Do you think Mary, Joseph and Jesus existed?

[Papergirl1968]

Do you think Mary, Joseph and Jesus existed? I thought about putting this under religion, but thought there’d be a wider range of views on chat.
I’m not religious any more (was raised Methodist) but the Christmas story is something I think about occasionally, usually when I’m singing carols to the cat .
My own view is that they probably did exist, but I don’t buy the son of god thing. I’d hazard a guess that Mary got pregnant by Joseph when they were being intimate, even if they didn’t technically have sex. So she panicked and either invented or dreamed a convenient story about the angel telling her she was carrying the son of god.
I believe there’s evidence that they would have had to travel to Bethlehem - although not at Christmas - and that there was a bright star in the sky etc.
And I think Jesus may well have had children. Or maybe I just took the Da Vinci Code too seriously...
Would be interested to hear what others think.

Maybe Jesus was from our future or an alien and was sent to earth or back in time so knew things that were going to happen and feeding of the 5000 was done with dehydrated fish, so a small fish when hydrated became a huge fish and water into wine was just powder that turned into wine when water was added.

A lot of things make more sense when you look at things and include time travel or aliens

Exactly.... @formerbabe

But then we have world wide self proclaimed mediums and nobody is picking them up! You would think given God is the master of the universe he could find a way round non believers and sent someone else to save the world again at some point. I mean Jesus fed thousands with bread and fish, I can think of many countries with starving children and babies that could benefit from this miracle. Ah well, I guess God needs to protect his image as he couldn't possibly send help if it means people might question his existence

I don’t believe Jesus was the result of an immaculate conception.
I do believe there was a human person called Jesus who was the offspring of a normal couple , Jews called Mary and Joseph. I believe he was a healer
I do believe he was crucified but did not die.
He was healed by his followers and escaped to where it was safe.
There’s evidence to say he was buried in Srinagar India after completing his mission to preach to the lost tribes of Israel..

I can’t do with a lot of the beliefs and the wars fought over religion.

To me religion is based mainly on geography with some influence from your parents.

I don’t believe Jesus was the result of an immaculate conception.
The RC doctrine of immaculate conception is not about Jesus.

Momo
Ahmadhi muslims believe we have had another prophet
Prophet Ahmad
It’s not something that the majority of sunni or shi ite muslims subscribe to, in fact in Pakistan they are often persecuted

The religious leader escaped with his wife and daughters at the time of general Zia and set up a base in London forming the ahmadiyyat community

I wasn’t raised Roman Catholic...despite my father being one...so have no idea

You don't think historians have confirmation bias Dionne?

Anybody who has written anything will have confirmation basis in some form, that includes whoever wrote or interpreted the old texts thousands of years ago.

I prefer to work on logic.

Bechet you can believe whatever you like and so can I.

explodingkitten Fri 30-Nov-18 11:05:32
There are roman documents about Pontius Pilate and Peter and "followers of Jesus" of around that time. It sounds reasonable that he really did exist.

The star above Bethlehem could have been a supernova.

According to the bible sheep herders were sleeping in the field when Jesus was born, you don't do that in winter because it's too cold

I understood Jesus was born in September...at the time of the pomegranate harvest

Sandgrown Fri 30-Nov-18 07:19:05
I have been to Bethlehem and I believe the Christmas story. Bethlehem had a lovely strange aura that was acknowledged by everybody on our trip.

It’s probably on a very powerful earth energy line. Most sacred sites, cathedrals, churches etc are

We have to look to the ancients who were far more in tune to beneficial earth energies than we ever are...and knew where to build to get the best positive impact

I'm an atheist but I'd love to visit that part of the world. It's so fascinating to me. I do wonder given the size of our planet...why it all took place there if indeed it did? It would have meant that this supposed saviour was never known about to most of the people on earth during that time.

Possibly.

But am a non believer

WoundsAllHeals Thu 29-Nov-18 09:04:59
I feel genuinely quite saddened by how blithely people say quite contemptuous things about the central (human) people in my religion on this thread even though it’s to be expected given this is a British forum and the British are notoriously disrespectful to religion.

Guess if I can’t take the heat I should get out of the kitchen.

