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| Did a historical Jesus exist?
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Amazingly, the question of an actual historical Jesus rarely confronts the religious believer. The power of faith has so forcefully driven the minds of most believers, and even apologetic scholars, that the question of reliable evidence gets obscured by tradition, religious subterfuge, and outrageous claims. The following gives a brief outlook about the claims of a historical Jesus and why the evidence the Christians present us cannot serve as justification for reliable evidence for a historical Jesus.
ALL CLAIMS OF JESUS DERIVE FROM HEARSAY ACCOUNTS
No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a
singlecontemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well afterthe life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts.
Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness’ own knowledge.
Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay does not provide good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.
If you do not understand this, imagine yourself confronted with a charge for a crime which you know you did not commit. You feel confident that no one can prove guilt because you
knowthat there exists no evidence whatsoever for the charge against you. Now imagine that you stand present in a court of law that allows hearsay as evidence. When the prosecution presents its case, everyone who takes the stand against you claims that you committed the crime, not as a witness themselves, but solely because they claim other people said so. None of these otherpeople, mind you, ever show up in court, nor can anyone find them.
Hearsay does not work as evidence because we have no way of knowing whether the person lied, or simply based his or her information on wrongful belief or bias. We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.
Authors of ancient history today, of course, can only write from indirect observation in a time far removed from their aim. But a valid historian’s own writing gets cited with sources that trace to the subject themselves, or to eyewitnesses and artifacts. For example, a historian today who writes about the life of George Washington, of course, can not serve as an eyewitness, but he can provide citations to documents which give personal or eyewitness accounts. None of the historians about Jesus give reliable sources to eyewitnesses, therefore all we have remains as hearsay.
THE BIBLE GOSPELS
The most “authoritative” accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels existed by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, “like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man’s estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures– the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see
Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost.” [Romer]
Elaine Pagels writes: “Although the gospels of the New Testament– like those discovered at Nag Hammadi– are
attributedto Jesus’ followers, no one knows who actually wrote any of them.” [Pagels, 1995]
Not only do we not know who wrote them, consider that none of the Gospels existed during the alleged life of Jesus, nor do the unknown authors make the claim to have met an earthly Jesus. Add to this that none of the original gospel manuscripts exist; we only have copies of copies.
The consensus of many biblical historians put the dating of the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, at sometime after 70 C.E., and the last Gospel, John after 90 C.E. [Pagels, 1995; Helms]. This would make it some 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus that we have any Gospel writings that mention him! Elaine Pagels writes that “the first Christian gospel was probably written during the last year of the war, or the year it ended. Where it was written and by whom we do not know; the work is anonymous, although tradition attributes it to Mark…” [Pagels, 1995]
The traditional Church has portrayed the authors as the apostles Mark, Luke, Matthew, & John, but scholars know from critical textural research that there simply occurs no evidence that the gospel authors could have served as the apostles described in the Gospel stories. Yet even today, we hear priests and ministers describing these authors as the actual disciples of Christ. Many Bibles still continue to label the stories as “The Gospel according to St. Matthew,” “St. Mark,” “St. Luke,” St. John.” No apostle would have announced his own sainthood
beforethe Church’s establishment of sainthood. But one need not refer to scholars to determine the lack of evidence for authorship. As an experiment, imagine the Gospels without their titles. See if you can find out from the texts who wrote them; try to find their names.
Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them, consider the low life expectancy of humans in the first century. According to the religious scholar, J.D. Crossan, “the life expectancy of Jewish males in the Jewish state was then twenty-nine years.” [Crossan] Some people think this age appears deceptive because of the high infant mortally rates at birth. However, at birth the inhabitants of the Roman Empire had an even lower life expectancy of around twenty-five years. [
[source]] According to Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the early third century C.E., the average life expectancy at birth came even lower to around twenty-one. [Potter] Of course these ages represent averages and some people lived after the age of 30, but how many? According to the historian Richard Carrier: “We have reason to believe that only 4% of the population at any given time was over 50 years old; over age 70, less than 2%. And that is under normal circumstances. But the Gospels were written after two very devastating abnormal events: the Jewish War and the Neronian Persecution, both of which would have, combined, greatly reduced the life expectancy of exactly those people who were eye-witnesses to the teachings of Jesus. And it just so happens that these sorts of people are curiously missing from the historical record precisely when the Gospels began to be circulated.” [Carrier] Even if they lived to those unlikely ages, consider the mental and physical toll (especially during the 1st century) which would have likely reduced their memory and capability to write. Moreover, those small percentages of people who lived past 50 years were usually wealthy people (aristocrats, politicians, land and slave owners, etc.). However, the Gospels suggest that the followers of Jesus lived poorly, and this would further reduce the chances for a long life span. Although the New Testament does not provide the ages of the disciples, most Christians think their ages came to around 20-30 years old. Jesus’ birth would have to have occurred before Herod’s death at 4 B.C.E. So if Jesus’ birth occurred in the year 4 B.C.E., that would put the age of the disciples, at the time of the writing of the first gospel, at around age 60-70 and the last gospel at around age 90-100! Based on just life expectancies alone, that would make the probability unlikely they lived during the writing of the first gospel, and extremely unlikely any of them lived during the writing of the last gospel (and I have used only the most conservative numbers).
The gospel of Mark describes the first written Bible gospel. And although Mark appears deceptively after the Matthew gospel, the gospel of Mark got written at least a generation
beforeMatthew. From its own words, we can deduce that the author of Mark had neither heard Jesus nor served as his personal follower. Whoever wrote the gospel, he simply accepted the mythology of Jesus without question and wrote a crude an ungrammatical account of the popular story at the time. Any careful reading of the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) will reveal that Mark served as the common element between Matthew and Luke and gave the main source for both of them. Of Mark’s 666* verses, some 600 appear in Matthew, some 300 in Luke. According to Randel Helms, the author of Mark, stands at least at a third remove from Jesus and more likely at the fourth remove. [Helms]
* Most Bibles show 678 verses for Mark, not 666, but many Biblical scholars think the last 12 verses came later from interpolation. The earliest manuscripts and other ancient sources do not have Mark 16: 9-20. Moreover the text style does not match and the transition between verse 8 and 9 appears awkward. Even some of today’s Bibles such as the NIV exclude the last 12 verses.
The author of Matthew had obviously gotten his information from Mark’s gospel and used them for his own needs. He fashioned his narrative to appeal to Jewish tradition and Scripture. He improved the grammar of Mark’s Gospel, corrected what he felt theologically important, and heightened the miracles and magic.
The author of Luke admits himself as an interpreter of earlier material and not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4). Many scholars think the author of Luke lived as a gentile, or at the very least, a Hellenized Jew. Many modern scholars think that the Gospel of Matthew and Luke came from the Mark gospel and a hypothetical document called “Q” (German
Quelle, which means “source”). [Helms; Wilson] . However, since we have no manuscript from Q, no one could possibly determine its author or where or how he got his information or the date of its authorship. Again we get faced with unreliable methodology and obscure sources.
John, the last appearing Bible Gospel, presents us with long theological discourses from Jesus and could not possibly have come as literal words from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Moreover the unknown author(s) of this gospel wrote it in Greek near the end of the first century, and according to Bishop Shelby Spong, the book “carried within it a very obvious reference to the death of John Zebedee (John 21:23).” [Spong]
Please understand that the stories themselves cannot serve as examples of eyewitness accounts since they came as products of the minds of the unknown authors, and not from the characters themselves. The Gospels describe narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person, not in the third person. Moreover, many of the passages attributed to Jesus could only have come from the invention of its authors. For example, many of the statements of Jesus claim to have come from him while allegedly alone. If so, who heard him? It becomes even more marked when the evangelists report about what Jesus thought. To whom did Jesus confide his thoughts? Clearly, the Gospels employ techniques that fictional writers use. In any case the Gospels can only serve, at best, as hearsay, and at worst, as fictional, mythological, or falsified stories.
OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS
Even in antiquity people like Origen and Eusebius raised doubts about the authenticity of other books in the New Testament such as Hebrews, James, John 2 & 3, Peter 2, Jude, and Revelation. Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of James calling it worthless and an “epistle of straw” and questioned Jude, Hebrews and the Apocalypse in Revelation. Nevertheless, all New Testament writings came well after the alleged death of Jesus from unknown authors (with the possible exception of Paul, although still after the alleged death).
