"Although the majority of scholars today believe that a Jesus lived on earth, the reasons for this appear suspicious once you consider the history and evolution of Jesus scholarship. Hundreds of years ago all Biblical scholars believed in God. Considering their Christian beliefs, they would, of course, believe in a historical Jesus. In the last two centuries, the school has loosened up a bit, and today they even allow atheists into their study rooms. But even today you had better allude to a historical Jesus even if you question the reliability of the sources, otherwise, you may not have a job. If, indeed, Bible scholars did allow skeptics of a historical Jesus into their studies, and they presented a convincing case, that could threaten the very branch of Jesus scholarship that studied a historical Jesus. It could very well disappear like that of euhermerism.
"Although some secular freethinkers and atheists accept a historical Jesus (minus the miracles), they, like most Christians, simply accept the traditional view without question. As time goes on, more and more scholars have begun to open the way to a more honest look at the evidence, or should I say, the lack of evidence. So for those who wish to rely on scholarly opinion, I will give a few quotes from Biblical researchers and scholars, past and present:
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"When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up."
-Thomas Paine ("The Age of Reason")
"The world has been for a long time engaged in writing lives of Jesus... The library of such books has grown since then. But when we come to examine them, one startling fact confronts us: all of these books relate to a personage concerning whom there does not exist a single scrap of contemporary information -- not one! By accepted tradition he was born in the reign of Augustus, the great literary age of the nation of which he was a subject. In the Augustan age historians flourished; poets, orators, critics and travelers abounded. Yet not one mentions the name of Jesus Christ, much less any incident in his life."
-Moncure D. Conway [1832 - 1907] ("Modern Thought")
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"It is only in comparatively modern times that the possibility was considered that Jesus does not belong to history at all."
-J.M. Robertson ("Pagan Christs")
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"Many people-- then and now-- have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as "letters of Paul." Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen "Pauline" letters now included in the New Testament. collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus--letters written in a style different from Paul's and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul's own letters. About the authorship of Ephesias, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the 'deutero-Pauline'--literally, secondarily Pauline--letters.'
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, ("Adam, Eve, and the Serpent")
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"We know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, ("The Gnostic Gospels")
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"Some hoped to penetrate the various accounts and to discover the 'historical Jesus'. . . and that sorting out 'authentic] material in the gospels was virtually impossible in the absence of independent evidence."
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University
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"The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second-century guesses, are all four wrong."
-Randel McCraw Helms ("Who Wrote the Gospels?")
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"Far from being an intimate of an intimate of Jesus, Mark wrote at the forth remove from Jesus."
-Randel McCraw Helms ("Who Wrote the Gospels?")
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"Mark himself clearly did not know any eyewitnesses of Jesus."
-Randel McCraw Helms ("Who Wrote the Gospels?")
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"All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.".
-Steve Mason, professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto ("Bible Review,@ Feb. 2000, p. 36)
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"The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel".
-Bishop John Shelby Spong
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"But even if it could be proved that John's Gospel had been the first of the four to be written down, there would still be considerable confusion as to who "John" was. For the various styles of the New Testament texts ascribed to John- The Gospel, the letters, and the Book of Revelations-- are each so different in their style that it is extremely unlikely that they had been written by one person."
-John Romer, archeologist and Bible scholar ("Testament")
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"It was not until the third century that Jesus' cross of execution became a common symbol of the Christian faith."
-John Romer, archeologist and Bible scholar ("Testament")
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"What one believes and what one can demonstrate historically are usually two different things."
-Robert J. Miller, Bible scholar, ("Bible Review," December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p. 9)
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"When it comes to the historical question about the Gospels, I adopt a mediating position-- that is, these are religious records, close to the sources, but they are not in accordance with modern historiographic requirements or professional standards."
-David Noel Freedman, Bible scholar and general editor of the "Anchor Bible" series ("Bible Review," December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p.34)
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"Paul did not write the letters to Timothy to Titus or several others published under his name; and it is unlikely that the apostles Matthew, James, Jude, Peter and John had anything to do with the canonical books ascribed to them."
-Michael D. Coogan, Professor of religious studies at Stonehill College ("Bible Review," June 1994)
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"A generation after Jesus' death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large number of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E."
-Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College ("Bible Review," December 1994, p. 37)
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"James Dunn says that the Sermon on the Mount, mentioned only by Matthew, 'is in fact not historical.'
"How historical can the Gospels be? Are Murphy-O-Conner's speculations concerning Jesus' baptism by John simply wrong-headed? How can we really know if the baptism, or any other event written about in the Gospels, is historical?"
-Daniel P. Sullivan, "Bible Review," June 1996, Vol. XII, Number 3, p. 5)
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"David Friedrich Strauss (The Life of Jesus, 1836), had argued that the Gospels could not be read as straightforward accounts of what Jesus actually did and said; rather, the evangelists and later redactors and commentators, influenced by their religious beliefs, had made use of myths and legends that rendered the gospel narratives, and traditional accounts of Jesus' life, unreliable as sources of historical information.".
-"Bible Review," October 1996, Vol. XII, Number 5, p. 39
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"The Gospel authors were Jews writing within the midrashic tradition and intended their stories to be read as interpretive narratives, not historical accounts."
