Was Jesus a real person?

[Tampitump]

Your opinion is of no value when faced with certainty that a human inspired/created/started Christianity, that's a reason.?

Nope, never asserted certainty.

What's the point? No-one in this thread is arguing about god...

The question was "was Jesus a real person". If you go back a couple of pages, you'll clearly see where I contributed my opinion on this question wherein I said yes, I believe there is a historical Jesus. I even referrenced Ehrman's position for some clarity.

Your opinion is so angry... Why are you so determined to bash those that don't share your beliefs, that you invade every thread, that's relate-able and post what amounts to hate speak, despite the context?

No man, I'm sorry, you're not correct at all. Nothing was angry about anything I said in this post. At no point even in the slightest did I ever authoriatively bash people who didn't share my view. I gave my opinion, provided some good soundbites to back it, and actually ended my post on a positive note by saying that these old tales, while likely untrue, are nice little keepsakes from human history that are fun to read and learn about. Nothing was mean-spirited at any point in my post, it wasn't irrelevant to the discussion, and your rather inaccurate assessment of my intentions here shows you to have a bias against me. There was no reason to read any anger or ill-intent into my post, but you did. So I could easily put it right back at you by saying your opinion is of no value when you assign feelings or emotions to something or someone that weren't there. Edited September 24, 2016 by Tampitump

[freekundli]

According to John 5:37, Jesus said that no one had ever seen God at anytime or ever heard his voice. And yet people did see Jesus, which proves that Jesus cannot be God.

[Strange]

According to John 5:37, Jesus said that no one had ever seen God at anytime or ever heard his voice. And yet people did see Jesus, which proves that Jesus cannot be God.

 

 

Unless, of course, Jesus didn't exist.

[Ant Sinclair]

That appears to be wrong:

 

"The name Jesus used in the English New Testament comes from the Latin form of the Greek name Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous), a rendition of the Hebrew Yeshua (ישוע), related to the name Joshua.^[1][2] The name is thus related to the Hebrew verb root √yšʿ "rescue, deliver" and one of its noun forms, yešuaʿ "deliverance".^[3] There have been various proposals as to how the literal etymological meaning of the name should be translated, including YHWH saves, (is) salvation, (is) a saving-cry, (is) a cry-for-saving, (is) a cry-for-help, (is) my help.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name)#Etymology

 

 

 

I assume you mean "Egyptian"?

 

As the only references to such a thing are places like the David Icke forum, I think we can assume it is nonsense. Unless you can provide a credible reference?

 

 

 

As the Chapel wasn't built until more than 2,700 years after her death, that seems like a pretty mad idea.

 

It sounds like it might be in Egypt: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/queen-nefertiti-tomb-egypt-king-tutankhamun-have-we-found-secret-lost-burial-a6942696.html

No strange my translation of Jesu is correct and predates Greek coming from Summerian and Babylon, J=I E=home su=vertically rise.

So Jesu means to ascend through Learning!

[Memammal]

The name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iesous). The Greek form is a rendering of the Hebrew ישוע‎ (Yeshua), a variant of the earlier name יהושע‎ (Yehoshua), in English "Joshua". The name Yeshua appears to have been in use in Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus. The first century works of historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote in Koine Greek, the same language as that of the New Testament, refer to at least twenty different people with the name Jesus (i.e. Ἰησοῦς).

​wiki/Jesus

[Strange]

No strange my translation of Jesu is correct and predates Greek coming from Summerian and Babylon, J=I E=home su=vertically rise.

So Jesu means to ascend through Learning!

 

Then please provide a reference to a peer reviewed paper on historical linguistics that supports your claim.

 

Otherwise, I think it is clearly something you have just made up.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua

Edited September 29, 2016 by Strange

[Ant Sinclair]

Then please provide a reference to a peer reviewed paper on historical linguistics that supports your claim.

 

Otherwise, I think it is clearly something you have just made up.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua

Below stranger is jpeg from Summerian translations, at the bottom of the jpeg is "su" meaning vertical but also rising.

Do you deny that Jesu isn't a school?

Ask swansong, all nuclear scientists have a "spell" at a Je-su-it university!

Edited September 29, 2016 by Ant Sinclair

[Strange]

Below stranger is jpeg from Summerian translations, at the bottom of the jpeg is "su" meaning vertical but also rising.