Epistles of Paul:Paul’s biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote someof them himself. Of the thirteen epistles, bible scholars think he wrote only eight of them, and even here, there occurs interpolations. Not a single instance in any of Paul’s writings claims that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does Paul give any reference to Jesus’ life on earth (except for a few well known interpolations). Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.
Epistle of James:Although the epistle identifies a James as the letter writer, but which James? Many claim him as the gospel disciple but the gospels mention several different James. Which one? Or maybe this James has nothing to do with any of the gospel James. Perhaps this writer comes from any one of innumerable James outside the gospels. James served as a common name in the first centuries and we simply have no way to tell who this James refers to. More to the point, the Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account. [1]
Epistles of John:The epistles of John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation appear so different in style and content that they could hardly have the same author. Some suggest that these writings of John come from the work of a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed a “John” or they came from the work of church fathers who aimed to further the interests of the Church. Or they could have simply come from people also named John (a very common name). No one knows. Also note that nowhere in the body of the three epistles of “John” does it mention a John. In any case, the epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay accounts. [2]
Epistles of Peter:Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright forgery (for some examples, see the introduction to 2 Peter in the full edition of The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985). The unknown authors of the epistles of Peter wrote long after the life of the alleged Peter. Moreover, Peter lived (if he ever lived at all) as an ignorant and illiterate peasant (even Acts 4:13 attests to this). In short, no one has any way of determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an author claiming himself to know what Peter said (hearsay), or from someone trying to further the aims of the Church. Encyclopedias usually describe a tradition that Saint Peter wrote them. However, whenever you see the word “tradition” it refers to a belief passed down within a society. In other words: hearsay. [3], [4]
Epistle of Jude:Even early Christians argued about its authenticity. It quotes an apocryphal book called Enoch as if it represented authorized Scripture. Biblical scholars do not think it possible for the alleged disciple Jude to have written it because whoever wrote it had to have written it during a period when the churches had long existed. Like the other alleged disciples, Jude would have lived as an illiterate peasant and unable to write (much less in Greek) but the author of Jude wrote in fluent high quality Greek.
Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no other stretched claims or eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus and needs no mention of them here for this deliberation.
As for the existence of original New Testament documents, none exist. No book of the New Testament survives in the original autograph copy. What we have then come from copies, and copies of copies, of questionable originals (if the stories came piecemeal over time, as it appears it has, then there may never have existed an original). The earliest copies we have came more than a century later than the autographs, and these exist on fragments of papyrus. [Pritchard; Graham] According to Hugh Schonfield, “It would be impossible to find any manuscript of the New Testament older than the late third century, and we actually have copies from the fourth and fifth. [Schonfield]
LYING FOR THE CHURCH
The editing and formation of the Bible came from members of the early Christian Church. Since the fathers of the Church possessed the scriptoria and determined what would appear in the Bible, there occurred plenty of opportunity and motive to change, modify, or create texts that might bolster the position of the Church or the members of the Church themselves.
The orthodox Church also fought against competing Christian cults. Irenaeus, who determined the inclusion of the four (now canonical) gospels, wrote his infamous book, “Against the Heresies.” According to Romer, “Irenaeus’ great book not only became the yardstick of major heresies and their refutations, the starting-point of later inquisitions, but simply by saying what Christianity was
notit also, in a curious inverted way, became a definition of the orthodox faith.” [Romer] If a Jesus did exist, perhaps eyewitness writings got burnt along with them because of their heretical nature. We will never know.
In attempting to salvage the Bible the respected revisionist and scholar, Bruce Metzger has written extensively on the problems of the New Testament. In his book, “The Text of the New Testament– Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Metzger addresses: Errors arising from faulty eyesight; Errors arising from faulty hearing; Errors of the mind; Errors of judgment; Clearing up historical and geographical difficulties; and Alterations made because of doctrinal considerations. [Metzger]
The Church had such power over people, that to question the Church could result in death. Regardless of what the Church claimed, most people simply believed what their priests told them.
In
[letter LII To Nepotian], Jerome writes about his teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus when he asked him to explain a phrase in Luke, Nazianzus evaded his request by saying “I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, every one will put you down for a fool.” Jerome responds with, “There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation.”
