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LOL so u believe that nonsense??

Uh, yeah I did, it is my faith.

it is impossible to rise from the dead, moron.

You DID or you DO?

I meant do, I still believe in Jesus and that he rose from the dead.

Historical evidence? Not sure- I've never studied it in any great detail. However, I do believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his death, as prophecied and detailed in the Christian Bible.

No evidence. Has been my understanding that it's usually accepted as an issue of faith instead of a factual event of historical relevance.

There is plenty of evidence for this. For starters, how come the story has been passed down for so many years?

The legends of Robin Hood or Thor or Jupiter were also passed down for centuries. A story is not evidence.

Okay folks, here is the old farts views;

I challenge all of you to Google the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Reading them will take some time and actual effort on your part, however you will learn some very interesting things and come away much more educated to the ways and lifestyles of the world prior to the Christian era that we now live in.

There is not enough time, nor is there enough space, to put all that I have learned by reading the English translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Therefore you need to do it for yourselves.

Here is a real hint; The word "Rabbi" is sometimes singular and sometimes plural, it all depends on what you are discussing at the time that you use the word. In the Christian Bible Jesus is often referred to as Rabbi but it is not explained in English if it is singular or plural. The original books of the Bible were first translated from Old Hebrew to old Latin, then into Old English and then to many other languages and finally we have the "New International Bible" which incorporates many new words and phrases as well. But none still ever distinguishes between the plural or singular word of "Rabbi" when describing Jesus with that word.

Does that get your curiosity up? It did mine!

Just my not-so-humble opinion.

Personally, I believe he was just a very religious guy who had his head on straight. I believe he grew up, kept all of his morals, married a prostitute, because he saw the beauty in everyone. A guy like that, doesn't need to have all these legends behind him.

He was a good guy, and truly believed in God and kept his faith in him. If anyone has that, you don't need to have all these "miracle-working" stories behind you.

So then why is the singular or plural meaning of rabbi such a big deal? I don't follow you.

So you are telling me that no stories are evidence? How about the Holocaust when that is passed down for centuries to come?

The Holocaust has documented evidence that can be verified. First hand accounts of events as they happened. The Bible, for the most part, does not. It is usually a story told by somebody who was told it by somebody else, who heard it from somebody who might have been there.

Good luck submitting that as evidence instead of simply telling a charming story.

Oh boy, here I go again . . .

I offered you all a challenge and no one accepted.

So here is another bread crumb to follow; In the times of early Israel a big city or metropolis was a town of maybe a thousand or so as most people made their living by growing their own food and raising their own meat – in essence farmers. They sold their extra food at the market places in and near the towns. Most folks did not know how to read or write. The very few who did were of a religious nature, and some of those would travel about in groups of up to five and visit these farmers and shepherds (the main source of meat back then was mutton, not beef ) and teach them about the religion of the day (which was a real far cry from what we know in this modern world as religion), and these roaming teachers were called – You guessed it – Rabbi. The old Hebrew word for teacher . And the only way to distinguish the difference between one or more Rabbi was in how you formed the sentence that you were speaking or writing at the time. This was unique to old (or ancient) Hebrew and is not used in the modern Hebrew language of today, but was lost somewhere in the many translations of the now Christian Bible.

For "The rest of the story" you will just have to look up and read some of the Dead Sea scrolls and learn it for yourselves.

Did you know that the Jesuits kept the Dead Sea scrolls under wraps from the time they were discovered back in 1947 until President Reagan convinced the Pope to release them to the Israeli government in 1987? Does that make you want to ask the very important question – WHY?

Be careful, the answer just might shock you.

It was not simply a "story" that was passed down. The event that took place was passed on from those who actually witnessed it. Those witnesses believed in it so much that they literally went to their deaths because of their belief in the events they saw with their own eyes. People who make something up aren't usually willing to die for that lie. They will die for a lie they have been told and believe, but not one they know to be a lie that they made up themselves.

These events and those surrounding them were referenced by non-Christian historical sources as well. Among them were Thallus, Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Hadrian, Suetonius, Phlegon, Lucian of Samossata, Mara Bar-Serapion.

While we can not prove the missing body was actually resurrected (since those who do not want to believe refuse to believe the many eyewitnesses who actually saw it), we must note that the fact that the body actually disappeared never was disputed. If the body was still in the tomb, this whole thing would have ended over 2000 years back in Rome when they would have certainly displayed the body of Jesus to stop these so called rumors.

Jesus didn't get married.

Do they have a Cliff Notes version?

Sparknotes would be more preferable.

That's what the Church wants you to believe. Look next to him at "The Last Supper" table, that's a female next to him. I believe he did. The guy was 100% human and was a good guy.

There is nothing about him being married in the Bible. The Last Supper painting was merely an artist's representation of a Biblical event, many years after the event, and so is not indicative of reality. I could make a painting of you based on my preconceived notion of you, but I doubt it would be accurate. If he had been married, he would have had to also make provisions for his wife before he died, not only his mother.

Either way.

