Is there any real physical proof that Jesus christ ever existed?
Submitted 1 week ago by BlowMe@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
dudinax@programming.dev 1 week ago
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
This conclusion, while weakly supported by a statistical analysis of the names involved, is rejected by most archaeologists, theologians, linguistic and biblical scholars.
There’s a bunch of references for archaeologists debunking it.
I know you said “it might not be him” but I feel like that understates the weight of evidence against that possibility.
dudinax@programming.dev 6 days ago
The respectable probability estimates range from astronomically unlikely to merely unlikely. In other words, we don’t have incontrovertible ways of calculating the probability.
While it’s not great or convincing evidence, it’s the only physical evidence I know about.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
After reading that page, I strongly suspect that’s not him. It’s all based on statistical modeling, and it’s been heavily massaged. Even with that, they give it 1/600 odds (on the low end) of it being random chance, which those aren’t bad odds.
Apparently the inscriptions are partially illegible, so assuming it’s even correct their statistical model is based on the name Mariamne being Mary Magdelene (which is clearly not the name we remember her by) and being Jesus’s wife, Maria being the mother, and Jesus having a son, which we didn’t know about, named Judah, as well as a few other assumption that really do not feel like they should be making.
Even making a ton of assumptions, the odds are still not particularly convincing. It feels like something that can increase someone’s faith if they don’t question it, but if you examine it at all reveals how much people are reaching to prove what they already want to believe.
dudinax@programming.dev 6 days ago
I’d have guess people who thought the tomb was for the Jesus would have their faith shaken by it since it would mean Jesus was married and had a kid, though there are some obscure Christian sects that have believed that.
StoneGender@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
No, Jesus never existed. He is a fictional character.
librejoe@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Yes there is. Amen brothers and sisters.
skeezix@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Fa chrise sakes
butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Wait do other people really not get that this is sarcasm?
Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 6 days ago
There is a global plague of conservatism happening right now, so statements like these cannot be presumed to be sarcastic.
Cornpop@lemmy.world 6 days ago
lol and that proof is?
librejoe@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Jesus failed the final boss, and when it was game over, he used his game shark for infinite life and noclipped to end game screen.
bear@lemmynsfw.com 1 week ago
Some people say yes, some say no. Christians, agnostics, and atheists on all sides. I hope that answers your question.
blackris@discuss.tchncs.de 6 days ago
That doesn’t work. Either there is physical proof or there is none. Afaik the latter is correct.
Baahb@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Ehhhhhh, you probably aren’t trying to be technical, but it’s worth noting that circumstancial evidence is definitely a thing; is evidence that suggests but doesn’t definitively state. As mentioned in this tread, Nero calls out pilate for executing Jesus. There’s also the often overlooked circumstancial evidence that there’s a whole ass religion to the guy, which sure there are other religions etc etc, but most of them don’t have a semi Devine being that you can point to specific dates and times…
I will continue on, I’m an atheist, so I’m not arguing for Christianity, so here’s obligatory circumstancial evidence against historical J.
Wasn’t a census when he was supposed to be born. No written accounts of Herod executing every baby boy in Judea. Etc etc lmgtfy if you need it
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 days ago
To be fair, if someone said Jesus never existed, they clearly wouldn’t be Christian 🤣
Baahb@lemmy.world 5 days ago
It really isn’t so clearcut. You don’t need an actual Jesus for the words attributed to him to be true. “Jesus” works perfectly fine as a container for an idea.
Electric_Druid@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Yeah, I’ve got one of his toes in my car
Decoy321@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon… with nail polish.
AmidFuror@fedia.io 1 week ago
They've never been able to find Jesus's bones, which is itself strong evidence for the Biblical story that he was resurrected.
HostilePasta@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Strong Poe’s Law energy with this comment.
AmidFuror@fedia.io 1 week ago
Agreed.
rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I don’t know that the History Channel is a good representation of academic consensus. It should basically never be relied upon.
person420@lemmynsfw.com 1 week ago
The tl;dr of that article isn’t even “no”. It provides both sides of the accounts and references academics that argue both ways.
I read it to make the same argument you did, but ended up considering it a surprisingly well written article.
rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Agree. But that specific article seems pretty alright. Also talks about the relics and history records for example by Flavius.
There also is a Wikipedia article which I think is not written that well. And a lot of education material by churches or religious organizations which I did not cite for obvious reasons.
