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Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ'

I wouldn't put a lot of stock I'm what this guy says...

Having said that, in many ways it's already obvious that much about the story of Jesus is invented.

No one in history ever walked on water, or actually turned water into wine etc.

But convenient we can't have any miracles like that now with YouTube so there'd be irrefutable proof that the son of god existed and he did all these amazing things.....

But therein lies the issue... Why did all these things only happen at a time and a place where theres no way to verify... And even if the guy in the OP is right, the believers can't be swayed, they already believe something that never happened (miracles I mentioned above).
 
Surtr said:
I doubt it's going to have any effect. I really don't see anything in the article that could serve as compelling evidence for his assertion.
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Oh I agree. Still interesting nonetheless, no? I'm just interested to see what evidence he presents.

RabidAlpaca said:
As much as I want it to be true, I don't see October 19th, 2013 as being "the day in history christianity was finally definitively proven to be hogwash".

Besides, you can't disprove a religion with facts that doesn't base itself on facts. Christians believe because they have a desperate need to believe, and they will contort reality as far as they have to to serve that.
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No, Christianity (sadly) won't dissipate that day. The author even recognizes this.

Dr. Chuckles said:
Isn't Prweb one of those weird "pay to publish" outlets that mlm outlets use?
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I'm not familiar.

Dr. Chuckles said:
really?

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39666

I love that site. And it's made even more interesting when you learn that it was a project started back in 1971. Talk about forward thinking
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I'm not a big fan of reading books online. I'd rather have the print copy in my hand and add to my library, but there are certain instances where it's great.

Anagram said:
I'll be interested in hearing what he has to say, but I doubt there's going to be anything conclusive.
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Agreed. We'll just have to wait and see.

joG said:
I guess we will have to wait and see. Don't hope for a quick resolution though, unless it can be shown to be a hoax.
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Like you said, we'll have to wait and see.

Redress said:
Better yet: Behold the Man: Michael Moorcock: 9781585677641: Amazon.com: Books
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Seems interesting. I'll have to look for a copy. Thanks for the recommendation.

sawyerloggingon said:
Jesus bashing will never end, same s*** different day. YAAAAAAWN
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Aww. Poor sawyer. Cry me a river. You'll be mad if it's presented Jesus was a fictional creation? Do you get this worked up over other potentially-fictional characters?

cpwill said:
:) there are no new lies.
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Obviously must be a lie, right?

davidtaylorjr said:
:roll:
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Mocking.gif
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Obviously must be a lie, right?
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:shrug: he may believe it. There are people who insist the world is ruled by lizard people wearing human skin. But beyond being ridiculously implausible, it happens to also be not true :)
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
I'm not familiar.
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It's a type of PR firm where they basically produce material to look like news reporting on demand. So if you have a new "discovery" that pertains to a product you're marketing, they basically produce material that looks like reporting on the topic. And given the nature of the internet and how they structure their releases they will often leak into more legitimate outlets.

Think of it in terms of those "academic" journals that you can pay to publish your research


I'm not a big fan of reading books online. I'd rather have the print copy in my hand and add to my library, but there are certain instances where it's great.
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You can always load it up on your smart phone or tablet. But, yes, it's nice being able to make note in the page margin, underline, etc.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: he may believe it. There are people who insist the world is ruled by lizard people wearing human skin. But beyond being ridiculously implausible, it happens to also be not true :)
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He may believe it, sure. He may also have evidence for his claim and, thus, it is not a belief. How's this claim ridiculously implausible, cp? And, if you seem so certain of your scientific knowledge, why not attend attend the symposium and present your stuff along side his? Or could this be conjecture on your part and you're simply using your wishful thinking?

Dr. Chuckles said:
It's a type of PR firm where they basically produce material to look like news reporting on demand. So if you have a new "discovery" that pertains to a product you're marketing, they basically produce material that looks like reporting on the topic. And given the nature of the internet and how they structure their releases they will often leak into more legitimate outlets.

Think of it in terms of those "academic" journals that you can pay to publish your research
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Eh, there are publication fees sometimes, with things like PLoS one, Nature Comm, etc. and it's not entirely unwarranted, IMO. There are, however, some, where you can basically pay to publish whatever claptrap you wish to present.

