Was Jesus A Historical Person?

[Arad9]

Was Jesus a historical person

[Armat]

I don’t know why I remember this. When Khachatur Abovian tried to teach Armenian language to school kids his efforts were sabotaged and made infinitely more difficult by the ignorant clergy.

I was recently in LA and went to cemetery to “see” my mom and I was shacked that right at the gates were three Armenian priests who were solicitating services. It seemed more of bazaar scene then a cemetery.

I don’t know why I mentioned these so excuse me of going astray.

Edited September 26, 2003 by Armat

[Armat]

Was Jesus a historical person

Yes!!!

[America-Hye]

Don't delve into the historical Jesus or you may find things that will disturb you. Just think, some of the people you read about are descended from him. Including some Armenians, predominantlty the descendants of Giligian nobility. No Joke.

[Sasun]

I was recently in LA and went to cemetery to “see” my mom and I was shacked that right at the gates were three Armenian priests who were solicitating services. It seemed more of bazaar scene then a cemetery.

These are the type of people whom Jesus kicked out of the temple.

[Sasun]

Was Jesus a historical person

Definitely yes.

[Arad9]

Wow, I have only gotten 3 replies I guess it is a harder question that I expected considering in the other forums members were quick to post. I wonder why...Hey Seaphan,Arpa,MJ,Harut, Axel, THOT, and a whole list of members, lets hear from you guys. I really want to know what you guys think.

[Sip]

I guess I don't understand the question. Are you asking whether Jesus was interested in history or whether he was a person that existed in history?

 

If it's the first, I have no idea. If it's the second, then yah, last I heard he existed and then they crusified him. All in all, he was an extremely intelligent person if you ask me. Not everyone gets to be remembered for 2000 years after their death ... especially for doing "good". Whatever he has said, he seems to have said just the right things at the right time.

[-=VAHE=-]

Yes you can say Jesus was a historical since you know ofcourse he has affected the whole world and millions of people over the lest 2000 years. Wars have started in his name so I would say he is but ofcourse thats my opinion

Sorry for the sarcasm its boring

[Harut]

Wow, I have only gotten 3 replies I guess it is a harder question that I expected considering in the other forums members were quick to post. I wonder why...Hey Seaphan,Arpa,MJ,Harut, Axel, THOT, and a whole list of members, lets hear from you guys. I really want to know what you guys think.

sorry, count me out. religion is not my area.

but i'm guessing you're getting into Orthodox vs Protestant thing, because as far as i remember, one of the unique thing about [Armenian] Apostolic Belief is that it excepts Jesus as earthly person and heavenly god, not as one. or something like that. (i'm not sure though)

[Arad9]

Alright! got a couple more reponses, Seaphan and Harut, I mean did he actually exist. Thanks guys!

[Arpa]

It all depends what your intent is.

Are you trying to reaffirm your faith or are you sincerely searching for scholarly opinions?

 

As always there are two Jesuses. The historical one and the mythical.

Historically speaking Jesus was a homeless bum obssessed with world peace, justice and righting the xenophobic elitist wrong that had been perpetuated for centuries. He was probably ridiculed and persecuted even as we ridicule and persecute modern day Jesuses who may have a message contrary to our perception of things.

 

Here is the "homeless bum" in his own words;

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx...&size=First+100

 

As to the mythical and mythologized Jesus, we know that it did not happen until many decades after his violent death. It was all an otherwise vain attempt to lend legitimacy to the contention that He was the long awaited Messiah. That is why all that mythology about His immaculate conception, born of a virgin and that he was of the House of David.

 

Jesus may have been more than a bum judging from incidents as below where he purportedely converted water to wine. The whole incident was a hoax when he poured wine from his hidden goatskin up his sleeve. Did I say he was wino?

 

Wine;

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx...V2&byte=4766347

 

As to his historicity here is one of many sites. For your reading pleasure;

 

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

 

Does all this mean that Jesus was a bad person? NO! He was just another idiot that thought he could change the world overnight. And he paid dearly for it, even with his life. Then again, in his own words: "Man cannot kick against a needle" or something like that. Here it is, here is what he said about going aginst the flow;

 

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx...&size=First+100

 

Doe this mean we must lose all faith in His teachings?

