A few days ago someone at an atheist blog stated that there is absolutely no extra Biblical documentation for the life of Jesus. Well, if you know me at all, you’ll know that that was a huge hook for me. So I not only gave her the comments that exist regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that originate from the time of Jesus. I not only gave her comments regarding the lives and martyrdom of Jesus’ followers that originate from that time. I gave her the citations for all 23 extra Biblical references to Jesus, who said them, and where they could be found.
You know what her response was?
“There is no evidence outside the bible and other biblical texts like the apocrypha for the life of jesus.”
What IS that? What happens in the minds of atheists that allows them to: look at documentation from antiquity, documentation that is attested to as historically factual by the vast majority of atheist, secular and Christian historical scholars, discard that evidence as irrelevant and then, and THEN describe themselves as open-minded?
Just how afraid of Jesus must one be to do something like that? These are people who say they care about justice for the poor, alleviating hunger and disease around the world. They say they care about the environment. Yet they a priori reject anything relating to the One person who has walked this earth whose goal was justice and righteousness and mercy and equality for all and for bringing to an end the evils against which we all struggle on a daily basis.
What has happened to these people that their eyes are unable to see and their ears are unable to hear the good news that Jesus brought to all of us? It is just so very sad.
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2 comments:
Makarios, you've got to link these things. Also, to my knowledge, there is no contemporaneous account of Jesus' life (that includes the gospels, of course, which scholarship has shown were not written by contemporaries of Jesus). Doubtless your 23 references--you must list them--would clear this matter up.
I DID list them and she still said that. I maybe didn't make myself clear. I didn't mean that other people did a biography or something similar to the Gospels. I said, or at least I meant that these people commented on Jesus' life, or death, or resurrection and about his disciples martyrdom.
I also included atheist historical scholars who agree with fact of historical Jesus.
. Lucian of Samosata - (The Death of Peregrine), 11 - 13
. Mara Bar Serapion - Fragment currently at the British Museum, Syriac Manuscript
. The Babylonia Talmud - Sanhedrin 43a - I. Epstein Editor and translator, London
. Clement of Rome - (1 Clement ) 47
. Polycarp - (To the Philippians)
. Papia (Fragments: Traditions of the Elders) 2,5 (Fragment 5)
. Eusebius - (Chronicles)
. Ignatius of Antioch - (In Eusebius, Histories) 3.36.3 - 4; (To Polycarp) 5; (To the Romans) 4.
. Irenaeus - (To Florinus) 5.20
. Tertulian - (The Prescription Against Heretics) 32.
. Josephus - (Fides et Historia) 13
. Origen - (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol 10) (Antiquities of the Jews) (Contra Celsum) 1.47
. Agapius - (Historia) 1.7.13
. Hippolytus - (Quoted by Eusebius)
. Dionysius of Corinth - (Quoted by Eusebius)
. Celsus
. Pliny the Younger,
. Tacitus
. Suetonius
. Shepherd of Hermas (Parable 9, section 28); (Vision 3, section 1)
. Melito of Sardis
. Hegesipius
. Polycrates - (To Victor of Rome)
. John Dominic Crossan - Founder of the Jesus Seminar - In (“Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography”) San Francisco, Harper Collins, 1991 - 145,154, 196, 201
. Rudolf Bultmann - (“What Really Happened to Jesus - A Historical Approach to the Resurrection.”)
John Bowden Trans. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995 - 80
. Paula Frederickson - Historian - In an interview with Peter Jennings for “The Search for Jesus,” American Broadcasting Company, 2000.
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