I feel so well blessed that I’ve had the good luck to have been born in such a wonderful country to wonderful parents where I can think what I like and providing I don’t disrespect others can say what I like..

I’m so pleased I was born to parents who never thrust religion down my throat

They were pretty disgusted that despite my dad being a catholic and mum a Protestant, if they wanted to marry in the Catholic Church they couldn’t have hymns or flowers on account of mums religion.
They married in a beautiful old c of e church with all the trimmings instead.

I was brought up with good values and next to no religion for which I’m truly grateful...unlike my
PoOr husband who was carted off to church every Sunday morning whether he wanted to or not and can’t be doing with it now.

DioneTheDiabolist

"Or maybe she is one of those who distrusts experts, preferring internet confirmation bias to actual research and knowledge"

Oh dear.

You do know that there are quite a lot of experts - a growing number in fact - who disagree strongly with the consenus (which is, in fact, largely driven by theologians and always has been)? This is rarely an interesting topic for actual historians because there's so little information to work with and it's of limited value anyway.

But in any event - this is a discussion thread on a forum. If you are in a position to directly contradict some information that is shared, do so. But if all you can say is "The consensus says X" then all that does is demonstrate that you know little to nothing about the subject so you have no business, really, trying to insult those that do.

I disagree with the consensus position & I feel comfortable doing so because I have read extremely widely on the subject & know what I'm talking about.

I do wonder, though, if you happily accept expert opinions that men can't walk on water, raise dead people, turn water into wine or go for a walk three days after they've died?! I suspect not.

As I have stated previously, the main evidence for Jesus are the gospels, which are known to be unreliable and are anonymous. How much credence can you give to anonymous documents written decades after the event?

According to the bible sheep herders were sleeping in the field when Jesus was born, you don't do that in winter because it's too cold Really???

You don't have to believe or disbelieve that Jesus lived. The historical evidence shows that he did.
Whether he was the son of God is a matter of belief.

The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary. Having been conceived without sin she herself could not sin. It's uncertain territory to put it mildly. Da Vinci's painting of The Virgin and Child with At Anne is thought to depict this.

St Anne

I prefer to work on logic.
Me too! That's why I have more trust in what biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman have to say on the topic rather than Anonymous Poster on Mumsnet says.

I do wonder given the size of our planet...why it all took place there if indeed it did?
Geography formerbabe. Geography is the mother of history, as my old geography teacher used to say.

I'm an atheist.

Jesus existed but was an enigmatic person, the David Blane of his time.

Some really interesting and varied opinions on here.
I’ve been to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem too, but it didn’t convince me that Jesus was god’s son, and I can’t remember feeling any special energy or atmosphere there. It was clearly a very old and historically important site, and therefore interesting, but that was as far as it went for me.

moredoll Please enlighten us with this historical evidence that you obviously possess that no other scholars know. I'm sure that would be worth some kind of award.

Yes, I think it's mostly accepted they did exist, but the religious stuff is open to debate, obviously.

Mary may have been 12, but it was quite normal for girls of that age to be considered fully grown adults ready for marriage and children in those times. Puberty/teen years weren't a thing, once girls started their periods they were married off.

I think she got pregnant outside marriage, perhaps with Joseph, or someone else. The penalty for such a thing would have been death by stoning, hence the quick marriage to Joseph and the 'virgin mother' story.

If Jesus was alive today, he would probably have been a hippy at Glastonbury.

No offence to any religious people of course, this is just my opinion.

@CardinalSin

You could start here. Good luck.

jameskettlewell.com/virgin.html

I am agnostic, but whoever said it would have been too cold for shepherds to sleep in a field...

1. Even Christians accept Jesus was not born in December, it's believed he was actually born around April. The reason Christmas is celebrated in December is because christianity took over a lot of the pagan religions when it came to Britain.... pagans had a winter festival celebrating light with trees etc in December. This was taken over by christianity to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

1. Jesus was supposedly born in the middle east....which has a warm climate, even in winter

1. I doubt the sheperds of the time had much choice in where they slept

Jesus existed but was an enigmatic person, the David Blane of his time.

The word twatdangle springs to mind ....