Of course not. That is, not until a better one is born, be He historical or mythical

[Arad9]

Ok we got some replies, I hope America-Hye can back-up his negative statement, and now I have another question for you guys. If Jesus exhisted them what can we conclude about his empty tomb?

[Sip]

Ah that's a TRICK question!!!! I know the answer: From the empty tomb we can conclude that the tomb is empty.

 

Now I guess next question will be what we suppose may have happened to make the tomb empty.

[Arad9]

Here is the "homeless bum" in his own words;

so what if he was homless?

Jesus may have been more than a bum judging from incidents as below where he purportedely converted water to wine. The whole incident was a hoax when he poured wine from his hidden goatskin up his sleeve. Did I say he was wino?

Just because one offers wine doesn't make him a wino.

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS

For the New Testament, the evidence is overwhelming. There are 5,366 manuscripts to compare and draw information from, and some of these date from the second or third centuries. To put that in perspective, there are only 643 copies of Homer’s Illiad, and that is the most famous book of ancient Greece! No one doubts the text of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, but we only have 10 copies of it and the earliest of those was made 1,000 years after it was written. To have such an abundance of copies for the New Testament from dates within 70 years of their writing is amazing.

With all those manuscripts, there are a lot of little differences. It is easy for someone to leave the wrong impression by saying that there are 200,000 “errors” that have crept into the Bible when the word should be “variants.” A variant is counted any time one copy is different from any other copy and it is counted again in every copy where it appears. So when a single word is spelled differently in 3,000 copies, that is counted as 3,000 variants. In fact, there are only 10,000 places where variants occur and most of those are matters of spelling and word order. There are less than 40 places in the New Testament where we are really not certain which reading is original, but not one of these has any effect on a central doctrine of the faith. Note: the problem is not that we don’t know what the text is, but that we are not certain which text has the right reading. We have 100 percent of the New Testament and we are sure about 99.5 percent of it.

But even if we did not have such good manuscript evidence, we could actually reconstruct almost the entire New Testament from quotations in the church fathers of the second and third centuries. Only eleven verses are missing, mostly from 2 and 3 John. Even if all the copies of the New Testament had been burned at the end of the third century, we could have known virtually all of it by studying these writings.

Some people have balked that inerrancy is an unprovable doctrine because it refers only to the original inspired writings, which we don’t have and not to the copies that we do have. But if we can be this certain of the text of the New Testament and have an Old Testament text that has not changed in 2,000 years, then we don’t need the originals to know what they said. The text of our modern Bibles is so close to the original that we can have every confidence that what it teaches is truth.

SUMMARY

This chapter has shown that the Bible is the Word of God. This teaching stands on no lesser authority than Jesus Christ Himself, who confirmed the inspiration of the Old Testament and promised the New Testament. The testimony of Jesus and the apostles is that the Bible is inerrant in what it teaches about all matters, down to the tenses of verbs and the very last letters of words. Also we have a great deal of evidence to show that the Bibles we have in our hands represent the original manuscripts with a very high degree of accuracy, like no other book from the ancient world. The Bible in your hand is God speaking to you.

Geisler, N. L., & Brooks, R. M. 1990. When skeptics ask . Victor Books: Wheaton, Ill.

[Arpa]

Arad, do you know that you are less and less sense as we go along.

Your original quetion was if Jewus was historical.

I gave my answer which if you read it correctly does indicate that yes, Jesus was historical, is the "bum" I alluded to. I don't think I said anything bad about him. All rebels, revolutionaries and visionaries are considered bums in their own time. I am sure you know what he said about the prophet that is rejected, ridiculed in his own village. That is what he exactly meant, that he was not taken seriously. As to the other Jesus, the mythicized and deified one I will not repeat. Nothing that I said dimishes one iota from his real message, whther he was a bum or god the message is still the same. To me it makes no difference who has said what, it is the message, not the messenger.

 

I did not understand one word from your last post about the number of copies. Are you saying that the number of copies of a book make it credible? Are you saying that Harrry Potter books that may have sold in millions and billlions make it a reality? If so then we must start a religion based on Harry Potter.

I still don't understand what you are trying to prove. All I can say is that you are goiung through a crisis of to believe or not and you are looking for approval. You;ll get over it once you realize that whether Jesus was historical bum or mythical saint the message is still the same, AND IT IS GOOD!

