PTRAVEL
There is no "historical evidence" about Jesus.
Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays 3392Had I read Icono Clast's joke? It's an established fact. Both Jews and Chinese have functioned as what's known as "middleman minorities": people whose work takes place...
"No direct and first-hand information about Jesus survives. Information from outside Christian sources is unavailable. One must therefore rely exclusively on Christian sources. The semi biographical framework of the gospel stories, however, is the result of the editorial work of the gospel writers and can therefore not be used for the reconstruction of the ministry of Jesus. All traditional materials about Jesus preserved within the framework of the canonical and (pg 79 some noncanonical gospels have been formed ("inscribed") by the needs of the communities of Jesus' followers after his rest." Harvard Professor Helmut Koester. History and Literature of Early Christianity, Volume 2, Introduction to the New Testament, 2d edition. (2000), pg. 78-9 amazon link:
No NON-CHRISTIAN alive when Jesus lived ever mentions seeing Jesus or hearing Jesus -- or even hearing about Jesus! They don't mention the star that heralded His birth. They don't mention Herod's dissolution of boy babies. They don't mention crowds gathered to hear Him preach. They don't mention His trial. They don't mention His crucifixion. They don't mention His resurrection. They never mention anything He said, or anywhere He went, or anything He thought, or anything He said, or anything He did.
No non-Christian alive when Jesus lived ever mentions Him. Not once.
WHAT ABOUT CHRISTIANS? Neither do they.
Paul, who wrote in the 50s and 60s, does not mention facts about Jesus' life and ministry. In Paul there is no Mary or Joseph, no trial before a Roman official, no Jerusalem as the place of His rest, no John the Baptist, no Judas. Paul never mentions any miracles Jesus did. There is no evidence Paul, (who never met Jesus, who converted not by hearing stories about Jesus, but in a personal mystic experience) even knew any details of Jesus life outside his crucifixion and resurrection. Paul's Christ is a mythic godman with no earthly history outside the crucifixion. Likewise the other early epistles. No mention of the Galilean Jesus.
As to our Gospels - the surviving four from the dozens of early gospels -- there is no evidence our modern picked-by-Catholic- priests-in-the- fourth-century gospels existed before 130 AD. And if our four modern gospels did exist within 120 years of Jesus' rest, there is absolutely zero evidence they contributed to Christian belief or worship before 130 AD. No Christian writing up through the early first century mentions our Gospels. They do not quote from them, do not tell any stories from them, do not recall an miracles from them -- there is no evidence they knew they existed -- until about 130 AD.
Our Gospel myths about the Galilean Jesus' story were unknown, as far as the evidence goes, until well into the second century.
There is no contemporary record that Jesus existed. None.
Jesus is not historical. Jesus is a legend.
Dirk Hartog --------------------- This is the view I have held up to now, though I can modify it if you disagree; only please give me your reasons if you do. I know I should bow to your authority, but on an important question like this I would rather yield to a reasoned argument than to authority alone. Pliny the Younger, Letters, 1.20