You can always load it up on your smart phone or tablet. But, yes, it's nice being able to make note in the page margin, underline, etc.
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I've tried reading on my iPhone and it's so frustrating! But yes, I entirely agree with that last part.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
There are, however, some, where you can basically pay to publish whatever claptrap you wish to present.
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From my experience that is what PRweb is. So I tend to be skeptical of anything claimed in it. Though the guy can still be legit



I've tried reading on my iPhone and it's so frustrating! But yes, I entirely agree with that last part.
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it's become such a habit for anything I'm "studying" that it's hard to read without doing it at this point. But if we are just talking about some fun fiction, or light non-fiction, it's really nice having ready access to like 30 books on my smart phone. Though I probably look like a goober trying to read off a three inch screen
 
Surtr said:
He better have some strong evidence, or else they're going to eat him alive.
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Meh, lack of evidence doesn't stop the YECers from running their mouths, they even get a museum. Being "eaten alive" isn't enough to stop someone from saying stuff they really want to say.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: he may believe it. There are people who insist the world is ruled by lizard people wearing human skin. But beyond being ridiculously implausible, it happens to also be not true :)
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I think believing in lizard people is far more analogous to your beliefs than his.

sawyerloggingon said:
Jesus bashing will never end, same s*** different day. YAAAAAAWN
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I enjoy your use of jesus and **** together in the same sentence.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Oh I agree. Still interesting nonetheless, no? I'm just interested to see what evidence he presents.
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I'm interested in seeing what he has to offer.

Ikari said:
Meh, lack of evidence doesn't stop the YECers from running their mouths, they even get a museum. Being "eaten alive" isn't enough to stop someone from saying stuff they really want to say.
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Which is completely irrelevant.
 
Here is an interesting site that shows how many aspects of the Jesus myth are not at all unique to christianity.;
10 Christ-like Figures Who Pre-Date Jesus - Listverse
Here is another site that accurately compares the christian myths of Mithra, a mythical savior whose story predated the Jesus myth by about 600 years.
Jesus and Mithra - FreeThoughtPedia
The list of copy-cat aspects of his story are remarkable and no christian can explain away why their myth is so similar to one 600 years before about a different person.
Many scholars of religions have suggested that the myth of Mithra and Jesus are about the same guy. The 600 year time shift presents a problem for that theory and any christian would have a hard time dismissing the vast numbers of, not just similarities, but exactly replicated story lines that occur over half a millennium apart..
BTW the exact site of the Vatican is where an ancient temple to Mithra once stood.
 
Buck Ewer said:
Here is an interesting site that shows how many aspects of the Jesus myth are not at all unique to christianity.;
10 Christ-like Figures Who Pre-Date Jesus - Listverse
Here is another site that accurately compares the christian myths of Mithra, a mythical savior whose story predated the Jesus myth by about 600 years.
Jesus and Mithra - FreeThoughtPedia
The list of copy-cat aspects of his story are remarkable and no christian can explain away why their myth is so similar to one 600 years before about a different person.
Many scholars of religions have suggested that the myth of Mithra and Jesus are about the same guy. The 600 year time shift presents a problem for that theory and any christian would have a hard time dismissing the vast numbers of, not just similarities, but exactly replicated story lines that occur over half a millennium apart..
BTW the exact site of the Vatican is where an ancient temple to Mithra once stood.
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Wait, is this recycled conspiratard trash from zeitgeist?
 
Questioning the historicity of Jesus goes way back, even to Roman times.

Curiously, it wouldn't affect my Christianity even if it were established that Jesus didn't exist historically (and this recent attempt seems a bit fey). He exists in the gospel narratives, which is good enough, since it's the message of the gospel that is transformative (Paul even says straight-out, that the gospel saves -- i.e., this little story about God and his son)

Another way to put it is, it isn't any harder or easier or more or less miraculous or believable that God could transform people by sending his son into history than it is to have a story about it do the same thing. Faith involves the premise that God would provide a way to free us from our ego and self-involvement, not in which particular way he might do that.

If God chose to redeem people with a little story, even a fictional one, I find that wonderful, not disappointing.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
As much as I want it to be true, I don't see October 19th, 2013 as being "the day in history christianity was finally definitively proven to be hogwash".

Besides, you can't disprove a religion with facts that doesn't base itself on facts. Christians believe because they have a desperate need to believe, and they will contort reality as far as they have to to serve that.
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It's not like you to overgeneralize in this way, so I'm more than a little surprised. Not all Christians have a "desperate need to believe." I do believe, and I believe with complete confidence, but this is not out of either desperation or need.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
I was starting to think I was the only one.
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meh, I usually have a pretty strong interest in this type of stuff, but this is like something being advertised on the history channel for me. I figure no matter what the content, it's just going to reduced to a conspiracy between Hitler and aliens.

