5 reasons to suspect Jesus never existed...

[_RedJacket]

I didn't read it that way at all, but okay.

How did you read it? I'm really curious.

[_KevinSim]

Matthew 27:46 quotes Jesus as He hung on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If people attempting to start a faith tradition were fabricating out of thin air the story of their central character, why in the world would they include a quote that makes it sound like Her/His God is forsaking that central character, when S/He needs that God most?

You can't be serious...

I am completely serious.

Why did odin forsake thor (many, many times...)?:

Honestly, is your world so small that you think the "forsaken main character who triumphs in the end" plot device is only found in the Bible?

No it is not.

Why was Achilles forsaken when he needed Thetis/Zues the most?

Why was Gandalf forsaken by Eru Ilúvatar when he needed him most?

Why did Aruru forsake Enkidu (and Gilgamesh) when he needed her most?

The creators of the Norse Legends, the creator of the Greek Legends, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the creator of the Gilgamesh legend; didn't promote Odin, Zeus, Eru, and Aruru, respectively; as a deity who would grant any righteous request as long as the requester had enough faith. The authors of the Christian scriptures did.

Im not sure you really thought this one through if that is the reason you believe the Christ myth...

I did and it is.

[_KevinSim]

Having said that, I find the hypothesis that there was no actual person called Jesus who preached and was put to death involves far more difficulties and demands for supplementary hypotheses than the suggestion that yes, there was such a person, but the accounts of him in early Christian writings are very far from giving us good historical evidence for what happened in his life.

I think this is where I'm at too. Although, while I see no reason why a good historian would assume the Bible is historically accurate, I think there are good theological reasons to believe God wants us to treat the Bible (and the other LDS standard works) as God's message to the world.

[_KevinSim]

Are you planning on staying bitchy and irrationally judgemental about almost everything on the board?

IHaveAQuestion, surely you could have found a better word to use than bitchy. Bitchy, like bastard, while not always used to talk derogatorily about women and illegitimate children, are still sufficiently connected to those concepts that use of those two terms is always in very bad taste in my opinion.

[_KevinSim]

There is no census that coincides with the one said to have happened at Jesus's birth.

I've heard this before. Furthermore, Rome was not in the habit of conducting censi anywhere but in Roman provinces, and Judaea did not become (part of?) a Roman province until ten years after the death of the Herod mentioned in the first two chapters of Matthew. Or at least so says respected historian Chester G. Starr in the textbook he wrote, A History of the Ancient World (which textbook was used by the University of Washington in its ancient history class when I took it back in 1983 or 1984).

The massacre of the innocents, by which a whole cohort of Israeli children was supposedly put to the sword has no outside corroboration. These types of events should have been recorded by the historians active during the time and place.

I was wondering about this as well. These two points lead me to seriously wonder if the Christmas stories in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke both might be complete fantasies, on the order of Susan Summers' The Fourth Wise Man. Perhaps when Christianity started taking hold people wondered what Jesus' early life was like, and early Christians just made up some stories to fill the gap. It's possible.

This is not to say I'm doubting everything in the Christian scriptures. As I said in another post, I still believe that God inspired the authors of scripture to convey His message to the world via those scriptures.

[_KevinSim]

What on earth is this guy trying to say?

Relying on texts and/or historical documents...or lack thereof... isn't the primary reason that I choose to exercise faith/hope in Jesus Christ as the Savior. A few years ago after going through a period of questioning the existence of a creator/God, I, through a series of readings/events/experiences, made a choice to choose to believe in the possibility of a God. And as a result of that, in an afterlife that has purpose/meaning. Once that choice was made I then had to find a way to account for and explain the world as it is (all of the conundrums, evils, and unexplainables) and has been throughout the recorded history of mankind. In my mind I decided there had to be some sort of cosmic 'fail safe' plan that can/would make what is wrong/unfair, etc., right. Enter in an at-one-ment for all of mankind. Enter in Jesus Christ.

So I guess I come into this whole debate/question from the other end. Looking out (macro) and then coming back in (micro) rather than looking at it the other way around. I find myself doing the same thing with church history and even the Book of Mormon and PofGP.

But it is nice, and at times even helpful , to have the scriptures and the prophets to help clarify and add to the mix of all the knowledge that is available from many different/varied sources. Even if they too have a hard/difficult time wrapping their own minds around the workings/mind of God.

MentalGymnast, thanks for providing this background. I too, had my experience with doubting God. Heck, in all honesty I still doubt God at times, on a pretty much regular basis. But I too made the choice to believe; even when I find myself doubting God in my every day life, I always find myself coming back to belief at least at the end of the day.

I consider God and the afterlife to be separate entities. Sure, belief in the LDS version of God leads to belief in an afterlife, but in my opinion it's certainly possible to believe in a deity without any belief in an afterlife at all. But for the record, I'm more certain there is an afterlife than I am certain that there is a God. Although I'm pretty certain of both.