-Bishop Shelby Spong, "Liberating the Gospels"
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"Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "Who Wrote the Bible?" ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"Yet today, there are few Biblical scholars-- from liberal skeptics to conservative evangelicals- who believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels. Nowhere do the writers of the texts identify themselves by name or claim unambiguously to have known or traveled with Jesus."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"Once written, many experts believe, the Gospels were redacted, or edited, repeatedly as they were copied and circulated among church elders during the last first and early second centuries."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"The tradition attributing the fourth Gospel to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is first noted by Irenaeus in A.D. 180. It is a tradition based largely on what some view as the writer's reference to himself as "the beloved disciple" and "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Current objection to John's authorship are based largely on modern textural analyses that strongly suggest the fourth Gospel was the work of several hands, probably followers of an elderly teacher in Asia Minor named John who claimed as a young man to have been a disciple of Jesus."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Four Gospels," ("U.S. News & World Report," Decmember 10, 1990)
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"Some scholars say so many revisions occurred in the 100 years following Jesus' death that no one can be absolutely sure of the accuracy or authenticity of the Gospels, especially of the words the authors attributed to Jesus himself."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Catholic Papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"Three letters that Paul allegedly wrote to his friends and former co-workers Timothy and Titus are now widely disputed as having come from Paul's hand."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"The Epistle of James is a practical book, light on theology and full of advice on ethical behavior. Even so, its place in the Bible has been challenged repeatedly over the years. It is generally believed to have been written near the end of the first century to Jewish Christians. . . but scholars are unable conclusively to identify the writer.
"Five men named James appear in the New Testament: the brother of Jesus, the son of Zebedee, the son of Alphaeus, "James the younger" and the father of the Apostle Jude.
"Little is known of the last three, and since the son of Zebedee was martyred in A.D. 44, tradition has leaned toward the brother of Jesus. However, the writer never claims to be Jesus' brother. And scholars find the language too erudite for a simple Palestinian. This letter is also disputed on theological grounds. Martin Luther called it "an epistle of straw" that did not belong in the Bible because it seemed to contradict Paul's teachings that salvation comes by faith as a 'gift of God'--not by good works."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Catholic Papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," Dec. 10, 1990)
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"The origins of the three letters of John are also far from certain."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The catholic papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"Christian tradition has held that the Apostle Peter wrote the first [letter], probably in Rome shortly before his martyrdom about A.D. 65. However, some modern scholars cite the epistle's cultivated language and its references to persecutions that did not occur until the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) as evidence that it was actually written by Peter's disciples sometime later.
"Second Peter has suffered even harsher scrutiny. Many scholars consider it the latest of all New Testament books, written around A.D. 125. The letter was never mentioned in second-century writings and was excluded from some church canons into the fifth century. "This letter cannot have been written by Peter," wrote Werner Kummel, a Heidelberg University scholar, in his highly regarded Introduction to the New Testament."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Catholic Papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"The letter of Jude also is considered too late to have been written by the attested author-- "the brother of James" and, thus, of Jesus. The letter, believed written early in the second century."
-Jeffery L. Sheler, "The Catholic Papers," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"According to the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, a faithful account of the actions and words of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the existence in the text of contradictions, improbabilities, things which are materially impossible or statements which run contrary to firmly established reality."
-Maurice Bucaille ("The Bible, the Quran, and Science")
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"The bottom line is we really don't know for sure who wrote the Gospels."
-Jerome Neyrey, of the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. in "The Four Gospels," ("U.S. News & World Report," December 10, 1990)
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"Most scholars have come to acknowledge, was done not by the Apostles but by their anonymous followers (or their followers' followers). Each presented a somewhat different picture of Jesus' life. The earliest appeared to have been written some 40 years after his Crucifixion."
-David Van Biema, "The Gospel Truth?" ("Time," April 8, 1996)
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"So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that 'we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus.'"
-Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926
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"The Synoptic Gospels employ techniques that we today associate with fiction."
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University ("Bible Review," June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
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"Josephus says that he himself witnessed a certain Eleazar casting out demons by a method of exorcism that had been given to Solomon by God himself-- while Vespasian watched! In the same work, Josephus tells the story of a rainmaker, Onias (14.2.1)."
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University ("Bible Review," June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
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"For Mark's gospel to work, for instance, you must believe that Isaiah 40:3 (quoted, in a slightly distorted form, in Mark 1:2-3) correctly predicted that a stranger named John would come out of the desert to prepare the way for Jesus. It will then come as something of a surprise to learn in the first chapter of Luke that John is a near relative, well known to Jesus' family."
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University ("Bible Review," June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
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"The narrative conventions and world outlook of the gospel prohibit our using it as a historical record of that year."
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University ("Bible Review," June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 54)
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"Jesus is a mythical figure in the tradition of pagan mythology and almost nothing in all of ancient literature would lead one to believe otherwise. Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it."
-C. Dennis McKinsey, Bible critic ("The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy")
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"The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They're not biographies."
-Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University (in the PBS documentary, "From Jesus to Christ," aired in 1998)
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts."
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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"We are led to conclude that, in Paul's past, there was no historical Jesus. Rather, the activities of the Son about which God's gospel in scripture told, as interpreted by Paul, had taken place in the spiritual realm and were accessible only through revelation."
-Earl Doherty, "The Jesus Puzzle," p. 83
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"Before the Gospels were adopted as history, no record exists that he was ever in the city of Jerusalem at all-- or anywhere else on earth."
-Earl Doherty, "The Jesus Puzzle," p. 141
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"Even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every "historical Jesus" is a Christ of faith, of somebody's faith. So the "historical Jesus" of modern scholarship is no less a fiction."
-Robert M. Price, "Jesus: Fact or Fiction, A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin," Opening Statement
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"It is important to recognize the obvious: The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last."
-Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute ("Deconstructing Jesus," p. 260)
("Did a Historical Jesus Exist?," by Jim Walker, originated: 12 June 1997/additions: 22 April 2011,
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm)
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2016 07:46PM by steve benson.