In the 5th century, John Chrysostom in his “
[Treatise on the Priesthood, Book 1],” wrote, “And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived.”
Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century wrote in his
[Spiritual Exercises]: “To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it”
[Martin Luther]opined: “What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.”
With such admission to accepting lies, the burning of heretical texts, Bible errors and alterations, how could any honest scholar take any book from the New Testament as absolute, much less using extraneous texts that support a Church’s intransigent and biased position, as reliable evidence?
GNOSTIC GOSPELS
In 1945, an Arab made an archeological discovery in Upper Egypt of several ancient papyrus books. They have since referred to it as The
Nag Hammaditexts. They contained fifty-two heretical books written in Coptic script which include gospels of Thomas, Philip, James, John, Thomas, and many others. Archeologists have dated them at around 350-400 C.E. They represent copies from previous copies. None of the original texts exist and scholars argue about a possible date of the originals. Some of them think that they can hardly have dates later than 120-150 C.E. Others have put it closer to 140 C.E. [Pagels, 1979]
Other Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Judas, found near the Egyptian site of the Nag Hammadi texts, shows a diverse pattern of story telling, always a mark of myth. The Judas gospel tells of Judas Iscariot as Jesus’ most loyal disciple, just opposite that of the canonical gospel stories. Note that the text does
notclaim that Judas Iscariot wrote it. The Judas gospel, a copy written in Coptic, dates to around the third-to fourth-century. The original Greek version probably dates to between 130 and 170 C.E., around the same time as the Nag Hammadi texts. Irenaeus first mentions this gospel in Adversus Haereses(Against Heresies) written around 180 C.E., so we know that this represented a heretical gospel.
Since these Gnostic texts could only have its unknown authors writing well after the alleged life of Jesus, they cannot serve as historical evidence of Jesus anymore than the canonical versions. Again, we only have “heretical” hearsay.
NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES
Virtually all other claims of Jesus come from sources outside of Christian writings. Devastating to the claims of Christians, however, comes from the fact that all of these accounts come from authors who lived
afterthe alleged life of Jesus. Since they did not live during the time of the hypothetical Jesus, none of their accounts serve as eyewitness evidence.
Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus’ short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus’ birth in 37 C.E. (well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus), puts him out of range of an eyewitness account. Moreover, he wrote Antiquitiesin 93 C.E., afterthe first gospels got written! Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.
Pliny the Younger(born: 62 C.E.) His letter about the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian believers themselves. Regardless, his birth date puts him out of range as an eyewitness account.
Tacitus, the Roman historian’s birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a “Christus” in his Annals(Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus’ mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened afterthe alleged Jesus and wrote the Annalsduring the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.
Suetonius, a Roman historian, born in 69 C.E., mentions a “Chrestus,” a common name. Apologists assume that “Chrestus” means “Christ” (a disputable claim). But even if Seutonius had meant “Christ,” it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus. Just like all the others, Suetonius’ birth occurred well after the purported Jesus. Again, only hearsay.
Talmud:Amazingly some Christians use brief portions of the Talmud, (a collection of Jewish civil a religious law, including commentaries on the Torah), as evidence for Jesus. They claim that [Yeshu]in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Yeshu, according to scholars depicts a disciple of Jehoshua Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus or it may refer to Yeshu ben Pandera, a teacher of the 2nd centuy CE. Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud didn’t come into existence until the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the 3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged crucifixion. At best it can only serve as a controversial Christian or Jewish legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.
Christian apologists mostly use the above sources for their “evidence” of Jesus because they believe they represent the best outside sources. All other sources (Christian and non-Christian) come from even less reliable sources, some of which include: Mara Bar-Serapion (circa 73 C.E.), Ignatius (50 – 98? C.E.), Polycarp (69 – 155 C.E.), Clement of Rome (? – circa 160 C.E.), Justin Martyr (100 – 165 C.E.), Lucian (circa 125 – 180 C.E.), Tertullian (160 – ? C.E.), Clement of Alexandria (? – 215 C.E.), Origen (185 – 232 C.E.), Hippolytus (? – 236 C.E.), and Cyprian (? – 254 C.E.). As you can see, all these people lived well after the alleged death of Jesus. Not one of them provides an eyewitness account, all of them simply spout hearsay.