 

As to the empty tomb.

Is that a trick question?

Here is my answer; It is not copied and pasted, it is me in the first person who is telling this story.

 

Are you talking about the "Hoax of Two Millennia"?

Here is the hoax of the century. This may be totally unrelated.

I just discovered that President Ulyssis S Grant had had a summer cottage in the Adirodacks in my backyard and that he died there.

I just visited it. Among other things I thought I would be cute and asked: "So, who is buried in Grant's tomb"?

The guide lady knew exactly what I meant.

I had heard the phrase so many times and I thought there was some histocity to it.

It turns out that some time ago there was a silly TV show called It Pays to be Ignorant, and one of the questions was "Who is buried in Grant's tomb"?

Some people took it seriously and tried to find "intelligent answers".

The answer was obviously supposed to be; Grant! Who else?

 

Who is buried in Jesus' tomb? Probably nobody. Where is Jesus' tomb anyway?

Who is buried in Lenin's tomb? Nobody, yet! His rotten lesh/carcass is still on display at the Red Square. When will his rotten remains find it's proper destination, the trash can?

[Arad9]

Hey Arpa I just read your comments on the Armenian Church in Bangladesh, it looks like you have a lot in common with what you thought about Jesus. Here is a the reply that was given to you by ARTO11 and your what he thought of your comments.Your statements are the ones with the question marks.

Can we help this man DO WHAT?

lol, idiot

Help him preserve another pile of stinking rock?

Ya thats it.

Help him divide the nation yet another way?

It is garbage like you that divides, what Mr. Martin is doing brings a nation together.

Which diocese does that church profess to be?

lol, retard

Of all the places, Dhaka? Bangladesh?

You need to be shot

Of all the places, one of the most godforsaken hostile and rotten lands on this earth? Can we sink lower?

What kind of retarded questions are these you are asking? You make no sense.

Has he not heard of Bangladesh sector in Yerevan?

You make no point here.

What is he trying to do? What esthetic and historical value does that church have? OK, there were some Armenians in Bangladesh sometime ago. So what? There are Armenians in Zimbabwe too.

Right there you have shown how you have no clue about Armenian history in the region and have displayed how ignorant you truly are. Your comparison is just as retarded as your previous staements.

Is it not time to rid ourselves from that centrifugal mode and concentrate on the centripetal?

The only thing we need to rid ourselves of is Armenian garbage like you, assuming you are not a hirya and playing hirya net games.

Is he trying to maintain tha "Little Armenia" in Bangladesh? How many little Armenias can we have? How about a "big Armenia" for a change?

What kind of question is this? What are you doing for our people? You just sit here, feed your face, and type, barup boots, if you have nothing useful to say than keep your filthy mouth shut.

Granted, there are "little China-s and Little Italy-s all over the world, but compare the sizes of those to "big China-s" and "big Italys-s". It is one thing to have a "little Armenia" in Glendale, but when Armenian Glendale becomes bigger than Yerevan???

STOP!!

Ok ya, you just went off here so I will leave you in your corner to keep uttering useless point. Just keep up the medication.

In closing. The hell with all the churches! Let's find another way to promote the nation!

Anyone else reading this garbage?

As a closing sidenote, "a modern-day fedayee" (the self-description of the originator of the topic) would theoretically reside in Armenia and confront the powerful the corrupt and the inept. Of course he would have a life expectancy measured in weeks if not days. Regardless, that is what such a label would require.

I can appreciate what you are saying but, theoretically, is just that, theory. I myself am a practical man and draw my conclusions based on a practical basis. This man to me, is a fedayee. Anything that has to do with the preservation and promotion of our people against the mighty powers that be is a fedayee to me.

And for the record, Mr. Martin has been in numerous fights with the muslim pigs who have played cricket and soccer on our holy cemetery. He has fought them all off, and was willing to fight them all to the death, that to me, is a modern day fedayee.

Now I will check back in a few days to see if anyone is interested in helping Mr. Martin. I would love to sit here and act tough on the net with the rest of the tits that think that they matter but I need to raise serious capital for Mr. Martin and the church.

After making comments like that what would you expect as a reply? It looks like you are hateful to the Armenian Church out of emtional reasons. I would like to know what is causing such a passionate hate toward your heritage(if you are Armenian).

