Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, a volley of rockets lit up the darkened sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.
Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the site of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Who is to blame for the fiery explosion has set off intense debate and finger pointing between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions in their two week-long war.
…He did exist, there are actual historical records. The question is whether or not Jesus was divine and performing miracles.
Oh there are, may I see the contemporary historical records please?
You’re gonna have to explain what contemporary means.
At the time. Not a 90 year later hearsay account that goes through a 1000 years of monks “correcting” it.
What a dimwit.
Jesus is an indisputed historical figure.
I’m not sure how to break this to you… The first written record of Jesus doesn’t appear until some 70 years after the date of his crucifixion. That’s in the writings of Josephus, but the problem with Josephus is that the copy that survived is from the 4th century, which appears to have been edited by Eusebius, a Christian, inserting the mention of Jesus. Quotations of Josephus prior to Eusebius make no mention of Jesus. Good reading here:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559
We know people like Pontius Pilate existed because we have documents from the era talking to and about him. There’s nothing remotely similar for Jesus.
I describe it like this, the story goes that Jesus was an amazing figure, speaking to the masses at the sermon on the mount, raising the dead, etc. Why is there no written record of him at the time? No letter from one person to another going “Hey, I just saw this Jesus guy and he’s making a lot of sense!” No Roman records for arrest, trial or execution? And man, those Romans loved their documents.
A modern day equivalent would be having no written record of Elvis until some 70 years after he died, and the only surviving copy of that 70 year document being from another transcriber 400 years after he died. We would still be 24 years away from the first written record of Elvis.
It’s amazing how a first century Jewish person would be expressing an idea of the Trinity that wouldn’t come around for another two centuries and that of all his writings he only changed topics like this a single time. Also that people familiar with Christianity and his works just never mention this for 200-300 years.
Imagine a super popular book written in 1723 and only last week someone mentioned what might be the single most important passage. Incredible.
Yup. Part of the problem is that people still think the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John when we know, factually, they weren’t.
I am disputing him. Would you care to provide evidence for your claim or personally attack me again?
Here.
Hmm not seeing any contemporary records in the Wikipedia article, which I am sure you read, why don’t you list specifically what record you are referring to?
I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make it drink.
The sources that do exist were shortly after Jesus’ life, and they were not only consistent with each other, but from radically different sources, including Roman, Jewish, Christian, and even Muslim sources. It’s pretty simple to check the sources against one another and see what lines up.
Scholars generally agree that someone named Jesus of Nazareth existed in Palestine in the 1st century AD. Is Jesus the Son of God? Depends on who you ask, but to say that he didn’t exist at all is being willfully ignorant.
Instead of a lecture about why I should accept you on faith why not produce the contemporary records?
Oh like Paul who didn’t see anything? Oh like the Mark Gospel written fifty years later, with no sources, on a different continent filled up with copy and pasted from Elijah? Oh you mean like Josephus (50 years after the supposed events) with two passages one a forgery and the other possibly talking about someone else? Oh you mean Tacticus who was a century later and related hearsay without consulting a single Roman record?
How about everyone else, how about the hundreds of letters we have from that area and time period that never once mention any of the events? How about people documenting Messiah figures during the first century not seeing anyone? How about the total lack of records of Nazareth even existing in that century, the entire Joseph family missing from records, all relics missing, the tomb missing, the trial records missing?
Now show me a CONTEMPORARY record not what some Muslim said in Saudi Arabia 9 centuries later.
I did. It seems your definition of “contemporary” is different from mine.
Whatever. No point in arguing with the atheist circlejerk; it’s sad how the good points you have get ruined by your inability to do research and understand context.
Nope. Contemporary is not 90 years later by any definition. Me writing an article this week about fashion trends of 1923 should not be titled “contemporary fall fashion”.
So not contemporary to Jesus?
“Contemporary” is the period of time where there would be people living who had experienced these events, even if the historian him/herself hadn’t lived to see them.
So…yes, still contemporary.
But the people supposedly writing about him were not Jesus’ contemporaries. They would not have met him, or seen him, they were writing on behalf of what they say other people claim.
That is when they even did that much. The writers of the Gospels liked to alter the text to “improve” it. Luke and Matthew, for example, took out a sentence where Jesus gets a bit angry and yells.
Gotcha since the oldest living person right now was born in 1907 that means that everything from March 3rd, 1907 and back is ancient while everything after that date gets squished together ad contemporary.
I am a contemporary of Gandhi, Mao, Dr. King, FDR, Stalin, Churchill, Reagan, Armstrong, Cumae, the Lindenberg baby, Thomss Edison, Einstein, and Aldrin.
I like how useless this definition you invented for yourself to “win” an internet argument is. Now if you excuse me I just got a notice of an important telegram, it seems that Kaiser is up to his old tricks again and if I don’t help us land a man on the moon the Frye Festival will be a complete disaster. Here is a bitcoin for your trouble, you can use it to buy a piece of mutton with some New Coke.