But i look forward to being proven wrong.
 
The ads have the quality of The Nature Channel's recent "documentary" on the case for mermaids.
 
head of joaquin said:
The ads have the quality of The Nature Channel's recent "documentary" on the case for mermaids.
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Yeah, PRweb is heavily used to promote "new and radical scientific discoveries" that usually relate to MLM products. So my automatic assumption is that he's someone that is rightly on the fringes of academia that needs to promote his findings in less than traditional ways.

But like I said, I'll keep an open mind. The worst that can happen is my knee-jerk reaction is proven right
 
Jetboogieman said:
I wouldn't put a lot of stock I'm what this guy says...

Having said that, in many ways it's already obvious that much about the story of Jesus is invented.

No one in history ever walked on water, or actually turned water into wine etc.

But convenient we can't have any miracles like that now with YouTube so there'd be irrefutable proof that the son of god existed and he did all these amazing things.....

But therein lies the issue... Why did all these things only happen at a time and a place where theres no way to verify... And even if the guy in the OP is right, the believers can't be swayed, they already believe something that never happened (miracles I mentioned above).
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It's also pretty ridiculous to expect people who've been brought up expecting video evidence for everything to simply fall in line behind ancient stories that offer no proof other than "cause we said so."

The real travesty is the amount of bloodshed and discrimination brought on by zealotry over a fictional character. Doesn't speak too highly of humans.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
I think believing in lizard people is far more analogous to your beliefs than his.
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not really. I've actually met the God I worship.

My beliefs do not depend on some kind of grand, generation-spawning conspiracy involving thousands of individuals willing to work against their own self-interest in order to further a belief system that they know to be false out of some kind of morbid curiosity, and in which no one talks.

The plausibility of "Roman elites made it up" claim is about on-par with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, or those who claim that aliens are sending radio waves to their heads which can only be blocked by tinfoil caps.
 
nota bene said:
It's not like you to overgeneralize in this way, so I'm more than a little surprised. Not all Christians have a "desperate need to believe." I do believe, and I believe with complete confidence, but this is not out of either desperation or need.
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the impugning of mental or emotional deficiencies onto Christians by non believers is fairly typical - it's how you avoid dealing with our claims.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
He may believe it, sure. He may also have evidence for his claim and, thus, it is not a belief. How's this claim ridiculously implausible, cp? And, if you seem so certain of your scientific knowledge, why not attend attend the symposium and present your stuff along side his? Or could this be conjecture on your part and you're simply using your wishful thinking?
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It's not scientifically implausible - it's historically implausible. Roman elites did not act in this fashion (as another poster pointed out), and the most cursory reading of the history of the era would indicate that doing so would have been against their interests. Jerusalem was sacked before the last Gospel was even written down - obviating the need that he claims drove their authorship. That's like claiming that Nixon instituted price controls as President because that's what he felt he had to do so in order to win WWII. Not Plausible.

Furthermore, the authors of much of the New Testament are clearly Jewish, the conspiracy would have to have included not just a few writers, but entire cities and towns, all of them willing to turn against their own self interest and the interest of their people in order to.... what? Have a private joke? We have the collected writings of first generation, second generation, third generation early church - all of whom would have been witness to the fraud and yet managed to keep up a conspiracy of hundreds and then thousands of people spread thousands of miles apart in the face of persecution and death because... they thought it was funny? :roll: Again. Not Plausible.

The problem with claiming that the New Testament is made up is that it is so easily (to put it in scientific terms) falsifiable. "Jesus did this in the city of X and he did it in front of 5,000 people". That's a pretty falsifiable claim - just go to the city: "hey, did a guy named Jesus ever come through here and do such-and-such?" And yet the accounts of the era that we get countering the Christian Church's truth claims don't argue that Jesus didn't do those things, or didn't exist (because in an era with that many eyewitnesses it would have been implausible), but rather that He was able to do them because He was in league with evil spirits. :roll: There are 84 independently archaeologically confirmed details (ie, falsifiability tests that the NT passed) in the second half of the Book of Acts alone - and the reason is simple: because the author was writing down what he had seen.
 
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