 

1. Please provide a proper source. (A JPEG image is not a valid source.)

 

2. The word "su" may indeed mean vertical. There is no indication in your image that it also means rising.

 

3. This is irrelevant to the etymology of the name Jesus. I assume you cannot provide any evidence for the etymology you claim?

 

 

Do you deny that Jesu isn't a school?

 

I accept that Jesu is not a school. Do you have any evidence that it is?

 

 

Ask swansong, all nuclear scientists have a "spell" at a Je-su-it university!

 

I doubt that very much (just based on the small number of Jesuit universities(*)). Please provide some evidence to support that claim.

 

(*) 28 in the USA, out of a total of over 4,000 colleges and universities

[Strange]

Below stranger is jpeg from Summerian translations, at the bottom of the jpeg is "su" meaning vertical but also rising.

 

Found this Sumerian dictionary: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd1/index.html

 

Looking up "su" returns the following meanings:

 

su [BIRD] (1x: ED IIIa) wr. su₇^mušen "a bird"

su [CVVE] wr. su "(compound verb verbal element)"

su [FIBERS] wr. su₁₁; su₆ "date-palm fibers" Akk. sû

su [FLESH] (495x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian) wr. su "flesh; body; entrails (omen); body" Akk. zumru; šīru

su [RED] (184x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. su₄; sa₅; šu₄ "(to be) red, brown" Akk. pelû; sāmu

su [SINK] (54x: Old Babylonian) wr. su; su₃ "to submerge; to sink" Akk. ţebû

su [SPRINKLE] (34x: Old Babylonian, Middle Babylonian) wr. su₃; su₁₃ "to sprinkle, strew; to adorn, decorate" Akk. elēhu; zarāqu

su [UNMNG] wr. su₉ ""

su sag [TREMBLE] (6x: Old Babylonian) wr. su sag₃ "to tremble" Akk. zumra nurruţu

su zig [FEAR] (46x: Old Babylonian) wr. su zig₃ "to fear, to have goose bumps" Akk. šahātu

 

None of which seem to confirm your claim.

 

Looking up "rise" returns "zig" (and some variants):

 

zig [RISE] (8574x: Lagash II, Ur III) wr. zig₃ "to issue; to levy, raise, muster; to swell; to expend; to rise" Akk. dekû; gapāšu; tebû; şītu

 

Looking up "vertical" finds "si sa":

 

si sa [STRAIGHTEN] (410x: ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, Middle Babylonian) wr. si sa₂; si si-sa₂ "to make straight; to make vertical" Akk. ešēru; šutēšuru

 

Unfortunately, I can't link directly to the results because of the way the website is structured.

 

But this does seem to confirm that you are talking what the Sumerians would have called lum or murgu.

p.s. I am guessing your JPEG shows some Akkadian words, not Sumerian. But many are unrecognisable (to me).

[freekundli]

 

 

Unless, of course, Jesus didn't exist.

jesus was a real person.

[Strange]

jesus was a real person.

 

 

After 37 pages of discussion of the scarcity of evidence for his existence, this is a particularly unhelpful comment.

[Mordred]

roflmao +1

[Tampitump]

 

 

After 37 pages of discussion of the scarcity of evidence for his existence, this is a particularly unhelpful comment.

A useless comment which may just be a reasonable statement to make IMO. Still, one can be correct without knowing why they are correct. Does that mean they're unjustified?

[Ten oz]

A useless comment which may just be a reasonable statement to make IMO. Still, one can be correct without knowing why they are correct. Does that mean they're unjustified?

I honestly started this thread hoping the case was stronger than I understood it to be. That the presumption that Jesus was most likely a real person was support by evidence I simple had yet to learn. Instead no new evidence, nothing that wasn't addressed in the material covered in the OP, has been presented. Just confident opinions based on the opinions of others whom themselves are merely accepting the opnions of others and so on.

 

I respect that you have a specific opnion but there hasn't been anything contained in your posts create a reasonably high likelihood that your opinion is correct. I understand that as a matter of culture and societal norms Jesus is beleive to have been a person. Many in this discussion (not necessarily or only you) have used that as anecdotal evidence and repositioned repositioned this debate so that Jesus as a flesh and blolod person must be disproved or otherwise accepted. That line of discussion simply has not been useful.

[Strange]

A useless comment which may just be a reasonable statement to make IMO. Still, one can be correct without knowing why they are correct. Does that mean they're unjustified?