[Sasun]

I don't think I said anything bad about him.

 

Well it is pretty obvious that this is not true. Didn't you call Jesus and idiot? Bum is not a good word either. Are you lying to yourself or others? It is more than clear that you are hateful to anything and anyone religious/spiritual. Any normal person would not say bad things about Jesus. By calling bad names to Jesus you insult and disrespect all Christians and all Armenians who have Jesus at their heart. Have you no shame left? What kind of a person are you? You are constantly trying to hurt spiritual and religious people, talk against God, talk against Christianity, and preach nonsense.

[Jewish Friend]

The message that going to prayer and being religious in a ritualistic sense..doesn't cut it..that we must get out there and practice what we preach..in instead of going out and negating our prayers...makes Jesus in a historical sense a messenger for all people. Unfortunately 2000 years later..Jews, Christians, and Muslims...people who share much of the Bible in common.do what?..if religious they go through the same ritual after ritual Jesus rebeled against..only to find many of these religious folks STILL do not practice what they pray...Jesus was very historical..and I feel still misunderstood by all faiths to some degree or at least reinvented over and over to suit people's means. Jewish Friend

[Arpa]

Was Jesus a historical figure?

It seems like there really was a Jesus, very little history, more myth. However as our Friend says his message is loud and clear and it is good.

Jesus was reformer, a revolutionary if you will, a Martin Luther of his days. The latter nailed his manifesto at the gate of the temple whereas Jesus trashed the temple to rid it from all the iniquitous. The fact that trashing of the temple happened at that particular festive time was because during those days the place would be teeming with pilgrims and tourists as it would also teem with merchants, money changers, pick pockets, swindlers, clowns and circus acts, card sharks and co artists, snake oil salesmen and other varmints. Are churches and temples any different now?

 

The only difference wether he was the Messiah or not, the Jews rejected him as he did not fit the reincarnation of David hence the tenet of the second coming, the first coming was a disappointment and a dud.

 

As to second comg, I cannot understand why Christians subscribe to it. If the first coming has not accomplished the mission what will the second one do?. Plus if we were to subscribe to the theory of the second coming as depicted it would be the end of everything. What sense does that make?

Duuuuh!!!

 

Oh! OH! I get it!! Duuuh again!!

Thy Kingdom come???!!

I thought "kingdom" was a swear word, specially in America.

You mean we don't like the republic that the US is, we yearn for the old days of King George?

[Hayeforlife]

ADL=antidefemation league try´s to stop the Mel Gibson Movie "The Passion" because they think it´s Antisemitic.

why are the Jewish people so hateful and till this day they ignoring that they have killed Jesus.

[gurgen]

Well let's not act like the Catholic Curch is so very loving.

 

Remember Pius XII doing nothing about Hitler killing Jews in WW II and even cutting a deal with him because 'Jews killed Jesus'? The Nazi's had the full approvement and even some assistance of the Catholic Curch.

 

I can see why Jews are pissed off.

Edited January 30, 2004 by gurgen

[axel]

Remember Pius XII doing nothing about Hitler killing Jews in WW II and even cutting a deal with him because 'Jews killed Jesus'? The Nazi's had the full approvement and even some assistance of the Catholic Curch.

 

where did you get that from?

 

http://armenians.com/forum/index.php?showt...indpost&p=22800

[gurgen]

From 'Hitler's Pope'

 

j/k

 

You mean you disregard all the books which have been written over this subject, just because someone contradicts it? No but seriously, have you read Hitler's Pope? I have. It's not the only book on this subject, while I admit it is a bit of a commercial work.

 

The post you present to me does not mean anything, while over the years so much evidence has been piled up against this man.

 

Again, history repeats itself, when there is another denial of crime. Do you actually believe this 'historian' ?

Do you believe the Turks?

I see a link here, while you maybe don't.

Maybe it's very important for you that this article was written by a Jew, but it isn't for me. He's merely trying to glue Christian-Jewish relations.

[axel]

You mean you disregard all the books which have been written over this subject

 

It seems these "books" you mention disregarded the work of Lapide.

 

In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

 

Yes, I do disregard propaganda and no, not "just because someone contradicts it".