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Philosophy/religion

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When did Jesus actually die?

425 replies

PoloPrincess · 05/03/2018 17:30

Can someone point me in the right direction?
We know that Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.
Then what happened? When and how did he finally die?

OP posts:
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Jason118 · 07/03/2018 22:34

To go back to the original question, about 2:30pm.

PatriarchyPersonified · 07/03/2018 22:38

Educating

Interesting clip. In which case I refer you to my earlier comment. He is wrong to say that when there is no good evidence to support that position.

On a related note, watch John Lennox's apologetics video on YouTube. It's over an hour of the best theological whack a mole you could ever wish for.

If you ever want to see an unabridged list of all the worst arguments for God, you can't go far wrong by starting there.

daffodildelight · 07/03/2018 22:39

I have to say the lovely atheists on NM do a great job of converting people to Christianity.

OP Christian festivals have been assimilated into local culture so might not be accurate as to when things are celebrated and when they actually occurred.

When the Romans invaded Britain they adapted their own festivals to be celebrated at the times of local British celebrations/festivals.
When the Romans later converted to Christianity they once again adapted their festivals to now celebrate Christian occasions.

Traditionally Jesus' death is remembered on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. From what I understand though he most likely died on a Wednesday and rose on a Sunday.

educatingarti · 07/03/2018 22:39

Op, going back to your original question, I suggest the end of Luke's gospel, followed by the beginning of the book of Acts would be a good place to start reading. They were both written by the same author. The gospel takes things up to just after Jesus' resurrection and the book of Acts describes what happened next. If you don't have a physical Bible to read, you can get Bible gateway online or there are quite a few free Bible apps you can download. I'd recommend a more modern translation for ease of reading such as the NIV.

DioneTheDiabolist · 07/03/2018 22:40

Bellamuerte, I have seen similar to your post used by Moon Landing conspiracy theorists. What usually happens then is that any evidence provided is minimised, dismissed and does nothing to change their mind. I cannot prove the moon landings to anyone but I do believe they happened.

CardinalSin · 07/03/2018 22:40

Dione - I "know the truth" that there is exactly zero contemporary evidence of the existence of the Jesus character. Unless someone is willing to enlighten me otherwise, that is...

PatriarchyPersonified · 07/03/2018 22:55

Dione

You are conflating different meanings of the word 'belief'.

For example I believe there are elephants in Africa. I have never seen them myself but nobody would say that my belief is not reasonable because it is extremely well evidenced and also easily testable. There is plenty of strong evidence that elephants live in Africa in the form of books and films, failing that, we could just go and have a look for ourselves.

Equally I believe we landed on the moon. When I was at university I watched them shine a laser off the retro reflector placed there by the Apollo missions.

Can you see the difference between that and religious 'belief'?

sunshineintheclouds · 07/03/2018 23:05

In the Christian faith;

Jesus is God, God in human form on earth was Jesus.

sunshineintheclouds · 07/03/2018 23:06

To be fair there were many men named jesus during the time mentioned in the Bible it was a really common name

DioneTheDiabolist · 07/03/2018 23:09

Cardinal, no contemporary evidence exists for Alexander the Great. Do you believe he existed?

Patriarchy, what are the different meanings of the word 'belief' that you think I am conflating?

PatriarchyPersonified · 07/03/2018 23:14

Dione

I have just given you two examples of a reasonable belief.

Reasonable belief is backed up by reliable evidence and easily testable.

Unreasonable belief is belief for which there is no good or reliable evidence, or at the very least where the level of certainty displayed by the believer is disproportionate to the validity of any 'evidence' presented.

This can also be referred to as 'faith'.

CardinalSin · 07/03/2018 23:17

I believe Alexander the Great existed, because there is considerably more evidence that suggests that he did, although I wouldn't dispute someone saying that they think that he probably didn't, indeed, it might make an interesting discussion.

And, more importantly, I don't think there are very many people going around repressing other people's rights or killing them in the name of Alexander the Great (similarly Socrates).

CardinalSin · 07/03/2018 23:21

I also wouldn't shout "you're an idiot, there's masses of evidence" without first checking whether or not there was any...

DioneTheDiabolist · 07/03/2018 23:25

What people regard as "reliable evidence" differs from person to person hence the moon landing conspiracy theorist.

CardinalSin · 07/03/2018 23:31

Indeed, hence different opinions.

There aren't, however, different facts...

PatriarchyPersonified · 07/03/2018 23:33

Dione

Your right that different people view what is 'reliable' differently.

Most people wouldn't regard accounts written about someone after they died by people who weren't eye witnesses as particularly reliable. I mean, they wouldn't be allowed in court for example.

But hey, it's your belief, not mine.

DioneTheDiabolist · 07/03/2018 23:38

I believe that that a historic Jesus probably did exist. Just as I believe that a historic Alexander the Great existed. I cannot prove either of these. Does that mean that both are not fact?

