Firsthand accounts of Christ seem to be missing -- why?

[Court]

http://www.godlessbastard.com/user/GB%2 ... 006-03.mht

[iplaw]

I've seen some of these before.  Here is a link to a guy who offers rebuttals to these copycat stories.

Christian Copycat Myths

[iplaw]

I love this story about the myth of Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln never existed

[Court]

Wow, that's long. I'll need to finish it later...

[iplaw]

It's damn long and full of details.  Every myth is dealt with though.  I haven't read many of them other than Mithra.

[Asmodean Prime]

Good grief,

I despair, I really do.

Hang on a minute.....no I don't

Woopeee!

[Big Mac]

Apparently you didn't realize that the Greeks and Romans created libraries and records. However when the Germanic tribes finally overran Rome and smashed everything, they also destroyed much of the documents that Romans had created. Hence we have the Dark Ages (which were perpetuated by Religion, by restricting the study of sciences and medicine and burning anyone who developed new ideas like Da Vinci and Copernicus). Now while many people did not know how to read, the ones who did tended to keep fairly accurate records. Otherwise we wouldnt' have things like the Illiad and the Odyssey.

Also on the Lincoln story, if it was the year they stated, by then they wouldn't be speaking the English we know today. Languages evolve quite often through the centuries. Look at American English, Aussie English, and English English. These creatures have many different usages of the same word. Of course I'm kind of  nit-picking here but also Lincoln was never attributed the same things as Jesus (walking on water, creating loaves of bread and fish out of only a few, healing the blind with his spit in dirt, etc.). So that story is rather moot.

[Tom62]

You've raised some very good points here iplaw. I also wondered  that no historical "evidence" existed about Pilate until the early 1960's, when they found a plate with his name on it. I believe that Pilate was a much important man for the Romans than Jezus in those days. Nethertheless no written records were found about Pilate either. This doesn't prove however that Jezus truly existed (or not).

[iplaw]

FIRST:
I don't know whether it was a simple typo or was on purpose but I am getting increasing irritated with the "Jezus" and "Burble" type comments.  They are fairly low-browed and disrespectful.  I don't go around saying
Ga(y)theist or athi(DUUH)st or "anti-god lover" or anything else of that caliber so let's step up the respect level for one another's beliefs.

SECOND:
Pilate's existence was also included in the writings of Tacitus and Josephus are considered good indicators of the physical existence of a person named Jesus especially since Tacitus didn't care for Christians.  Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 117) wrote two paragraphs on the subject of Christ and Christianity in 116. The first states that Christians existed in Rome in Nero's time. The second states that Christianity arose in Rome and Judea, and that "Christ" was sent to death by "the procurator Pontius Pilate". Tacitus' description of Christianity is decidedly negative, as he calls it a "dangerous superstition" and "something raw and shameful," which makes it improbable that the text was interpolated by later Christians.  Tacitus simply refers to "Christ" - the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Messiah", rather than the name "Jesus", and he refers to Pontius Pilate as a "procurator", a specific post that differs from the one that the Gospels imply that he held - prefect or governor. In this instance the Gospel account is supported by archaeology, since a surviving inscription states that Pilate was prefect.  It is also possible that Pilate held both offices, which was common.

Seems funny to me that this person who some say never existed seems to inconveniently persist so well through the last 2000 years of human history.

[Whitney]

Personally, I think Jesus was probably a real person...I'm just skeptical of the miraculous events etc. contributed to him.

[iplaw]

I think most honest people who are not grasping at straws are probably in your camp.  There are probably other more convincing proofs to debating the deity of a human than are in debating their physical existence anyways.

[Big Mac]

Oh I think Jesus existed, but I doubt he could do anything that was attributed to him. Jesus is more of Cult of Personality. People freak out over him like they would if they were Moonies and his was Reverend Moon or Scientologist and he was Hubbard, or if they were in North Korea and he was Kim Jung Il.

[iplaw]

Or if they were the UN and he was Hans Brix.

[Big Mac]

Exactly!

[iplaw]

I don't remember Jesus busting anyones balls though like Mr. Brix.