Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Forgive me for belaboring this point. However, I think it is pertinent to determining if there was a historical Jesus.

Can anyone provide a clear-cut example of an ancient author that asserted that Jesus never, ever existed?

Not to be confused with someone who wrote they did not believe in the miracles or resurrection of Jesus but a statement that emphatically claims that a man named Jesus who Christians claimed was crucified by the Romans around 30 A.D. never, ever existed.

Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,

John T

Since the answer is no, move on to the next question.

What can we conclude from this?

In Justin's letters to Typhro--- Typhro stated that there was no Jesus. Supposedly, this was written in early 135ad

No ancient author asserts that Daniel never existed.

Today, it is uncontroversial in non-apologetic scholarship to assert that Daniel never existed. He was created by the author of the book of Daniel.

"I saw some disciples of Bolingbroke, more ingenious than educated, who denied the existence of Jesus because the story of the three wise men and the star and the massacre of the innocents are, they said, the height of eccentricity; the contradiction of the two genealogies that Matthew and Luke gave is especially a reason that these young men allege to persuade themselves that there was no Jesus."

Voltaire, Dieu et les hommes, 1769

Kris wrote:In Justin's letters to Typhro--- Typhro stated that there was no Jesus. Supposedly, this was written in early 135ad

I thought that Trypho (the correct spelling) rejected the possibility that Jesus was the predicted messiah, but his rationale was that the Jesus of Christians did not fulfill the predictions of Judean scripture as Judeans interpreted them, not because Jesus did not exist.

If Justin's account was really based on a discussion Justin had with a Judean exile just about the time of the Bar Kochba rebellion (or after) the interpretation of just what sacred writings referred to about a messiah [= Christ] may have been influenced by dashed messianic expectations for Bar Kochba that had been reinterpreted by means of the rationalization process, which happens all the time as peoples' expectations are not met. However, rejecting the existence of the Jesus of the Christians did not appear to have come up, at least as far as Justin tells it.

Ch 32: And when I had ceased, Trypho said, "These and such like Scriptures, sir, compel us to wait for Him who, as Son of man, receives from the Ancient of days the everlasting kingdom. But this so-called Christ of yours was dishonourable and inglorious, so much so that the last curse contained in the law of God fell on him, for he was crucified." ...

Ch 36: Then he [Trypho] replied, "Let these things be so as you say -- namely, that it was foretold [the] Christ would suffer, and be called a stone; and after His [the Christ's] first appearance, in which it had been announced He [the Christ] would suffer, would come in glory, and be Judge finally of all, and eternal King and Priest. Now show if this man [that is, the Jesus of the Christians, really] be He of whom these prophecies were made."

It seems to me that Justin was setting up a straw dog to knock down when he phrases Trypho's objections these ways. I do not detect any hint that Justin depicts the Judean Trypho as not accepting the historicity of Jesus. Otherwise, why have Trypho charge that Jesus' crucifixion brought down God's curse upon him?

DCH

Maybe the "many deceivers" in 2 John 7?

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:Maybe the "many deceivers" in 2 John 7?

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

But this is usually interpreted to refer to Docetists, who believed that there was a real Christ, just not a fleshy one.

DCH

John T wrote:Forgive me for belaboring this point. However, I think it is pertinent to determining if there was a historical Jesus.

Can anyone provide a clear-cut example of an ancient author that asserted that Jesus never, ever existed?

Not to be confused with someone who wrote they did not believe in the miracles or resurrection of Jesus but a statement that emphatically claims that a man named Jesus who Christians claimed was crucified by the Romans around 30 A.D. never, ever existed.

Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,

John T

As the censors employed by the Christian hegemony spent well over a thousand years in banning and in diligently seeking out such heretics, and confiscating and burning their heretical texts (and their authors along with them when they could lay hands on them)
99+% of the literature of those first 3 centuries did not survive the ages of Christian book burnings. Why would you even expect to be able to locate any such text or author?

Even today, If a genuine ancient text whose content clearly indicated that jesus of Nazareth is a myth , were to be discovered by a Christian dominated 'research' institution with a vested interest in the maintenance of their myth, the 'faith', it would never be allowed to come to the knowledge of the general public.
With the survival of that multi-billion dollar cash-cow at stake, Christian financed "archaeologists" are digging like hell to make sure that they find these evidences first, and that no one else finds anything revealing that their generations of book burning predecessors may have missed.

Modern Christianity would much rather preserve public ignorance, and the Christian invented martyrdom mythologies of that 'black hole' of the first three centuries of the development of the Christian religion.

Sheshbazzar
.

Julian, AKA, The Apostate.

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness. Though it has in it nothing divine, by making full use of that part of the soul which loves fable and is childish and foolish, it has induced men to believe that the monstrous tale is truth.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julia ... 1_text.htm