Do you believe that AtG existed Patriarchy?

PatriarchyPersonified · 07/03/2018 23:44

Dione

I'm afraid your 'haha gotcha' Alexander the Great line of argument isn't going to get you anywhere.

Try googling the amount of writing about the life of Alexander written while he was alive, by eye witnesses. Then Google the amount of archeological sites and buildings/cities etc that were built or created by Alexander and discussed in writing, at the time, even by his enemies.

Then do the same for Jesus. (Spoiler alert, the Jesus evidence won't take you long at all...)

Yes I do believe Alexander the Great existed.

This thread is getting more 🤦 as the night goes on.

53rdWay · 07/03/2018 23:49

Pretty much everything written about Alexander by “eye witnesses” is gone, Patriarchy. We have surviving texts written later that reference them, but the contemporary accounts themselves are alas lost. I thought that was fairly well-known?

HyenaHappy · 07/03/2018 23:52

Spoiler alert, the Jesus evidence won't take you long at all..

And yet it took an investigative journalist (Lee Strobel) two years of intensive study to reach a conclusion 🤔

Spoiler alert - he went from atheist to Christian as a result of his historical findings.

DioneTheDiabolist · 08/03/2018 00:05

Most people wouldn't regard accounts written about someone after they died by people who weren't eye witnesses as particularly reliable. I mean, they wouldn't be allowed in court for example.
Ditto AtG. But then my threshold of what constitutes evidence is different to what would constitute evidence in a court. Do you seek court worthy evidence before you believe something Patriarchy?

PatriarchyPersonified · 08/03/2018 06:07

Hmmmm.

The fact that Alexander the Great ruled an empire that stretched from Corfu to India and archeological evidence of him can be found literally everywhere within it, to this day.

Contemporary writings about him from the time do exist, and even the main accounts written afterwards all specially reference the same eye witness accounts, and make the same claims, claims which have all been confirmed by examination of physical archeological sites.

You can say the same about Jesus, right?

Hyena

How much of that two years did he spend looking at evidence that isn't in the Bible? Just wondering.

I do expect good evidence before I believe something, particularly something as important as religious faith.

Still no actual evidence of his existence being presented here I notice despite myself and others asking repeatedly.

The fact that all the 'evidence' that's been quoted so far has been tedious appeals to authority, tells you something quite obvious yet depressing about the religious approach to the world.

somewhereovertherain · 08/03/2018 06:17

I do wish they’d just decide he died on the 2nd Sunday in April and leave it at that. All this moon and moving Easter bollocks. Really Fucks with my life.

If in the bullshit story he was born on the 25 way can’t they decide when he died.

53rdWay · 08/03/2018 07:47

Archaeology doesn’t really confirm Alexander’s existence in the way you think it does, Patriarchy. Buildings and cities named after him are not evidence he personally founded them, especially when archaeological dating suggests many of them were later. Suggest you read a little on how fame and biography worked in the ancient world if you think Alexander’s later biographers were setting out dry factual statements.

It’s surprising you don’t know more about the historical evidence for Alexander given your clear interest in provable historicity, because he is always trotted out as an example of how we often don’t have the kind of evidence that a naive approach to history would suggest we do. The point isn’t that Alexander didn’t exist, he almost certainly did; the point is that we typically don’t have the kind of ‘evidence’ we’d expect to have from a 21st-century perspective. So Alexander is a good basic example of how we can use references to eyewitness accounts in later writings, even though those primary texts themselves no longer exist, or how we can use the example of someone from another culture mentioning that “the king died” and know from our more detailed knowledge of that culture that he’s the king they’re referring to.

You can say the same about Jesus, right?

In the sense of main accounts that specifically reference contemporary eyewitness accounts, yes, that would be the synoptic gospels. That is literally how the author of Luke starts, the Greek word used is even typically translated as “eyewitnesses”. In a Biblical scholarship context (I know you think this doesn’t exist either, but bear with me!), the gospels and Acts were written around the time the earliest members of the early church were starting to die off and the community realised they were going to have to start writing stuff down now.

We have about as much evidence of Jesus’s existence as we’d expect to have of an (at the time) fairly minor religious figure in a Roman provincial backwater, which is: not much directly, increasingly more about the movement that started around him in the decades immediately following his death. We have barely any more evidence that Pilate existed (he probably did though).

I really don’t care what you believe, though. I’m not interested in trying to convince you of the historicity of Jesus, it’s no skin off my nose one way or the other. But you’re wrong about some of the factual claims you’re making, and you know substantially less about historical Biblical scholarship than you believe you do.

CardinalSin · 08/03/2018 07:56

53rd - Glad you agree that there is no contemporary evidence for the Jesus figure. That's all I've been trying to get across to those who insist "There’s loads of independent evidence that Jesus lived" and that they've "Studied it fairly in-depth!" Confused

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