A nice story to recount to ones children. Sadly though, we grow up into adults and as we grow most of us start to question the assumptions that are implicit in your little tale. After reading by post on the previous page of this thread, you will surely come to the conclusion that enough doubt exists to believe in the existence of Jesus. Presented with similar evidence in a court of law, the judge would undoubtably throw out the "Jesus existed" case. It would simply be thrown out of court. As I made clear previously, both Tacitus and Josephus were born 25 years and 7 years respectively after the death of Jesus and so neither could have been witness to his supposed crucifix in 30AD as they claimed.

It is irrelevant that Tacitus and Josephus were not alive during the crucifixion of Jesus. Most of the famous ancient world historians were not alive during the events that they experienced. He wrote about it just a short 30 years after the fact. Most histories of the time were written hundreds of years after the event. Plutarch wrote about Alexander the Great 300 years after the fact. that does not make his history any less accurate. Herodotus wrote Histories, which recounted the battles of Marathon, Thermopolyae, and Salamis were written 40 years after. That does not make them any less accurate.

Bear in mind that Josephus was a historian. He compiled primary documents into a history. This is what historians do, they search through primary sources and compile knowledge into volumes.

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You also have to keep in mind that history cannot generally be written until 20 to 30 years after it actually happens because that is necessary to fully understanding the implications they had on the movement of society. Had Jesus been forgotten a year after he died, do you think he would be history?

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"You are just stuck in a box."

--Zaro

exactly

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It is not an irrelevance that Tacitus and Josephus were not alive when Jesus was allegedly crucified because according to the text it was they who claimed to be witnesses to the existence of Jesus. I'll repeat THEY THEMSELVES claimed that they were WITNESSES TO THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS,which is a physical impossibility given that they were not even born.

No where did Josephus say that he was witnessed the existence of Christ. Where in this passage does Josephus say this?

"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 amongst 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."

You are arguing from a fallacy

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lmfao....Lets be real here, people on both sides can honestly find instances where Jesus would support their beliefs.

I imagine that economically Jesus probably would be more of a "socialist" leaning person.

Morally though he would definitely lean towards a Conservative view point.....Probably except for Capital Punishment. I imagine that Jesus would be opposed to Abortions and he probably would advocate marriage being between a man and a woman. However I am pretty positive he would also be anti war.

Im obviously an Atheist, however Christ is a fascinating guy to learn about from a historical point of view. I wish we knew more about him in his teen and young adult years.

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"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments"

--George Washington

"Never spend your money before you have earned it."

--Thomas Jefferson

"One man with courage is a majority."

--Thomas Jefferson

There are numerous instances in the bible where it talks about working hard and enjoying the fruits of your labor. There are no fruits tied directly to your labor in a socialist government!

I agree! He was both human and God, which is hard to wrap my mind around.
Did he experience some of the same internal struggles we all did in our adolescence? It would be good to have had some insight into that, but the one thing that gets lost on a lot of hard core fundamentalists, is that he taught us to focus on our relationships with each other as opposed to the hard adherence to the law that the Jews teach. Adhering to the law is not a bad thing neccessarily, unless it turns your focus to specific tasks and your relationships suffer as a result!

The bible touches on some of the internal struggles he felt as an adult, so I think it would be pretty safe to assume that he had those same sorts of struggles as a teenager and young man.

Honestly if anyone knows of any sources of texts that discuss different possibilities of what Jesus was up to during this period of time then by all means let me know. I'm a history nut and Christ is definitely one of my favorite people to learn about.

I disagree with you though Whaler about what you said about Jesus and Socialism. There are also just as many comments that Jesus made that essentially talked about sharing and what not. I dont want to look up the direct passages, some people in this topic have posted some of them though.

Obviously Christ was a driven man. Clearly he would support doing your best to provide for your family, and if that meant hard work then as a handy man (he wasn't necessarily a Carpenter but thats another topic for another day...he MAY have been one though) he would certainly not be opposed to hard work.

But knowing what we know about Christ, clearly he also believed in taking care of those less fortunate than yourself and if that meant sacrificing some of what you had he was in support of it.

If Jesus was alive in todays day and age with his beliefs and putting the religious stuff aside, I imagine he would be a very hard working man and would advocate hard work, however he would also be in favor of Social programs that take care of the less fortunate. He probably would work for non profit or charitable organizations or something like that.

Im almost 100% positive that Jesus Christ wouldn't advocate CEO's making billions of dollars while some of their employees work 60+ hours a week and make minimum wage.

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"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments"

--George Washington

"Never spend your money before you have earned it."

--Thomas Jefferson

"One man with courage is a majority."

--Thomas Jefferson

What's so wrong about these accusations is that back then, socialism didn't exist. So you can't say Jesus was a socialist, that's just a poor attempt to make the ideology look better.

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So your logic is that if we are not there, the number will go down... That makes perfect sense... not.