As you can see, apologist Christians embarrass themselves when they unwittingly or deceptively violate the rules of historiography by using after-the-event writings as evidence for the event itself. Not one of these writers gives a source or backs up his claims with evidential material about Jesus. Although we can provide numerous reasons why the Christian and non-Christian sources prove spurious, and argue endlessly about them, we can cut to the chase by simply determining the dates of the documents and the birth dates of the authors. It doesn’t matter what these people wrote about Jesus, an author who writes
afterthe alleged happening and gives no detectable sources for his material can only give example of hearsay. All of these anachronistic writings about Jesus could easily have come from the beliefs and stories from Christian believers themselves. And as we know from myth, superstition, and faith, beliefs do not require facts or evidence for their propagation and circulation. Thus we have only beliefsabout Jesus’ existence, and nothing more.
FAKES, FRAUDS, AND FICTIONS
Because the religious mind relies on belief and faith, the religious person can inherit a dependence on
anyinformation that supports a belief and that includes fraudulent stories, rumors, unreliable data, and fictions, without the need to check sources, or to investigate the reliability of the information. Although hundreds of fraudulent claims exist for the artifacts of Jesus, I will present only three examples which seem to have a life of their own and have spread through the religious community and especially on internet discussion groups.
The Shroud of Turin
Many faithful people believe the shroud represents the actual burial cloth of Jesus where they claim the image on the cloth represents an actual ‘photographic’ image left behind by the crucified body.
The first mention of the shroud comes from a treatise (written or dictated) by Geoffroi de Charny in 1356 and who claims to have owned the cloth (see
). Later, in the 16th century, it suddenly appeared in a cathedral in Turin, Italy. (Note that thousands of claimed Jesus relics appeared in cathedrals throughout Europe, including the wood from the cross, chalices, blood of Jesus, etc. These artifacts proved popular and served as a prosperous commercial device which filled the money coffers of the churches.) [See [The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi De Charny] [The Family Jewels]for some examples.]
Sadly, many people of faith believe that there actually exists scientific evidence to support their beliefs in the shroud’s authenticity. Considering how the Shroud’s apologists use the words, “science,” “fact,” and “authentic,” without actual scientific justification, and even include pseudo-scientists (without mentioning the ‘pseudo’) to testify to their conclusions, it should not come to any surprise why a faithful person would not question their information or their motives. Television specials have also appeared that purport the authenticity of the shroud. Science, however, does not operate though television specials who have a commercial interest and have no qualms about deceiving the public.
Experts around the world consider the 14-foot-long linen sheet, which has remained in a cathedral in Turin since 1578, a forgery because of carbon-dating tests performed in 1988. Three different independent radiocarbon dating laboratories in Zurich, Oxford and the University of Arizona yielded a date range of 1260-1390 C.E. (consistent with the time period of Charny’s claimed ownership). Joe Zias of Hebrew University of Jerusalem calls the shroud indisputably a fake. “Not only is it a forgery, but it’s a bad forgery.” The shroud actually depicts a man whose front measures 2 inches taller than his back and whose elongated hands and arms would indicate that he had the affliction of gigantism if he actually lived. (Also read Joe Nickell’s,
) [Inquest On The Shroud Of Turin: Latest Scientific Findings]
Walter C. McCrone, et al, (see
) discovered red ochre (a pigment found in earth and widely used in Italy during the Middle Ages) on the cloth which formed the body image and vermilion paint, made from mercuric sulphide, used to represent blood. The actual scientific findings reveal the shroud as a 14th century painting, not a two-thousand year-old cloth with Christ’s image. Revealingly, no Biblical scholar or scientist (with any credibility), cites the shroud of Turin as evidence for a historical Jesus. [Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin]
The Burial box of James
Even many credible theologians bought this fraud, hook-line-and-sinker. The Nov./Dec. 2002, issue of
Biblical Archaeology Reviewmagazine announced a “world exclusive!” article about evidence of Jesus written in stone, claiming that they found the actual ossuary of “James, Brother of Jesus” in Jerusalem. This story exploded on the news and appeared widely on television and newspapers around the world.
