Jesus, AT BEST.

Jesus never wrote much about himself. So we don't know what he REALLY
said, only what people SAID he said.

Basically, there isn't enough evidence.

[Pitchforkpat]

In fact, the lies continue to this day. The Catholic church is still making people saints, yet a criterion of sainthood is that a miracle has to have been performed. In NO instances has a miracle been empirically verified, but that doesn't stop them making the claim, and millions of followers lap it up as if it were fact. So, one can see that people writing decades after Jesus' death, who were trying to make others believers could easily have made up all kinds of "miracle" stories to make their claim more credible.

The ultimate miracle story of course is that Jesus was risen from the dead (not by himself, but buy the Father) went to the center of the earth, fought the devil and returned truimpant. Now, none of the gospel writers was in Hell with Jesus so how would they know? Obviously this is the product of their imaginations.

[Fallen]

Originally Posted by Pitchforkpat

The ultimate miracle story of course is that Jesus was risen from the dead (not by himself, but buy the Father) went to the center of the earth, fought the devil and returned truimpant. Now, none of the gospel writers was in Hell with Jesus so how would they know? Obviously this is the product of their imaginations.

Where does it say this?

But...if it is another Catholic teaching a Pope could have made it up and it may have been incorporated into the Catholic doctrines. As the Catholics, unlike Protestants, follow the Bible as well as their own edicts.

And is well pat, if you can't allow yourself to believe then why would I move a mountain when someone coming back from the dead to tell you Hell was real would not change your mind about God? It's your choice to believe that is why Jesus did not come down from the Cross, not only would we all be condemned but we would not believe it any more, just like many don't believe the Flood and Creation.

[Galphanore]

Originally Posted by Fallen

Where does it say this?

But...if it is another Catholic teaching a Pope could have made it up and it may have been incorporated into the Catholic doctrines. As the Catholics, unlike Protestants, follow the Bible as well as their own edicts.

And is well pat, if you can't allow yourself to believe then why would I move a mountain when someone coming back from the dead to tell you Hell was real would not change your mind about God? It's your choice to believe that is why Jesus did not come down from the Cross, not only would we all be condemned but we would not believe it any more, just like many don't believe the Flood and Creation.

It's great that your story tells you someone comes back from the dead. But my feeling on this matter is that, why should someone comming back from the dead in your book make me believe in hell any more then someone comming back from the dead in a Forgotten Realms book make me believe in the Abyss?

[Pitchforkpat]

Fallen,

why would I move a mountain when someone coming back from the dead to tell you Hell was real would not change your mind about God?

Well, thanks for the softball. Em...wow...hard to believe it's not obvious. No one has actually come back from the dead to tell me Hell was real?? Yet, if I saw you move a mountain, I'd believe in a second cause I can see it with my own eyes, and we could have geologists examine the place where the mountain stood before, and where it stands now. I think the trail of evidence would be indisputable, whereas I have no evidence (other than a story which is allegory anyway) that anyone has come back from the dead. Maybe you might want to ask a more challenging question next time.

[RA]

There isn't any documentation on the life of Jesus. Zilch! Josephus how wrote excellent history during the supposed time of Jesus never mentions him. The dead sea scrolls do not mention him.

In addition Christianity existed before the supposed Jesus birth. The gospels themselves were not written until 150 years after the supposed death of Jesus. The four gospels were literally unknown to the the early christian fathers. In fact no one even mentions them until 120 years after the death of jesus!

There is wealth of documentation proving the gospels were forged. Some of the stories told within are revised versions of old egyptian tales concerning the original god "Re", pronounced RA. Some of these old egyption tales are quite amusing in the parallels witth the new testament.

[Pitchforkpat]

RA,


Just wondered what you thought of the following:

The passage is Book 18, Chapter 3, Item 3 of Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus.

3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

From the Roman Historian Tacitus:

15.44.2. But, despite kindly influence, despite the leader's generous handouts, despite appeasing the gods, the scandal did not subside, rather the blaze came to be believed to be an official act. So, in order to quash the rumour, Nero blamed it on, and applied the cruellest punishments to, those sinners, whom ordinary people call Christians, hating them for their shameful behaviour.

15.44.3. The originator of this name, Christ, was sentenced to torture by Procurator Pontius Pilate, during the reign of Tiberius, but although checked for a moment, the deadly cult erupted again, not just in Judaea, the source of its evil, but even in Rome, where all the sins and scandals of the world gather and are glorified.

[RA]

Pitchforkpat,

When analyzing historical information it is important to keep in mind the sources and environment of the author. In the case of Josephus, he was born in 38ce after Jesus alleged death. His father was an aristocratic priest and Josephus himself became a priest.

His primary historical book is called the “Jewish War” where Josephus describes in detail the Jewish revolt in 66ce and documents a few hundred years of Jewish life leading up to the revolt. The “Jewish war” is considered a representation of historical fact.

His second major historical book is called “The antiquities of the Jews” and deals with the ancestry and beliefs of Josephus and the Jews in general. Antiquities is a history of the Jewish race from Creation to 66ce. It is a pious view of history at best. Out of the 20 books that composes antiquities 10 follow the old testament while the remaining 10 recounted the lives of Judas, Maccabaeous and Herod.

“Antiquities” is in part a retelling of the bible story with supplements from earlier Jewish historians. It is a canon of ancient Jewish law. The source, the old testament and purpose, praise of the Jewish peoples religious and ethical standards.

Of course it will mention the Jesus mythos. Parts of "Antiquities" is ideologically tied to the Old testament which does not mean these parts are based on facts but myths and legends.

Tacitus was born in 57ce. Tacitus was a politician, historian and State Priest. His first major work was “histories” written around 109ce was a historical bibliography of his youth and adulthood. His last book “the Annals” was composed of 18 separate books of which 14 survived to this day. These include books I-IV, XII-XV and pieces of V, XI and XVI. The fifteenth book focuses on Corbulo and the great fire of Rome.

The “annals” cover the Reign of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero and is primarily about roman politics. Tacitus the preacher believed in the science of prophesy verified by ancient testimonials. Tiberius was quick to attack astrology and discredit philosophical ideals that did not fit his own as a priestly figure. Some of his works rely on earlier priestly documents and eye witnesses to fill in the gaps.

Tiberius is another historian/priest that gathered older data via word of mouth. He was a priest and no doubt spent his time with other priests. The religious influence is apparent in some of his writings. He did not however live the written history about Jesus but relied on hear-say.