Religions

[DarkQuee1]

There is historical proof, outside of the Bible, of Jesus's existance.





Cornelius Tacitus - (born A.D. 52-54) a Roman Historian. Writing on the reign of Nero, Tacitus alludes to the death of Christ and the existence of Christians in Rome.

"But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the princes could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also." (Annals XV.44)

Lucian of Samosata - a satirist of the second century. Spoke scornfully of Christ and Christians. He alluded to Christ as "... the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world ... Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws." (The Passing Peregrinus)

Flavius Josephus - (born A.D. 37) - A Jewish Historian wrote:

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day. (Antiquities. xviii.33) (early second century)

Suetonius (A.D. 120) A Roman historian wrote:

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (another spelling of Christus), he expelled them from Rome."

There are others.


SueS

All of the people you cite were born later. Clearly, by that time, there were already Christians who were telling and re-telling the core of their faith. And Josephus was a convert.

An example of a misreference is your Seutonius quote. Seutonius was referring to something that happened when *Claudius* was Emperor. He didn't become Emperor until 41 AD. Clearly, whatever incident Seutonius is referring to, and whatever "Chrestus" (and this individual is not identified by Seutonius) was involved, it was *not* Jesus, as this occurred too late.

Besides, the issue is not whether or not a Yeshua existed, who might have been a rebel or a teacher or a philosopher, but whether or not he was God, isn't it? Outside of the Bible or texts written by Christians, there is no historical record of anything miraculous in regard to Jesus. That, I think, was the point that some of the posters were raising earlier.

J.

[SueS]

The concept of "grace"--that you got into Heaven only by God's grace, not by good works--was started by Martin Luther, because he was afraid that he would not lead a life good enough to get him into Heaven. So, instead of working at living a better life, he came up with an idea that would excuse him.

"By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (from Paul's letter to the Ephesians written A.D. 61).

Just pointing out that Martin Luther was not the first person to claim that salvation is by faith and not by works.


SueS

[puddlejumper747]

"By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (from Paul's letter to the Ephesians written A.D. 61).
Just pointing out that Martin Luther was not the first person to claim that salvation is by faith and not by works.

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called "the friend of God." See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route? For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:14-26)

Just pointing out that Martin Luther was also the one person who originally wanted to get rid of this particular book of the Bible....now take a wild guess why.

[Daniel's_twin]

I didn't say God created Hell. I said that Christianity did. Someone earlier had posted that Judaism had a concept of Hell and I was responding to that, pointing out that Judaism did not have a hell of eternal punishment, with levels and all. That idea of Hell came along with Christianity. And I pointed out the irony of that.

PS If you do believe the Garden of Eden story, then you do know it was all Adam's fault that we were thrown out?

Actually, God did create Hell. but its original purpose was not that for the wicked men, it was originally meant only for the Devil and his Demons. But after man ate the fruit (to which I say that it was Adam and Eve's fault as they disobeyed God's single law of the garden), Men would die, and their souls could no longer stay pure white. God is forgiving, but unfortunately He can't allow anything that isn't perfect in Heaven in His presence. So the wicked of heart had to be sent to Hell. God set up a covenant with Abraham a milennea or so afterwards with Abraham, for his descendents to be God's chosen people, out of whom would come Jesus. And Jesus would complete God's plan, by not only saving the Jews, but also by cleansing the hearts of Gentiles who would accept him as the Son of God and promise to follow Him. He doesn't expect the impossible. He knows that we will mess up because of Man's sinful nature which he inherited from Adam in the Garden of Eden. But now we can pray for forgiveness, and Jesus will wipe the sin from our "record" in God's Book of Life.

[puddlejumper747]

Actually, God did create Hell. but its original purpose was not that for the wicked men, it was originally meant only for the Devil and his Demons.

Right....but just make sure you understand that Hell is not really a place so much as it is a state of existence. Satan and his followers are the ones who chose to rebell against God, because their pride wouldn't allow them to humble themselves before any other being....even God. And because God cannot force them to love Him, He was forced to give them exactly what they had asked for....and permenantly moved into a (at this point: new) state of existence cut off from Him (Who is reality and existence), called "Hell". But no matter how horrible such a place like that might be, they are all still (more or less) quite content with their decision....because they truly believe they would have been unhappier if they had chosen to follow God....because they're blinded by their pride. God didn't want them to have to go there, but they had made that final choice to rebell against Him and never repent, so He had to put them somewhere. And He can't just erase them from existence, because He still loves them no matter what they have chosen....and to remove them from existence would only imply that He had somehow made a mistake by creating them in the first place....which is something we know that God cannot have done. He intentionally created them and brought them into existence because He loves them, and He will always keep them in existence for that exact same reason....no matter what. (Sucks to be one of them, huh? )

[Daniel's_twin]

Oh, yeah. It would stink. Glad I'm not goin'. And whether or not Hell is really a spiritual 'house' completely opposite to Heaven or whether it's just a state of existence, I think is kinda not an issue. The purpose of Hell, and the real suffering of the place (or existence) is mostly just because you are completely separated from God. If a soul is sent there, he/she has no more chance of receiving God's Grace.