Interestingly, they announced the find as the “earliest historical reference of Jesus yet found.” Since they claimed the inscribing on the box occurred around 70 C.E., that agrees with everything claimed by this thesis (that no contemporary evidence exists for Jesus). Even if the box script proved authentic, it would not provide evidence for Jesus simply because no one knew who wrote the script or why. It would only show the first indirect mention of a Jesus and it could not serve as contemporary evidence simply because it didn’t come into existence until long after the alleged death of Jesus.
The claim for authenticity of the burial box of James, however, proved particularly embarrassing for the Biblical Archaeology Review and for those who believed them without question. Just a few months later, archaeologists determined the inscription as a forgery (and an obvious one at that) and they found the perpetrator and had him arrested (see
[‘Jesus box’ exposed as fake]and [A fake? James Ossuary dealer arrested, suspected of forgery]).
Regrettably, the news about the fraud never matched the euphoria of the numerous stories of the find and many people today still believe the story as true.
Letters of Pontius Pilate
This would appear hilarious if not for the tragic results that can occur from believing in fiction: many faithful (especially on the internet) have a strong belief that Pontius Pilate actually wrote letters to Seneca in Rome where he mentions Jesus and his reported healing miracles.
Considering the lack of investigational temper of the religious mind, it might prove interesting to the critical reader that the main source for the letters of Pilate come from W. P. Crozier’s 1928 book titled, “
.” The book cites Crozier as the editor as if he represented a scholar who edited Pilate’s letters. Well, from the title, it certainly [Letters of Pontius Pilate: Written During His Governorship of Judea to His Friend Seneca in Rome] seemsto indicate that Pilate wrote some letters doesn’t it? However, unbeknownst or ignored by the uncritical faithful, this book represents Crozier’s first novel, a fictionalized account of what he thought Pilate would have written.
During the first publication, no one believed this novel represented fact and reviews of the day reveal it as a
[work of fiction].
Crozier, a newspaper editor, went to Oxford University and retained an interest in Latin, Greek and the Bible. He wrote this novel as if it represented the actual letters of Pilate. Of course no scholar would cite this as evidence because no letters exist of Pilate to Seneca, and Seneca never mentions Jesus in any of his writings.
The belief in Pilate’s letters represents one of the more amusing fad beliefs in evidential Jesus, however, it also reveals just how myths, fakes, and fictions can leak into religious thought. Hundreds of years from now, Crozier’s fictionalized account may very well end up just as ‘reliable’ as the gospels.
WHAT ABOUT WRITINGS DURING THE LIFE OF JESUS?
What appears most revealing of all, comes not from what people later wrote about Jesus but what people did
notwrite about him. Consider that not a single historian, philosopher, scribe or follower who lived before or during the alleged time of Jesus ever mentions him!
If, indeed, the Gospels portray a historical look at the life of Jesus, then the one feature that stands out prominently within the stories shows that people claimed to know Jesus far and wide, not only by a great multitude of followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod who claims that he had heard “of the fame of Jesus” (Matt 14:1)”. One need only read Matt: 4:25 where it claims that “there followed him [Jesus] great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.
”The gospels mention, countless times, the great multitude that followed Jesus and crowds of people who congregated to hear him. So crowded had some of these gatherings grown, that Luke 12:1 alleges that an “innumerable multitude of people… trode one upon another.” Luke 5:15 says that there grew “a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear…” The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes, including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but helped in his alleged crucifixion. (see Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13). The multitude of people thought of Jesus, not only as a teacher and a miracle healer, but a prophet (see Matt:14:5).
So here we have the gospels portraying Jesus as famous far and wide, a prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people who knew about him, including the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the area, and
not one person records his existence during his lifetime?If the poor, the rich, the rulers, the highest priests, and the scribes knew about Jesus, who would nothave heard of him?
Then we have a particular astronomical event that would have attracted the attention of anyone interested in the “heavens.” According to Luke 23:44-45, there occurred “about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” Yet not a single mention of such a three hour ecliptic event got recorded by anyone, including the astronomers and astrologers, anywhere in the world, including Pliny the Elder and Seneca who both recorded eclipses from other dates. Note also that, for obvious reasons, solar eclipses can’t occur during a full moon (passovers always occur during full moons), Nor does a single contemporary person write about the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 where the earth shook, rocks ripped apart (rent), and graves opened.
