Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Did Jesus exist?

A guest post from a sympathiser of the Socialist Party .

There is no physical or contemporary historical evidence of any kind that anyone named Jesus or anyone that could have been Jesus, ever lived. There is no description of what Jesus might have looked like from anyone who would have been alive to see him at the time Jesus was supposed to have lived. Similarly, there is not one word he might ever have spoken that was written down by anyone who could have been there.

There is no mention of Jesus, or anyone like him, in the records of Jerusalem or of the personal or official records of Pontius Pilate (or any other Roman official). Similarly, there is no record of a crucifixion that could have been that of Jesus. The supposed darkness that fell upon the Earth at the time he died was not mentioned by anyone anywhere on the planet, including Jerusalem itself.

There is no record of a city, town, or village called Nazareth, even in the detailed list of cities and towns in Galilee compiled by the historian Flavius Josephus in the first century C.E.; nor is such as place ever mentioned in the Old Testament.

No one knows who actually wrote any of Gospels and, whoever they were; even they never claim to have met the earthly Jesus. Moreover, the original manuscripts do not even exist. The earliest is probably Mark (70 C.E.), although no one knows who wrote it, where they wrote it, or exactly when they wrote it. Paul's biblical letters are the oldest surviving Christian texts (60 C.E.), and even hê never claims to have met or seen an earthly Jesus. Neither does hê give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Lukê; and it was written in Greek around A.D. 90-100.

How could it be that someone supposedly as widely known as Christians claim Jesus was never be mentioned, at all, by a single person who knew or met him?

The Gospels claim that Jesus was well known and widely recognized not only by his many followers but also that the Priests, Pontius Pilate, and Herod, knew "of the fame of Jesus" (Matt 14:1)", and that multitudes of people knew of Jesus the prophet, teacher, healer, and miracle worker (Matt: 14:5). Matt (4:25) states that "there followed him [Jesus] great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan." Luke (12:1) speaks of, "innumerable multitude of people... trod one upon another" and (Lukê: 5:15) "fame abroad of him... and great multitudes came together to hear..."

The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem supposedly was such a big deal that Pontius Pilate and the High Priest Joseph Caiaphas not only knew about it, but were part of it (Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Lukê 19:47, 23:13).

If this is all true, then why is Jesus never mentioned by any of these people? And, why are there no records of Jesus, or anyone, having great multitudes of followers or going around performing miracles at the time Jesus was supposed to have lived?

If Jesus did live, no one at the time seems to have thought that his life was worth mentioning, and if he was crucified in Jerusalem, no one seems to have noticed or cared.

GODFREE


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