[Beatrice Otter]

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called "the friend of God." See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route? For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:14-26)

Just pointing out that Martin Luther was also the one person who originally wanted to get rid of this particular book of the Bible....now take a wild guess why.

Yeah, Luther did want to get rid of that book. But (as a Lutheran myself) I don't think James is anywhere near as much into works righteousness as a whole as Luther thought it was. Yes, it's got passages like the one quoted above, and he certainly places more emphasis on the necessity of doing good deeds than Paul did; however, he never says that those good deads were the way into heaven, either. But Luther was in the midst of a nasty take-no-prisoners theological war with just about everybody, and even on a good day he wasn't one to make compromises.

[puddlejumper747]

Alright. Fine. It appears, after futher investigation, that Talmund was a very bad source for me to be arguing with. And I probably should have looked into that one just a little bit more before saying anything. But I would still like to say that I did find this website for you guys to look into. The two most reliable sources we have on this subject of Jesus of Nazareth's historical existence, outside of the Bible's history itself (which, by the way, does not contradict any of our known history about the time), are Tacitus and Josephus. Additionally, I think that the Shroud of Turin (whether you believe Jesus was Divine or not) is almost undoubtably direct evidence of His existence. I provided a link to that information before and, I'm sorry, but I really don't think that you can just start accusing me of using biased sources in this case, because almost everything they say in those articles is complete documented fact about scientific research into the Shroud. Now, any one of these sources alone may not be enough to be considered irrefutable proof for us that Jesus of Nazareth existed....but with their combined amount of evidence (including several other things I haven't mentioned here), I truly believe only some of the most stubborn people in the world could really think that there was just a huge, undocumented, massive conspiracy to create a new religion....and at that, one which also wasn't very well-accepted at it's time. Not to mention the fact that there are also countless hundreds of other historical figures that are in this exact same situation....we have absolutely no evidence that some of them ever existed either. But we still believe that they existed anyway, because we understand how their stories have simply been passed down from generation to generation for so long. The historical Jesus of Nazareth most certainly existed, and for those of us who believe in His Faith.....He still does.

[aschen]

Hmmm....the Shroud of Turin comes to mind....and just maybe His Church....
And the fact that hundreds people would have never died for a purely imaginary person they just made up!!!

The shroud of turin is highly controversial, and if you kept up with your history, you'd know that it's fake.

The same applies to Caesar.

[Daniel's_twin]

OK, fine. For arguments sake, let's say that Christ really was only a myth. that there is no God, and that the entire universe relies solely on the laws of science to survive and not blow up. But I've seen that even if (and that is a humungous "if") there is no God or Jesus, we'd be even better off just pretending then living out what the world believes. I live iin a neighborhood that I think epitimises what the world would be like without God. My next door neighbors are the worst. The mother drinks heavily, one of the sons is living in his car with his girlfriend in front of the house because the mother doesn't like the girlfriend. The daughter wears these skimpy bikinis meanwhile she looks like she could qualify for the Goodyear Blimp. And if you don't agree with what they do or say, or worship the ground the daughter walks on, they'll do everything they can to make your life as bad as possible. Which the daughter could definitely do since she runs practically all the kids in the nieghborhood except for me and my sister. There have been vandalisms caused by her and her hoarde of cohorts, music thumps from that house and you can literally feel the beats half a block away, and the list goes on. I don't know about you, but C.S. Lewis' book from the Chronicles of Narnia come to mind. This is from the Silver Chair, said by Puddleglum, a character who was very pessimistic at best and always looked reality straight in the face. "Suppose we only have dreamed, or made up, all those things-Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important then the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But - babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow." You can go on and say that a fantasy fiction story is hardly a good source. But I think it's a wonderful source for what I'm saying now.

[CoffeeGirl]

My next door neighbors are the worst.

"Thank you Lord, that I'm not like that sinner over there..."

Sound familiar?

[Daniel's_twin]

I am being truthful. They have made our living in this neighborhood nearly unbearable, but God seems to want us to stay here. The torture has toned down lately, but they still manage to do things that make us wanna pack up and go. I pray for them just as fervently as I do for my family (Aunts, Uncles and grandparents), but sometimes it does get tiring. I have even witnessed to them and some of the girl's friends, and they nearly sued us.

[Ugly Pig]

The shroud of turin is highly controversial, and if you kept up with your history, you'd know that it's fake.

The same applies to Caesar.

Caesar was fake?

[Matt G]

DT: Unliucky about the hellish neighbours.

I see where you're coming from re: religion but though I considered becoming a Christian over ten years ago now, having seen a bit more of the world since then, my take on religion is this:

The Christians say one thing about God, the Muslims say another thing and the Jews say a third. How is a guy like supposed to know which one is right(or if any of them are right)? I don't want to make significant changes to my lifestyle and then find that I've made the wrong choice.

Furthermore, people have used religion as an excuse to do a variety of stupid/sick things? Religious people tend to be more sure of themselves, yeah, but does that make them better people? Not neccersarily.

[aschen]

Caesar was fake?

lol. I think not! There's a salad named after the guy.