Often in here I’ve noticed the discussions are more about YEC concerns or either something related to EC / TE being shared. Or it’s often about why science does not equal erasing faith or why belief in Yahweh is not counter to accepting science and so on.
But I’m curious what makes you believe that Jesus was who he said he was and that he was not simply a great deceiver misquoting the Tanakh and leading the nation of Israel astray? Especially since many of us here don’t accept inerrancy and accept that things like Paul’s worldview shaped what he was writing and ect….
For me it’s the same as my belief in Yahweh. Relatively no evidence, especially of the supernatural claims Jesus made but for whatever reason I have decided to place and maintain faith in him. I think there is barely evidence he even existed, let alone any evidence of him preforming miracles or being the son of Yahweh. It’s all based around trust the gospels got it right enough.
The Historical Jesus.
The Historicity of Jesus is well established by scholars. Jesus was mentioned by a Jewish person around 80ad and was also mentioned by a Roman government official around 80ad too I think but I don’t remember the years exactly.
Doubting the Historicity of Jesus would make you part of a “fringe group”, according to Wikipedia which has a left-leaning bias.
If you doubt the historicity of Jesus then people like Alexander The Great Never existed.
There’s plenty of material and documentaries online for the historicity of Jesus.
With that being said, I than take a leap of faith to
Biblical Jesus.
First the odds of Jesus fulfilling all the old OT prophecies are extremely high.
Take a look here : The Mathematical Probability that Jesus is the Christ | Empower International
Secondly we have eyewitness accounts for all his supernatural miracles including his greatest feat which is defeating Death itself.
If you do not trust eyewitness accounts then much of your reality should be in question.
If you do not trust eyewitness accounts then why should I believe you when you say : “I’m in pain”? And we’re not even at the doctor phase yet, we’re simply at the acknowledgment phase. Why should I acknowledge your testimony that you’re in pain?
What I stated is that there is no strong historical evidence he existed. ( I’ve read books like the evidence demands a verdict and existence for Christianity too m.
There is essentially no evidence thought of “ biblical Jesus “ preforming miracles. It’s also no hard to create a story where someone meets the requirements laid out in a earlier story.
Regarding Biblical Jesus.
In relation to someone fulfilling prophecies, this means that he was deceiving others by fulfilling his birth prophecies too? Like, he was talking to his parents so they could conceive him in the exact circumstances as prophesied?
Also, the evidence of miracles is in eyewitness accounts. Do you doubt those?
This will be the last time I answer the doubt question. None of this is about me doubting anything. It’s a question of curiosity for what makes others believe. For a fact this question is not even focused on me. It’s on what others believe. It’s a question based solely on curiosity with zero connections to any crisis on my part.
When it comes to the historical evidence for a guy we call Jesus in the first century it’s not a lot. There are a handful of references way after the fact mostly about his followers. It’s not evidence for things like Abraham Lincoln.
Now when it comes to the miracles or anything supernatural I have no reason to believe any of it. I choose to believe it in the same way any religious person chooses to believe the supernatural events in their faiths stories from across the world. That’s why it’s faith and not evidence.
What I said is that the gospels don’t really count for evidence. They only count if you already accept it as such. Just like reading stories and accounts of levitating Buddhist monks who talk to trees and make flowers suddenly bloom and can run across water and so on. I don’t believe any of those claims becsuse there is no evidence for them and I choose to reject them. With the claims of Christ’s miracles despite there being no evidence I choose to believe in them.
So take the story of Cana. Let’s say it’s a fulfillment of Amos 9. I’m saying by all logical accounts the miracle could have never happened. He could have not even been in Cana or at a wedding. The wedding may not even have happened. Someone could just write it happened.
Now I choose to believe a real miracle happened just like I choose to believe in the resurrection and choose to believe in a super strong Sampson and choose to believe Moses turned anstaff into a serpent like creature and so on. Buts it’s all faith, not evidence.
I think this is a really good question. My initial response is that it is due to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Of course, that leads to the question of why does the Spirit lead some to believe and some not to. I don’t have an answer for that.
I think it is natural to have some doubts. That is why there are so many apologetic books around. They are not to convince unbelievers, but to reassure believers.
So, belief is a feeling that there is more than this physical reality. Perhaps that is an evolved response, Perhaps is is learned from our environment. In any case, even if wrong, there are worse ways to live your life.
jpm thinks this is a good question but for me it is a strange question. It seems a bit like the following scenario… A homeless man calls out to you holding out a twenty dollar bill and says you dropped this. Will you call out for a policeman to arrest the man for stealing?
Our suspicion is raised when someone is selling something, asking ourselves whether what they are offering is real or worth what is asked for it. But it is difficult to be suspicious when they are the one paying the price and you are the one getting all the benefit.
And pretty much the same goes for the Bible itself. Who profited by this? We have to look pretty far down the line to find someone to be suspicious of… like when the church became a powerful force in human affairs… then suspicion make sense… and I have plenty of suspicion when it comes to that! Then I have my rule of thumb to go by… if something serves a purpose too well then I think it likely that is the cause and origin of it. So I sort through the claims and discard those which seem all too likely to be the invention for the purpose of power and manipulation.
I believe because the Universe didn’t come from nothing, and I believe because the universe is fine tuned and we are not random molecular accidents and everything has a purpose.
This belief is strengthened by the existence of Jesus Christ as a person who came down here to live with us and told us the reasons why we are created, how to live our lives and also told us what’s to come in the future.
It’s hard to explain his life and teachings unless he was just what he claimed to be. Claiming to be divine while going meekly to a horrific death? And his resurrection was totally unexpected.
That’s understandable. We have different standard for the historicity of non-royal people living in ancient times. Besides, while Lincoln was not royalty, he was a ruler of note.
In Lincoln’s time there were newspapers, census records, and the like. More common people were literate and could write letters, read newspapers, record names in family Bibles, etc. Even enslaved people were included in census records. The enslaved were also listed by name as property in plantation records, and the births of their children were also recorded. And so on and so forth.
Another reason to consider the Gospels as largely factual is that they have stories that were unlikely to be invented by the early church.
Some examples:
Showing the baptism of Jesus (kind of an embarrassment since he’s supposed to be sinless)
Portraying a woman as the first witness to the resurrection (Women were regarded as unreliable witnesses back then). Even today reactionary churches don’t allow women to preach.
Portraying the apostles as petty or weak in faith. (The church came to revere them)
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
11
It’s easy to write the novel, with all possible - nothing but - good will. In which Jesus is a deceiver. Or at least deceived. For all the right - for the very best of - reasons.
The funny thing is, counter to that narrative, is the Church at the time of Paul. That means that a conspiracy by a decades later priestly elite in Rome, is irrelevant. The Church was up and thriving, all over the NE Roman empire, within a decade of the death of its founder.
That a conspiracy by Mary and Jesus and/or His disciples could achieve that is sociologically… incredible.