[_Quasimodo]

I think this is where I'm at too. Although, while I see no reason why a good historian would assume the Bible is historically accurate, I think there are good theological reasons to believe God wants us to treat the Bible (and the other LDS standard works) as God's message to the world.

Given the diverse and contradictory nature of theology (maybe over 5,000 religions), is there such a thing as a good theological reason?

[_KevinSim]

Do you mean people who have investigated, found the truth claims of the church to be lacking (or false), and wish to remain in the church?

I suppose that's the road that leads to NOM.

What about those people who have investigated a little, far enough to understand why many people who have left the LDS Church have left it, but not far enough (in their opinion) to decide conclusively that those truth claims are either lacking or false? Like me? I decided a long time ago that casual investigation of the LDS Church's truth claims are by far not an adequate way of verifying or falsifying those truth claims, that if someone really wanted to find out if those truth claims are true or false, that someone would have to put a heck of a lot more effort into investigating them than anyone I'm aware of ever has.

I don't think that makes me a NOM.

I don't have a firm belief that Noah's flood covered the whole world. I also kind of doubt that all the languages of the world came into being because God was trying to keep the Tower of Babbel from being built. I, like B.H. Roberts, find myself leaning very strongly towards believing the Theory of Evolution; I find myself believing the Garden of Eden story to the extent that there was someone (or some people) who was the first person (people) to understand the difference between good and evil. Just a few posts back I expressed my skepticism in the historicity of the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke.

But I do believe that Abraham was a real person, and that God covenanted with him regarding his posterity. I believe that Isaac, Jacob/Israel, and Moses were all real people, and I believe that the Hebrew prophets actually spoke to God, as did Joseph Smith and Spencer Kimball, and as does Thomas Monson today.

So I guess I find myself halfway between a TBM and a NOM. And you know what? I'm comfortable where I am.

I think people can successfully navigate that road if they're focus is on family and culture.

I consider family to be important, but I guess my focus is really on what I'm conscientiously required to do. I would leave the LDS Church in a second if I felt like my conscience required it. But it doesn't.

Me, I'd be out the door never to return. How do I know? I've already exited a church because I couldn't tolerate some of the things I witnessed and still remain my authentic self.

Why is it that you couldn't tolerate such things?

[_Chap]

There is no census that coincides with the one said to have happened at Jesus's birth.

I've heard this before. Furthermore, Rome was not in the habit of conducting censi anywhere but in Roman provinces, and Judaea did not become (part of?) a Roman province until ten years after the death of the Herod mentioned in the first two chapters of Matthew. Or at least so says respected historian Chester G. Starr in the textbook he wrote, A History of the Ancient World (which textbook was used by the University of Washington in its ancient history class when I took it back in 1983 or 1984).

'Censi'? Listen buddy, what you got there is a 4th declension noun. If you try to fit one of them second declension plurals to it, you gonna strip the gears soon as you move out of the driveway. Lucky for you, I got the right spare for you here: cēnsūs. It's a genuine maker's spare, a real 4th declension plural. 'Course, it's gonna' cost top dollar ...

Or you could just say 'censuses' like the rest of us?

The massacre of the innocents, by which a whole cohort of Israeli children was supposedly put to the sword has no outside corroboration. These types of events should have been recorded by the historians active during the time and place.

I was wondering about this as well. These two points lead me to seriously wonder if the Christmas stories in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke both might be complete fantasies ...

You are not alone. Look, when he was born, nobody was filming it. It was only when people started to say - "Who was that bearded man?" ... "Son, that was the Lone Messiah", which was decades later, that anybody would have started trying to imagine all the cool stuff that ought to have happened when he was born.

[_Bret Ripley]

Can you say what you see in Paul's writings that make you think he's familiar with Q?

Here are a few examples that may show a relationship between Paul and Q (or perhaps some other source, as some of these also have parallels in Mark):

Matt 5:32 -- But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Luke 16:18 -- Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Paul may have this in mind when he attributes the following to Jesus:

I Cor 7:10-11 -- To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

***
Jesus speaking to those being sent out to preach:

Matt 8:8-10 -- Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.

Luke 10: 4 & 7 -- Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals ... Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid.

Paul may be thinking of this saying here:

I Cor 9:14 -- In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

***
Matt 17:20 -- For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move ...

Matt 21:21 -- if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.

Luke 17:6 -- If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Paul may be alluding to this Jesus saying here:

I Cor 13:2 -- And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

***
There are other examples as well. Anyway, it's all fairly weak sauce in terms of the historical Jesus argument. The only reason I mentioned Q at all was to serve as a reminder that even though the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts and were written several decades after the events they depict, the Gospel writers evidently used earlier sources that also seem to predate Paul (whose writings, of course, are earlier than the Gospels).