Regarding Jesus: A Few More Random Thoughts.

*Can True Christian believers cite for me at least one inscription or document - NOT the Bible - that has been dated and authenticated to the era between 1 AD and say 50 AD, an inscription or document that mentions Jesus, especially a supernatural Jesus, one who performed miracles and who was resurrected from the dead? Can they do that? If not then they should just keep quiet about the existence of contemporary evidence for the actual existence of Jesus.

Because here's the point. Did any of the alleged (500 or so) witnesses (1 Corinthians 15: 6) to the resurrected Jesus, or any of the women or any of the disciples who saw an animated version of him post-crucifixion ever pen their own first person account of this miracle? The answer is an absolute "no".

*What about that ancient historian Josephus? Josephus wasn't born until after-the-fact [37 AD - 100 AD]. He makes no mention of Jesus until around 93-94 AD in his "Antiquities of the Jews", failing to mention Jesus in earlier works, and then gives only two brief mentions which have merited much scholarly debate (i.e. - not everyone is convinced of the authenticity of what Josephus allegedly wrote. Further, there are no originals - of course. The earliest copies date to the 11th Century, so we're dealing with copies of copies of copies; translations of translations of translations. Who can really say what alterations were or might have been made by those Christian monks into whose care was placed the relevant Josephus manuscript?

Even if despite all of the copies and all of the translations and all of the opportunities for those with vested interests to add and/or subtract from what Josephus wrote, what Josephus wrote only gives historical credibility to Jesus the mortal person, not Jesus the supernatural being.

So Christians can rant and rave all they wish but to date no one has ever proven that Jesus ever existed via a contemporary with - but not in - any actual Biblical source.

*Despite the above, some claim that '[T]here is strong historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection from the dead.” Again we have a sweeping statement without specifics. Even if that’s the case, I’d think that the evidence was in the form of science fantasy or historical fiction. You underestimate the power of the human imagination and of our need for storytelling. How you can distinguish fact from fiction in any written account from 2000 years ago that relates supernatural events is beyond me. You can’t go back and question the witnesses, and cameras and tape recorders and other scientific instrumentation didn’t exist back then. It’s all rather unreliable eyewitness testimony which no longer can be put on trial for cross-examination. And I duly note that Hercules was also resurrected, but I don’t see you promoting that resurrection. Picking and choosing are we? Sorry, there’s the same lack of reliable evidence for Jesus as there is for Hercules.

*More About the Alleged Resurrection of Jesus: I don’t know how many times I have to point this out but there is no other independent source(s) of any kind that dates back to when Jesus allegedly existed and was strutting his stuff that actually mentions him. The Bible and only the Bible mentions him and gives him ‘reality’ and even Biblical texts weren’t contemporary with the actual time of Jesus. And if Jesus existed just because the Bible says so, then by analogy Big Brother must exist (or have existed) just because George Orwell’s “1984” says he did. It is therefore reasonable to be skeptical about the actual existence of Jesus. Further, all of those “Jesus said” quotes are bogus unless Christians can name the scribes who wrote down his words, sermons and conversations.

*The alleged resurrection of Jesus is a scientific impossibility – once you’re dead, you’re dead – unless you’re a science fiction or fantasy or horror writer / author. Oh, by the way, are all those zombies still walking around Jerusalem as related in the New Testament? Of course we’d all know all about the reality of Jesus if only he’d return – as promised – what Christians call the Second Coming. Alas, it appears he must have forgotten to set his alarm clock for he’s now many, many centuries late for his encore.

*A real Jesus, even a real resurrected Jesus still says nothing about the reality of God’s existence. God’s existence and the existence of Jesus are two separate and apart topics and the reality of one has no causal bearing on the reality of the other. In conclusion, Jesus is not someone who is independently verifiable and thus Jesus is not evidence for anything.

*Christian theists do go on, and on, and on, and on, and on about all of this evidence for the existence of a supernatural Jesus and a resurrected Jesus. Yet two of the three major monotheistic religions give the concept of a supernatural / resurrected Jesus the absolute thumbs down. So why doesn't the Christian theist's alleged evidence for Jesus cut any ice with the True Believers part and parcel of these two other major faiths? Methinks something is downright screwy with alleged evidence as given by Christian theists - like it doesn't actually even exist.

*Regarding the alleged resurrection of Jesus, can you imagine the debacle that would arise if modern major news stories in the here-and-now weren't reported anywhere until 50 years after-the-fact. What degree of accuracy could you expect especially if everything were just reported by word-of-mouth? Fifty years after-the-fact? Talk about alternative facts emerging and utterly fake news.

*Hercules is the real new resurrection story and Jesus is the fake news story. The resurrection of Jesus was a slightly reworked plagiarism of the Hercules resurrection. Now prove me wrong!

*The alleged “empty tomb” is not an argument for the resurrection of Jesus. Just because my cookie jar is empty doesn’t mean I don’t have any cookies. Or, just because I have an empty wallet doesn’t mean that I’m broke.