Help: Christ Risen?

[Rudy]

Hello everyone, I'm back.

(Just to get this out of the way I'm not trying to convert anyone.)

As some one who has grown up in America I had to deal with this sometime: was Jesus Christ the only son of God, was he resurrected?

I think that the evidence is showing that the claims of Christianity are true about Jesus. I'm really dragging my my feet that Jesus has risen from the dead and it's implications, I'll accept it if I need to, but not yet.

What are some good arguments, websites, or books that some of you know against Christianity's claim?

Thanks for the future help.

[McKitty]

Hello,
In my personal opinion, this is more to take on a symbolic or metaphorical way. I am born in a christian country too, but I feel we take things differently in America and Europe, I found this very interesting

Sorry not to help, but I think nobody can know and still, it's a very good subject to meditate upon

Aum !

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam Rudy: I personally do not believe Christ existed, period. Once I concluded that, any other discussion about it became totally moot. If one didn't exist, then he certainly couldn't have done this or that or the other thing.

At the same time, people are free to believe whatever they want.

Aum Namasivaya

[Aakriti]

Whether the person now known as "Jesus" ever existed as a single human being, or was resurrected after death, are both matters of faith and belief...not evidence, since there is none.

The time that "Jesus" (whoever this was) lived in were incredibly highly politicized times--both internally, within the Jewish people...and also because the Jewish people in that area were subjects of the Roman Empire, and thus, were in constant conflict with the Roman authorities over every possible issue, including, most importantly, whether Jews were obligated to "worship" Roman gods. (To Jews, this was a HUGE issue, of overwhelming importance to them.)

Internally, there were all kinds of sectarian/"political party" differences between different groups of Jews. Not just the Pharisees and Sadducees (and possibly Essenes, though this is a matter of academic dispute at this moment), but of many other Jewish groups/sects/"political parties" as well.

The following is the Jewish understanding about who the person now known as "Jesus" actually was (by contemporary Jewish academic and religious authorities and experts, and based on as much as is known through archaeology, etc.):

During the same general time frame as "Jesus" was supposed to have lived, there were a number of Jewish men/religious figures who were roaming around that part of what is now known as Israel, and all were doing more-or-less the "same thing": redefining what it meant to be a Jew, in ways religious, spiritual, and culturally. (Many Jews had become "Hellenized" Jews--Jews who greatly admired Greek culture, and often spoke, read, and wrote in Greek as fluently as they spoke, read, and wrote in Hebrew and Aramaic. This was considered, by the Jewish "establishment" (as embattled as it was) to be a truly gigantic threat to the Jewish people and to Judaism, so those Jews in high positions, regardless of their Jewish "sect," were paying a great deal of attention to these travelling teachers/"rabbis," because they were considered to be potential threats to Jewish survival.

There are no existing contemporaneous records of "Jesus" ever having lived (and this is true of both Jewish sources, who were very highly literate and kept very good records, and also the Romans, who also were very highly literate and kept very good records).

It is now believed that, with Paul/Saul, and probably several others writing at the same time, that stories about several of these Jewish teachers/"rabbis" were conflated into one story...but it was a story that had details in it that have never made sense to Jews (especially Jews who have extensive knowledge of that particular period of time). The accounts in the so-called New Testament have these errors throughout, and read as if they were written by people with imperfect understanding of Jewish life, or else had no Jewish background whatever.

"Christianity" was invented by Paul (formerly: Saul), and was a great success among all kinds of non-Jewish peoples who were slaves under Roman law, or were unhappy Roman subjects. Many Jews, also, were attracted to this new religion for all kinds of reasons (beginning with: there was no temple hierarchy to have to deal with, and no "class structure" as it had evolved to that point within those Jews living in that land at that time). Christianity was a new beginning, and one that many Roman subjects eagerly accepted.

But there were no accounts of anything "Jesus" ever did until about thirty or so years after his death, and these were not written by either Jews or by Romans. Again: both Jews and Romans were highly literate peoples who kept impeccable records. Had "Jesus" (as we understand "him" today) ever existed, there would have been contemporaneous accounts written down about him. The fact that none exist is important evidence that "Jesus" never existed as a single man, but probably was one of several men who were trying to overturn the existing political (Roman) and religious (Jewish) systems and hierarchies.

That being said, Jesus is central to Christianity, and Christians believe that Jesus did exist, and was executed, and (for traditional Christians) that he did resurrect.