 

 

Probably not: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnoJusTruBel

[Tampitump]

I honestly started this thread hoping the case was stronger than I understood it to be. That the presumption that Jesus was most likely a real person was support by evidence I simple had yet to learn. Instead no new evidence, nothing that wasn't addressed in the material covered in the OP, has been presented. Just confident opinions based on the opinions of others whom themselves are merely accepting the opnions of others and so on.

 

I respect that you have a specific opnion but there hasn't been anything contained in your posts create a reasonably high likelihood that your opinion is correct. I understand that as a matter of culture and societal norms Jesus is beleive to have been a person. Many in this discussion (not necessarily or only you) have used that as anecdotal evidence and repositioned repositioned this debate so that Jesus as a flesh and blolod person must be disproved or otherwise accepted. That line of discussion simply has not been useful.

I only tacitly accept what I believe is a concensus in the antiquity scholar community. My opinion is that it doesn't really matter if Jesus existed or not. The only importance I can see it having is to aid us in understanding history, religion, anthropology, culture, etc. There may be some benefits to exploring the topic, but overall, I'm much more concerned with the natural sciences, understanding our origins, the cosmos, etc. I'm an atheist, as I feel every good reasoned thinker should be, and I accept the likelihood that a person existed in the first century who served as the inspiration for the Biblical Jesus. I'm agnostic to this, and don't hold this position with certainty at all. My level of concern for it is relatively low compared to ofher topics.

[John Cuthber]

... My opinion is that it doesn't really matter if Jesus existed or not. ...

It's an interesting point; does it matter?

Well, if you mean "does it actually make a difference to us" then we would know if he existed.

For example, if my some strange means Jesus' existence made the difference that all left handed people would like cats then we would know whether or not he existed- simply by checking on the pet preferences of left handed people.

 

 

If it made a difference then you could specify that difference by saying "if Christ was real then [whatever] otherwise [something else]",

and we could look and see which is real . Is it [whatever] or is it [something else]?

 

The idea that it makes a difference to us and the idea that we know whether or not he existed are logically equivalent.

Of course, it may be that it will matter later- but that means we find out whenever "later" is.

 

Here and now it doesn't make a difference; and we don't know.

Edited October 2, 2016 by John Cuthber

[Ten oz]

I only tacitly accept what I believe is a concensus in the antiquity scholar community. My opinion is that it doesn't really matter if Jesus existed or not. The only importance I can see it having is to aid us in understanding history, religion, anthropology, culture, etc. There may be some benefits to exploring the topic, but overall, I'm much more concerned with the natural sciences, understanding our origins, the cosmos, etc. I'm an atheist, as I feel every good reasoned thinker should be, and I accept the likelihood that a person existed in the first century who served as the inspiration for the Biblical Jesus. I'm agnostic to this, and don't hold this position with certainty at all. My level of concern for it is relatively low compared to ofher topics.

Right, this thread was start to explore the evidence and not just "accept" a concensus. While it may be a the majority opinion few scholars have actually done peer reveiwed work on the issue and amongst them there is various amounts of disagreement.

It's an interesting point; does it matter?

Well, if you mean "does it actually make a difference to us" then we would know if he existed.

For example, if my some strange means Jesus' existence made the difference that all left handed people would like cats then we would know whether or not he existed- simply by checking on the pet preferences of left handed people.

 

 

If it made a difference then you could specify that difference by saying "if Christ was real then [whatever] otherwise [something else]",

and we could look and see which is real . Is it [whatever] or is it [something else]?

 

The idea that it makes a difference to us and the idea that we know whether or not he existed are logically equivalent.

Of course, it may be that it will matter later- but that means we find out whenever "later" is.

 

Here and now it doesn't make a difference; and we don't know.

It matters to me (interests me) because it reflects the way we understand our history. Whether it is the Ride of Paul Revere or the way dinosaurs went extinct there are many false generalizations and claims made which are known but ignored in trade of cultural preference and/or convenience.

[Tampitump]

Right, this thread was start to explore the evidence and not just "accept" a concensus. While it may be a the majority opinion few scholars have actually done peer reveiwed work on the issue and amongst them there is various amounts of disagreement.

