Hey Mr Sheldrick,
I hope you have had a wonderful easter in Oxford.
At church around this time I hear a lot about the historicity of the death and resurrection of Jesus in particular and I thought it might be an interesting discussion on the blog.
I would start by assuming Jesus existence... Good old wiki says - "the historicity of Jesus is accepted by almost all Biblical scholars and classical historians. The New Testament scholar James Dunn describes the mythical Jesus theory as a 'thoroughly dead thesis'".
On the other hand, some notable atheists seem to disagree with this opinion.
"It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never existed at all“
(Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 97)
"..the highly questionable existence of Jesus"
(Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great, 114)
"Jesus' existence has not been historically established"
(Michel Onfray, The Atheist Manifesto, 115)
I wonder if the 'cool atheist analysts' are not so unbiasedly rational as they propose.
I was looking through a few articles on this site
http://www.bethinking.org
This article in particular struck me as important to consider at Easter.
http://www.bethinking.org/resurrection-miracles/introductory/q-is-there-really-solid-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ.htm
See you soon!
Rebekah
(Now this is a topic that is extremely important and that must be discussed in a very adult way. If you want to comment, be very serious and remember that this is just not a history topic - you are also dealing with people's faith, so be polite and never insulting! Mr.S)
I think this is really interesting Bek. I was actually looking through the net today and I found this article which was published today, in light of Easter.
ReplyDeletewww.theage.com.au/national/atheists-respond-to-church-leader-attacks-20100403-rkvx.html
I thought it was really interesting, because both sides can be very critical of each, quite rightly considering the incredibly conflicting ideologies. I think for both sides it is very very easy to pick out the negatives of each.
What worries me about debates which I've taken part in about atheism and religion, in particular Christianity (this is Australia after all), is that a lot of atheists don't know a lot about Christianity, and I suppose vice versa. I guess in the end, it is a cruel thing to deny a person of their own personal truth, regardless of whether it is a godless one or not.
Well, I'm Agnostic while pretty much every single member of my family and extended family are quite seriously Christian, and this argument is the reason why I'm never invited to Christmas dinner.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not doubt the existence of Jesus at all, and I used to be a devout Christian. There is evidence which strongly suggests that he existed. There is also a huge array of evidence which suggests that some sections of the bible contain truth. I only find myself questioning whether he truly is the manifestation of God in flesh, considering I find myself incapable of accepting or rejecting the existence of an omnipotent deity.
My apologies to anyone if I have ever insulted them or their beliefs in the past. I'm usually quite touchy when people attempt to evangelise due to my life at home being filled with horribly misguided preaching, as my father is actually a qualified pastor and a Sunday school teacher, and my mother being devoutly religious (coupled with mildly insane). However, I must admit that, while having no problems with Christianity itself, I find that I have problems with some Christians, particularly those who interpret their faith in a way I believe is contradictory to their religion, or just detrimental to themselves and/or those around them. This also applies to the opposite end of the religious spectrum as I also find quite a large number of Atheists are capable of being equally offensive.
I've been looking forward to studying this all year because it's one of the things which is so heavily embedded in my life, although I think my personal ideologies will probably become even more convoluted as a result. :S
There's a lot of evidence to say that Jesus did exist.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a lot of evidence to say that he did some stuff that was out of the ordinary.
I also however question the assertion that Jesus was the incarnation of God in human form, the Messiah come to save humanity from its sin.
This is partly because of my Jewish upbringing, and the time I spent at Jewish school - the Jewish slant of the issue is that Jesus existed, he did some great stuff, and may even have been a prophet (although that's a contentious issue), but ultimately wasn't the Messiah. The Jews are still waiting for the Messiah to come.
Islam also agrees that Jesus did exist, just not that he was the son of god.
The fact that I'm an atheist also comes into it, as I don't believe that there is any god out there.
In my opinion, Jesus did exist, and was certainly out of the ordinary in the things he achieved, but he was just an exceptional man.
As with all history we bring ourselves to the topic don't we! lol
ReplyDeleteI am very impressed with the points that you have all made and the intelligent and cool way that you can discuss what is a very "hot" topic for a lot of people. It wasn't that long ago that even considering Jesus as an historical figure could have ended in a death sentence.
I agree that there is just too much observational evidence that he existed, although there is no actual credible physical evidence. I think this is understandable of a simple Galilean carpenter of that time.