Who would doubt the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth? We count the years before and after Christ. " However, it would be prudent to ask: What evidence is there of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth?
If we look carefully, we mean that have absolutely no reliable evidence, sources secular (not religious), that Jesus lived , at least as described in the Bible.
system before and after Christ "was not invented until the sixth century and is not generally accepted in Europe until the eleventh century. Our system of counting years in a. C and d. C we owe to the monk Dionysius Exigius (or Dionysius the meager), who by order of Pope John I developed a chronology setting the birth of Jesus in the year 753 AUC (Condit city ad) or 753 years since the founding of Rome. Year 1 of the Christian era was set by Denis at 1 January 754 AUC In more recent times historians prefer to use the abbreviations BCE (Before Common Era) and DEC (after common era), in respect the world's cultural diversity. Dionisio developed its system of counting years, taking as a valid historical narratives of the Gospels, which will discuss later. Dionisio firmly believed that Jesus was born on December 25, ignoring the origin of this custom. In fact the Catholic Church began to celebrate Christmas since the fourth century. The Catholic Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume V explains:
"The reason that led the Roman Church to establish the holiday on that day, seems to be his tendency to supplant the pagan festivals and other Christians. Thus originated many of today's liturgical celebrations. Now we know then pagans consecrated in Rome on 25 December in Invicti Natalis celebrate the birth of the Invincible Sun, which after the solstice, became great in strength and clarity. Symbol of the Sun was Mitra, oriental deity, whose worship had been introduced in Rome in 274. Thus, for occurrence of the pagan festival dedicated to natural birth of the Sun (Mitra), the Church began celebrating the Sol novus ... "
Many researchers have concluded that the Jesus we know from the New Testament resulted from a mythological creation of the first century. The researchers have applied the principle of negative evidence to reach such conclusions.
Negative Evidence Principle says that we have no reason to prove a proposition it the following three principles are met:
- If any proof or evidence to substantiate a proposition are untrustworthy.
- There is no evidence proving the proposition, when it should be present if the proposition were true.
- If you have made a thorough search and comprehensive after corroborative evidence in the right place.
The first item on the principle of negative evidence, we asked "that the evidence supporting a proposition to be unsafe." This is just what the only true secular evidence about the life of Jesus: the two brief passages from the works of a century historian named Flavius \u200b\u200bJosephus. Josephus was a prolific writer, however, only wrote two paragraphs about Jesus. One is known to be an interpolation, and the other is highly suspect. Other references to Jesus in secular writings are too ambiguous, or are later interpolations.
This is rather curious, because the Bible says Jesus was a mass phenomenon and that had implications for social events of the Middle East. It is as if in the distant future, found only two brief passages about the existence of such a Nelson Mandela in South African history books and newspapers of the twentieth century.
Christians tell us that they "follow Jesus", but it's different being a follower of someone who can see and hear first hand, to follow some religious people preach (and interpret) some texts written by some dudes, have heard about a certain Jesus of Nazareth.
In the first century had the habit of writing something and attribute it to another person (a philosophical mentor), such activity is known as "Pseudoepigrafía." This made it difficult for scholars to verify who actually wrote the books of the New Testament.
Apologists pseudoepigrafía Christians say that the technique was common in schools of the time, and that in this period were not considered morally wrong. However, the author Karlheinz Deschner, in his "criminal history of Christianity, Volume 4 (forgery and deception), demonstrates conclusively that even in antiquity, the practice was recognized as dishonest and fraudulent.
researchers to apply certain techniques to determine who is speaking, what is your message, when and why, have concluded that the oldest writings of early Christians are the letters of St. Paul. These probably date the beginning of the fifth first decade of the century - well after the events of Jesus' life. Besides this, not all the letters found in the Bible and works of Paul are really his, but as mentioned above, some were written by others, who were attributed to Paul.
Pauline letters were written before the Gospels, and none of these is before at least the seventh decade.
examining the genuine Pauline letters in isolation, it is clear that Paul had no idea of \u200b\u200bthe virgin birth of Christ, and never claimed to have lived at the time of Jesus, or any of his mentors was a contemporary Jesus, or Jesus had done any miracles. Paul also linked the death of Jesus with the trial before Pilate. Paul never confirmed the existence of Jesus in the first half of the first century. In reviewing other Christian writings earlier than the four Gospels, now considered apocryphal (not belonging to the Bible), it is clear that these omitted same things that Paul omitted, which leads us to believe that the biographical facts related to Jesus were invented later.
The development of the Gospels covers the period from year 70 to 120 DEC DEC approx.
The first gospel written, of the four present in the Bible, was that of Marcos. The author believed in superstitions, demons, possession by them, and miracles. All this affected the writing of his gospel. The author of Mark does not declare that I have known Jesus. He probably wrote his Gospel in Syria to the Roman Christians, who passed through the persecution of Nero. This is how Mark probably wrote his gospel to strengthen the persecuted.