I am not Catholic. I see nothing wrong with clergy marrying, especially since several of the disciples were married. (Peter being one of them. I find that quite ironic…)

Many religious denominations allow for their holy figures to marry (at least at lower levels). So while there might be a reason that the early Christian church might not want this "jesus was married" theory known or speculated on widely, it's not exactly relevant to any of the modern institutions.

Maybe if they allow priests to be married today, people would start questioning whether or not Jesus was married.

The Bible is man-made. The Church, even if Jesus wasn’t married, made changes to it on purpose. That’s where “Friday the 13th” came into play. This was the day when the Church sent soldiers to hunt down Jesus’ descendants and kill them.

Why aren’t priests allowed to marry? This is exactly the reason why they didn’t want anyone knowing that Jesus had a family.

Hey guys, sidestepping the issue and not doing the research challenge only proves lazyness on your part.

Human history – from our earliest recordings up to right now – draws the most amazing picture of what and who we are as sentient beings in the Universe. No matter what you personally believe as far as religion goes, the religious trappings, teachings, and practices of our ancient ancestors have had a very profound effect on what we are, how we act and react to and with our surroundings today and will continue to have that effect on our future generations.

Without knowing ourselves as Humans, we as individuals cannot possibly make the correct decisions for our future generations to act upon in a positive manner.

Wether we like it or not, religion of one sort or another has and will continue to play a large part in our overall make-up as Human Beings.

Too bad you do not want to know where we came from, for without that knowledge we will never know where we are going . . .

Get my drift?

I don't have time to do in depth research on something like this I'm sorry.

People have started questioning it. I still think he wasn't, as the Bible says nothing about it. I'm not going to doubt what the Bible says.

I used to be a full-on Catholic, but now I'm questioning it with all the scandals and everything.

Its all a matter of faith. The question I ask all agnostics and athiests is "If Jesus was a nobody and had no powers, how has his story lasted for 2,000 years and have more than 5 million followers?"

5 million followers? You're selling your organisation short by a several hundred million people. Unless you're part of some random sect of Christianity that doesn't consider the rest of Christendom to be Christian, the usual figures are somewhere between ~1-1.5 billion.

God, Man… bottom line here is your relationship, if you believe in God then how's your relationship with your God? regardless of what religion you are into… Are you the same person or does it affect your faith when you found out those controversies?

lol 5 million

The bible is not trust worthy historical evidence in our days.

Christianity is to believe without proofs. You just feel the deal. Which why I refused it, and accepted Islam. And In Islam, Jesus didn't resurrect, but he just went to heavens, and will return some day without getting death. But yet, this is not a historical evidence.

Therefore I say – according to my historical knowledge – no for both arguments.

Islam is almost on the same page as Christianity.

Not in the trustworthiness of the historical evidences. Islam is stable and well established with very strong historical evidences.

You should educate yourself about Islam I think.

Its all based on faith. The Bible has truth to it, but when it comes to miracles, its all a matter of faith.

Noone has thus far mentioned any historical evidence of Christ’s ressurection.

It is mentioned that it was universally accepted that the body was never found again afterwards, but what is that supposed to mean logically? You know how easy it was to ditch a body 2000 years ago?

Just because there is one ancient book from then that states he miraculously rose from the dead doesn’t lend proof.

papadawg I’d like to accept your challenge, I don’t know that I can honestly finished read the dead sea scrolls, but I’ll give it a try at least.

you need to take a crash course in growing up

Many people overestimate the amount of historical sources we have from the first, second and third century.

We know the Roman Emperor during Jesus time was the Emperor Tiberius. Let me ask you a question, how many historical sources do we have of Tiberius within 150 years of his reign? We have TEN, ten sources (of which one happens to be bible) within a hundred fifty years that even mention the existence of the most powerful man on the planet.

Now how many sources do we have of Jesus within a hundred and fifty years of his life? We have Forty. The point is we shouldn’t be asking why we don’t have more historical sources for Jesus, but why we have more historical sources for a crucified man than one of the most powerful men in history.

Im not so sure about the Ressurection, but

As to the Dead Sea Scrolls, all 6000 of the manuscripts, well have fun making that your full time research job. Some are most certainly dated within Jesus lifetime to 70ad. Dr. Daniel Wallace in his book “Dethroning Jesus” page 51 says that there are over 5,700 Greek Manuscripts. Also, F.F. Bruce in his book “The New Testament Documents” on page 10 says that there are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts. These figures are something even Bart Erhman would agree to.

Some of the biggest Greek manuscripts are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Even then, there is papyri dating from about 100-200AD: Chester Beatty Papyri (three codices of which contain most of the the New Testament), and the Papyrus Bodmer II are relatively early (FF Bruce, Ibid p.12). Also H.I. Bell and T.C. Skeat published some papyri dating no later than 150 AD. Dr. Wallace has stated that less than 1% of the New Testament make up meaningful and viable variants.

I think that makes historical Jesus appear like a source of historical antiquity more than anything else.

Zack,
Jesus can't be just a good dude. If he was not who he CLAIMED TO BE he was a derranged or evil imposter. You can't ride the fence with Jesus. If he is who he claimed to be you might want to drop to your knees and worship Him if he is not then why would you call him good?

I like to drop and worship.

The same way stories and evidence ove dinosaurs did.