Matthew 2 describes Herod and all of Jerusalem as troubled by the worship of the infant Jesus. Herod then had
allof the children of Bethlehem slain. If such extraordinary infanticides of this magnitude had occurred, why didn’t anyone write about it?
Some apologists attempt to dig themselves out of this problem by claiming that there lived no capable historians during that period, or due to the lack of education of the people with a writing capacity, or even sillier, the scarcity of paper gave reason why no one recorded their “savior.” But the area in and surrounding Jerusalem served, in fact, as the center of education and record keeping for the Jewish people. The Romans, of course, also kept many records. Moreover, the gospels mention scribes many times, not only as followers of Jesus but the scribes connected with the high priests. And as for historians, there lived plenty at the time who had the capacity and capability to record, not only insignificant gossip, but significant events, especially from a religious sect who drew so much popular attention through an allegedly famous and infamous Jesus.
Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus whose birth occurred in 20 B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus “the Christ.” Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca’s (4? B.C.E. – 65 C.E.) writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23? – 79 C.E.).
If, indeed, such a well known Jesus existed, as the gospels allege, does any reader here think it reasonable that, at the very least, the fame of Jesus would not have reached the ears of one of these men?
Amazingly, we have not one Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer, even those who lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on the earth, who ever mention him during his supposed life time. This appears quite extraordinary, and you will find few Christian apologists who dare mention this embarrassing fact.
To illustrate this extraordinary absence of Jesus Christ literature, just imagine going through nineteenth century literature looking for an Abraham Lincoln but unable to find a single mention of him in any writing on earth until the 20th century. Yet straight-faced Christian apologists and historians want you to buy a factual Jesus out of a dearth void of evidence, and rely on nothing but hearsay written well after his purported life. Considering that most Christians believe that Jesus lived as God on earth, the Almighty gives an embarrassing example for explaining his existence. You’d think a Creator might at least have the ability to bark up some good solid evidence.
HISTORICAL SCHOLARS
Many problems occur with the reliability of the accounts from ancient historians. Most of them did not provide sources for their claims, as they rarely included bibliographic listings, or supporting claims. They did not have access to modern scholarly techniques, and many times would include hearsay as evidence. No one today would take a modern scholar seriously who used the standards of ancient historians, yet this proves as the
onlykind of source that Christology comes from. Couple this with the fact that many historians believed as Christians themselves, sometimes members of the Church, and you have a built-in prejudice towards supporting a “real” Jesus.
In modern scholarship, even the best historians and Christian apologists play the historian game. They can only use what documents they have available to them. If they only have hearsay accounts then they have to play the cards that history deals them. Many historians feel compelled to use interpolation or guesses from hearsay, and yet this very dubious information sometimes ends up in encyclopedias and history books as fact.
In other words, Biblical scholarship gets forced into a lower standard by the very sources they examine. A renowned Biblical scholar illustrated this clearly in an interview when asked about Biblical interpretation. David Noel Freeman (the General editor of the Anchor Bible Series and many other works) responded with:
“We have to accept somewhat looser standards. In the legal profession, to convict the defendant of a crime, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil cases, a preponderance of the evidence is sufficient. When dealing with the Bible or any ancient source, we have to loosen up a little; otherwise, we can’t really say anything.”
-David Noel Freedman (in Bible Review magazine, Dec. 1993, p.34)
The implications appear obvious. If one wishes to believe in a historical Jesus, he or she must accept this based on loose standards. Couple this with the fact that all of the claims come from hearsay, and we have a foundation made of sand, and a castle of information built of cards.
CITING GEOGRAPHY, AND KNOWN HISTORICAL FIGURES AS “EVIDENCE”
Although the New Testament mentions various cities, geological sites, kings and people that existed or lived during the alleged life of Jesus, these descriptions cannot serve as evidence for the existence of Jesus anymore than works of fiction that include recognizable locations, and make mention of actual people.
Homer’s Odyssey, for example, describes the travels of Odysseus throughout the Greek islands. The epic describes, in detail, many locations that existed in history. But should we take Odysseus, the Greek gods and goddesses, one-eyed giants and monsters as literal fact simply because the story depicts geographic locations accurately? Of course not. The authors of mythical stories, fictions, and novels almost always use familiar landmarks as placements for their stories. The authors of the Greek tragedies not only put their stories in plausible settings as happening in the real world but their supernatural characters took on the desires, flaws and failures of mortal human beings. Consider that fictions such as King Kong, Superman, and Star Trek include recognizable cities, planets, and landmarks, with their protagonists and antagonists miming human emotions.