The only thing we can really do is look at the concensus in scholarship, see their points, and talk about whether or not we find them compelling. I should be clear that I don't unequivocally accept this concensus, its just my opinion that many experts think its likey, and that happens to be my opinion too. That's really all We can do. There isn't really much forthcoming evidence there, so what evidence are we going to weigh and discuss? I'm not a physicists or a biologist, so I can only really look at what the concensus is, try to understand it, see what their evidence is, and either accept it or reject it. Not many of us have the expertise to interpret or understand antique scritpures and cultres and form conclusions on these existential questions, so this entire thread must therefore be predicated on talking about what the experts have said, what their reasons are, and what our opinions about them are. That's all we can really do. That is, unless you've got some evidence to bring to the table that we can discuss.

[Tim88]

The only thing we can really do is look at the concensus in scholarship, see their points, and talk about whether or not we find them compelling. [..]

 

Sorry, that's not the only thing we can do; it's poor, unscientific methodology that has not been used in this discussion. If a judge follows the method of only looking at the police consensus in their report in which a plausible scenario is cooked up, such a judge will be (or should be) held accountable for misjudgement. However:

 

 

this entire thread must therefore be predicated on talking about what the experts have said, what their reasons are, and what our opinions about them are.

 

Yes indeed, the discussion here was based on evidence and counter evidence by experts as well as by well informed amateurs, as reviewed by experts.

[John Cuthber]

 

It matters to me (interests me) because it reflects the way we understand our history. Whether it is the Ride of Paul Revere or the way dinosaurs went extinct there are many false generalizations and claims made which are known but ignored in trade of cultural preference and/or convenience.

What would you do different;y if the answer was not the one you think it is?

What difference would it actually make to you?

[Ten oz]

The only thing we can really do is look at the concensus in scholarship, see their points, and talk about whether or not we find them compelling. I should be clear that I don't unequivocally accept this concensus, its just my opinion that many experts think its likey, and that happens to be my opinion too. That's really all We can do. There isn't really much forthcoming evidence there, so what evidence are we going to weigh and discuss? I'm not a physicists or a biologist, so I can only really look at what the concensus is, try to understand it, see what their evidence is, and either accept it or reject it. Not many of us have the expertise to interpret or understand antique scritpures and cultres and form conclusions on these existential questions, so this entire thread must therefore be predicated on talking about what the experts have said, what their reasons are, and what our opinions about them are. That's all we can really do. That is, unless you've got some evidence to bring to the table that we can discuss.

Collectively their are few points of agreement. Few have actually done work specifically on the historicity of Jesus. The "concensus" that you and other posters keep referring is not one that has been supported in this thread but rather stated as a matter of fact. I understand Wikipedia states it as such (Rational Wiki doesn't pronounce a concensus) but the only scholar we have discussed in this thread and one of the few the cited on general information pages like wikipedia is Bart Ehrman. What good is the "concensus" if we don't know who any of the scholars are? Bat Ehrman is one guy and his work has been disputed by other peer veiwed scholars.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ

 

When arguing about climate science and the general concensus it is easy to produce research from NASA, NOAA, EPA, the United Nations IPCC and countless Universities. The stated concensus on the Historicity of Jesus hasn't come with that level of support. Rather is is stated as fact, a trump card, that puts the burden of proof on the opposing side.

 

This really isn't the discussion I had hoped for. One where people just claim a concensus has already resolved the matter followed by no definitive support but loads of demands. Many things are taken for granted in society. I am not trying to disprove or prove anything. I don't think it is even possible to in regards to this issue. Rather I am just trying to discuss what the evidence actually is.

[dimreepr]

It matters to me (interests me) because it reflects the way we understand our history.

 

 

we'll never understand our history, time will always obscure the truth/detail; not to mention politics and ever evolving language.

 

I applaud the attempt but all we can say with any sense of certainty is, someone started it and Jesus is as good a name as any.

[Ten oz]

What would you do different;y if the answer was not the one you think it is?

What difference would it actually make to you?

The difference it would make; it would change the way I study and consider things moving forward. The scientific method of systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. If the history I have been taught is not accurate I need to adjust which sources I trust and what conclusions I have taken for granted. The way history is taught has real impacts on decisions people make today. Politicians campaign on their versions of who the founding fathers were and what the founding fathers wanted. People get elected to office and make decisions about our way of life based on claims about religion and history. In my opinion it matters. It isn't the most important thing in the world but it does matter.

[dimreepr]

This really isn't the discussion I had hoped for.

 

 

Be fair, if you can answer this question you'll be expecting a Ph.D, and I doubt anyone here has the time.

Edited October 3, 2016 by dimreepr