The Gospel of Mark, no mention of Joseph in the story of the birth of Jesus. The author refers to Jesus as "son of Mary," a description reserved for illegitimate children. In Mark there are no details about the birth of Jesus, does not mention anything about a virgin birth, the visit of the Magi or commenting on the birth angels with the shepherds. The reason for this is that these myths have not yet been included in Christian doctrine.
The second was Matthew's gospel. The author of Matthew was determined to show the Jews that Jesus was the promised Messiah. When the author of Matthew wrote his Gospel, was available to the Greek translation of the Old Testament called "The Septuagint" or "of the seventies." In the Septuagint text was mistranslated Isaiah says that in response to a signal, a young woman would conceive a child who would called Emmanuel. The word used in Hebrew does not mean "virgin", because in this case the correct word should be "betulah", this word was translated into Greek as "parthenos" which means virgin. This was a major change of meaning and the author of Matthew concluded by saying that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus.
The author of Matthew used as the main source of Mark's Gospel, so joined the myths of this gospel, added his own, and the story was altered again. To prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the author of Matthew omits details in the genealogy of Jesus in order to show joint seven generations from Abraham to David, David to the exile, and exile to Jesus. The genealogies of Matthew contradict other genealogies of the Old Testament.
There are also contradictions between the Gospels. In Matthew Jesus is mentioned as a descendant of King David by his son Solomon, while Luke says that Jesus comes from King David, but by his son Nathan. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' paternal grandfather (the father of Joseph) is Jacob, but Luke's paternal grandfather Jesus is Eli.
The Gospel of Matthew was an effort to convert Jews, while the Gospel of Luke was to convert gentiles (non Jews). The author of Luke also had a copy of Mark, several passages quoted from it and added what suited him.
The author of Luke wrote for a Roman audience full of potential conversions, so that Rome was embodied in the best way possible. For example, in the Gospel of Mark Roman soldiers whip Jesus, but in the Gospel of Luke are Herod's soldiers. The kingdom of Jesus is not of this world ", obviously an effort to allay the suspicions Roman Christian conspiracy against the state. In ascending the throne Roman Domitian in 81 DEC, persecution had restarted, so the author of Luke sees the need to allay Roman Christianity as showing harmless. In this paper dedicated to "His Excellency Theophilus."
The last of the 4 Gospels is John. This gospel was written in the early second century, and in this, Jesus is in total opposition to the Jews.
As we see, each Gospel was written by collecting information from second or third hand, after joining a lot of mythology, and missionary purposes accurate. For this reason, none of the 4 gospels are reliable as to the historicity of Jesus.
The second requirement of the Principle of Negative Evidence is that "there is no evidence where it should be safe," and this is the case, since there is no record the life of Jesus in Roman documents of the period, which is surprising, since Jesus caused commotion, according to the Bible.
The historian Josephus was so meticulous he wrote a story about three pages to cover the trial and execution of a common thief. Josephus wrote extensively about John the Baptist, more about Jesus, are only two minor references highly questioned by investigators. Unfortunately, the writings of Josephus came to us only through Christian sources, none before the fourth century, and it is known that the writings of Josephus were reviewed.
The two references of Josephus about Jesus are questionable primarily because it is unlikely that Josephus being a Jew named Jesus Christ, especially when he could not believe other would-be messiah. Besides this, the commentators Josephus wrote about before Eusebius (fourth century DEC) did not quote that passage.
The story on the census ordered by Herod in the hometown of each inhabitant, and that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, not supported by the Roman documents. With this story, the author of the Gospel of Matthew sought to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, as the Jewish prophecies say that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. So the story of a census in which each person had to travel to his hometown is an invention of the author of Matthew. Importantly, no governor did people travel to their home towns to be surveyed. That's absurd, impractical and not serve the real purpose is a census: Learn how people live in a target area to collect taxes. This legend has no historical evidence.
The death of innocent children by Herod ordered to kill the infant Jesus, is also absent from Roman records. Is it possible that after such a slaughter no historian has said anything about it? Something similar happens with the arrest and trial of Jesus. All this is very strange, because the Romans were very meticulous about writing history. Palestine In this period there are many historians, including the aforementioned Josephus. Why reliable contemporary writings say nothing about Jesus of Nazareth, where the Bible says was a social phenomenon?
The third requirement of Negative Evidence Principle says that "we have performed a thorough and comprehensive search for evidence where it should be. " In fact, this has been done by researchers both religious and skeptical, so we can say that the third point is fulfilled.
stories often mutate, becoming myths, and these myths in turn are modified over time. So sacred stories evolve. For example, in nineteenth century America, young Joseph Smith claimed to have received "new light" which chronicled the teachings of Jesus in North America , since according to him, after Jesus had risen scale in America to preach to the natives (!!!). The new version of the story of Jesus began with a few believers, today she has about 6 million followers known as Mormons. Similarly in the early years of Christianity, fairy tales invented by the evangelists eventually became the belief of the majority.
conclusion we can say that based on the principle of negative evidence, we have good reason to doubt the biography of Jesus that is presented in the Bible. But what can not be denied is the existence of the omnipotent, omnipresent, creative mythology of humans.
Extracted from: http://www.sindioses.org/examenreligiones/jesus.html
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