Blackout@kbin.run 1 week ago
Yes there is, here is his mugshot shortly after he was booked. Looks like he spent the evening turning water into wine.
Attachment: kbin.run ↗frog_brawler@lemmy.world 1 week ago
He was created by Roman elites in order to divide the Jews and get them to pay taxes.
AscendantSquid@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Don’t they have his foreskin saved as a religious artefact? Like in some church somewhere because it performs miracles?
pjwestin@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Relics are almost always fake, and there are usually multiples of them at any given time. A lot of people have had Jesus’ foreskin throughout the years, and I think there are 5 or 6 heads of John the Baptist floating around right now.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 week ago
and I think there are 5 or 6 heads of John the Baptist floating around right now
This man is hallucinating, so take whatever else he’s saying with a grain of salt.
JimSamtanko@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Nope.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Nope
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 days ago
No.
There’s lots of ambiguous information. There is no firsthand, historically agreed upon data that supports his existence in the form we know him today. In other words, there was no magical guy doing magical things.
There is no Roman record of “nailed 3 prisoners to the posts today; Bill, Roger, and Jesus the magic guy who was a pain in the ass.”
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story. Arthur was possibly just a chieftain of a group who fought a couple of hefty battles and made a name for himself, but he ended up being an almost magical figure with wizards and witches in the story and - guess what, he will “rise again” from the dead when needed. And no, rising from the dead isn’t owned by Christian religious figures, Osiris of Egypt did it, Dionysius of the Greek Pantheon among many others. So maybe some dude, who probably wasn’t named Jesus, caused a stir and got a few people to take note. That grew over hundreds and even thousands of years to what we have now.
Want to know why King Arthur isn’t a competitor to Jesus? He a) doesn’t offer the opportunity to control people in this life for the hope of an afterlife, b) he isn’t profitable.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 days ago
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century though, with the Gospels and Paul’s letters, as well as Church Father’s writings being very consistent. Main differences has been the Roman Catholic Church developing their own doctrine such as Purgatory over time, while the Orthodox and the Protestants tend to reject such developments.
resonate6279@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Lee Strobel (former athirst, investigative journalist) wrote a book titled The Case For Christ.
His goal was to write the difinive work on proving that Jesus wasn’t who the Christians claim him to be. It backfired on him and he became a Christian.
If you’re wanting to read more on this topic, definitely read both sides and determine which has the stronger case. But the Strobel book seems to be well researched and well written, at least to me.
weststadtgesicht@discuss.tchncs.de 6 days ago
That’s not really how he himself describes it. His wife became a Christian and after going to church with her he wanted to investigate the backgrounds - he didn’t want to disprove Christianity and was quite open-minded instead:
She invited me to a church, where I heard the Gospel explained in a way I could understand it. While I didn’t believe it, I realized that if it were true, it would have big implications for my life. So I decided to use my journalism experience and legal expertise (at the time, I was legal editor of The Chicago Tribune) to investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity or any other faith system.
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
Where did you find that his goal was to prove Jesus wasn’t who Christians claim to be? From what I’ve read about Lee Strobel, he was sort of an atheist by default and converted when his wife did. He became a pastor and only wrote the Case for Christ more than a decade later
resonate6279@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I have updated my comment to direct to a comment from @weststadtgesicht that is more accurate.
sturlabragason@lemmy.world 1 week ago
HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 1 week ago
how do you have sources for no? I mean I guess you can link to wikipedia and point out all the evidence is just some third party writings or such I guess.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 days ago
There is The Great Isaiah Scroll from before Jesus which contains prophecies about Jesus
leaveWitX@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Before Jesus, many people were sanctified in the flesh in this way.Later, Jesus imitated the practices of his predecessors and added hype, and he became a legend after his death.
over_clox@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It is said that the foreskin of Jesus still exists…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Prepuce
For all I know it could be just an ancient dried up piece of bacon 🤷♂️
Eczpurt@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’m not sure what you’d expect to see regarding physical proof but I’d say probably not much. Maybe there’s something in an ancient bible?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The only evidence of Jesus, is a few random mentions of someone named Jesus.
And it wasn’t exactly a rare name.
Like, if I found written evidence of a dude named Paul, that doesn’t mean Paul Bunyan was real.
It just means some dude named Paul was real.
All the crazy claims about being a Messiah wasnt until long after he was dead.
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
This isn’t really right. The primary texts corroborate more facts than the name: that he was put to death by the Romans for inciting disloyalty.