These are religious beliefs which are important to Christians, and must be respected as such.

They just are not based on any actual contemporary evidence at all (Roman, Jewish, Greek, or otherwise), and the accounts written down decades after the death of the man we now know as Jesus contain significant anomalies that cannot be explained away except by religious faith.

[Rudy]

I remember reading that the 1st century Jews were a mostly oral culture (scrolls were scarce) so it was not out of the question that some one could put Jesus's life to memory for those thirty years.

Saying that do I really want to trust someone trying to remember Jesus's life 2,000 years ago, with such a big choice in my life? I don't know.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

To me ( and me only ) Jesus' death was the death of the body, of ignornace , of something that comes and goes. This was the lesson. To show his mastery over this body he said he would rebuild the ~temple~ in 3 days. This ~ temple ~ is what houses the SELF, this is what he did.

Now, here is the point to consider... Jesus never died, so he did not ~rise~ from the dead. The SELF cannot be slain, it is stainless, so says our śāstra-s. What he chose to do is to reconstuct a new house for the SELF to reside in.

May we all come to know the truth that is contained in that ability.

praṇām

[wundermonk]

I'm really dragging my my feet that Jesus has risen from the dead and it's implications, I'll accept it if I need to, but not yet.

The implications are very clear if Jesus Christ is going to rise/or has already risen from the dead.

The end-times are here. Rupture/Armageddon is about to happen. So, be prepared. Also, Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, Mohammedans, Parsis, Sikhs are all going to hell.

Here's my humble suggestion in light of the crisis you are going through.

What if Jesus was not God but human? The Mohammedans certainly seem to believe so. Now, if Mohammedanism is true, Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, Xians, Parsis and Sikhs are all going to hell.

So, there is a lot of confusion. What to do?

Just hedge your bets. Believe in JC but also believe in Mohammed. Believe that JC turned water into wine. Believe that Mohammed split the moon and ascended to heaven on Buraq the flying donkey.

This way, you have a much better chance of avoiding eternal hellfire.

[Ramakrishna]

Namaste Rudy,

To me (and to lots of people) Jesus never existed. He was not a historical figure but rather a figment of people's imaginations that was subsequently forced and ingrained upon much of the world to the point where it is accepted in the mainstream as fact, whereas instead it has no real historical basis at all.

This subject has been discussed on HDF. There was one fairly long thread entirely about the subject, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. This website has a plethora of facts and arguments against the existence of Jesus:http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ (The site layout has changed from the last time I was there, but the link at the top "Complete Article List" should help with navigation)

Also, Aakriti's argument about the lack of written records about Jesus during his supposed lifetime is very valid. Writing was very much in use at the supposed time and places of Jesus' existence. If there really was somebody with thousands of followers who went around performing miracles and healing people, it surely would have been recorded at that time. But it wasn't, since Jesus never existed and was rather an imaginary figure devised by first century Jews as a conglomeration of prior pagan gods for sociopolitical purposes.

I hope your spiritual confusion will dissipate in time.

Jai Sri Ganesh

[anirvan]

Rationalism,cynicism,charvakism are all the play/job of tamas...the evil. This simply makes life meaningless and dry.such is the power of tamas that a tiniest human mind start thinking God as ordinary/inferior.

There is nothing in the universe which is not a miracle,again in the view of cynics,everything seems doom.

Srikrishna had shown viswaroopa to Arjuna in kurukshetra battle field,nobody could see except Arjuna.This is a matter of laughter for rationalist.For him,believing that Lord Rama made a road in sea is like a charas addicted person"s commom sense. Does Bhagbat Gita,Vedas are authentic? or imaginations of some ancient poets.Do we have any written prove of those period. Vrindavan"s most palces were rediscovered by Goswamis of Chaitanya followers,otherwise does vrindavan ever existed.

The eight gains to a yogi...anima,draghima etc...when a yogi ables to flyi in ether,walks on water etc are simply grand-mothers bed stories?

Human brain is too small in simple fact that among billions of galaxies,we are a tiniest subatomic objects on a small bulb called earth.

I want to ask simple question to all...is the infinite states of universe is miracle or simply petty things?

[Maya3]

Jesus could not have risen from the dead. If he was really dead it's impossible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition

It is probably meant as metaphor and meant what Vajvan said.


Maya