Likewise, just because the Gospels mention cities and locations in Judea, and known historical people, with Jesus behaving like an actual human being (with the added dimension of supernatural curses, miracles, etc.) but this says nothing about the actuality of the characters portrayed in the stories. However, when a story uses impossible historical locations, or geographical errors, we may question the authority of the claims.
For example, in Matt 4:8, the author describes the devil taking Jesus into an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Since there exists no spot on the spheroid earth to view “all the kingdoms,” we know that the Bible errs here.
John 12:21 says, “The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee. . . .” Bethsaida resided in Gaulonitis (Golan region), east of the Jordan river, not Galilee, which resided west of the river.
John 3:23 says, “John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . .” Critics agree that no such place as Aenon exists near Salim.
No one has evidence for a city
named [Nazareth]at the time of the alleged Jesus. [Gauvin] Nazareth does not appear in the Old Testament, nor does it appear in the volumes of Josephus’s writings (even though he provides a list of the cities of Galilee). Oddly, none of the New Testament epistle writers ever mentions Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth even though most of the epistles appeared beforethe gospels. In fact no one mentions Nazareth until the Gospels, where the first one didn’t come into existence until about 40 years after the hypothetical death of Jesus. Apologists attempt to dismiss this by claiming that Nazareth existed as an insignificant and easily missed village (how would they know?), thus no one recorded it. However, whenever the Gospels speak of Nazareth, they always refer to it as a city, never a village, and a historian of that period would surely have noticed a city. (Note the New Testament uses the terms village, town, and city.) Nor can apologists fall on archeological evidence of preexisting artifacts for the simple reason that many cities get built on ancient sites. If a city named Nazareth existed during the 1st century, then we need at least one contemporary piece of evidence for the name, otherwise we cannot refer to it as historical.
Many more errors and unsupported geographical locations appear in the New Testament. And although one cannot use these as evidence against a historical Jesus, we can certainly question the reliability of the texts. If the scriptures make so many factual errors about geology, science, and contain so many contradictions, falsehoods could occur any in area.
If we have a coupling with historical people and locations, then we should also have some historical reference of a Jesus to these locations and people. But just the opposite proves the case. The Bible depicts Herod, the Ruler of Jewish Palestine under Rome as sending out men to search and kill the infant Jesus, yet nothing in history supports such a story. Pontius Pilate supposedly performed as judge in the trial and execution of Jesus, yet no Roman record mentions such a trial. The gospels portray a multitude of believers throughout the land spreading tales of a teacher, prophet, and healer, yet nobody in Jesus’ life time or several decades after, ever records such a human figure. The lack of a historical Jesus in the known historical record speaks for itself.
COMPARING JESUS TO OTHER HISTORICAL FIGURES
Many Christian apologists attempt to extricate themselves from their lack of evidence by claiming that if we cannot rely on the post chronicle exegesis of Jesus, then we cannot establish a historical foundation for other figures such as Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Napoleon, etc. However, there sits a vast difference between historical figures and Jesus. There occurs either artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have
nothing.
Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind. We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E. For Augustus Caesar, we have the
Res gestae divi augusti, the emperor’s own account of his works and deeds, a letter to his son ( Epistula ad Gaium filium), Virgil’s eyewitness accounts, and much more. Napoleon left behind artifacts, eyewitness accounts and letters. We can establish somehistoricity to these people because we have evidence that occurred duringtheir life times. Yet even with contemporary evidence, historians have become wary of after-the-fact stories of many of these historical people. For example, some of the stories of Alexander’s conquests, or Nero starting the fire in Rome always get questioned or doubted because they contain inconsistencies or come from authors who wrote years after the alleged facts. In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, “Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander’s life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander’s own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia.” [Briant]
Inventing histories out of whole cloth or embellished from a seed of an actual historical event appears common throughout the chronicle of human thought. Robert Price observes, “Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle.” [Price, pp. 260-261]
Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of what they looked like. We have the image of Augustus Caesar cast on denarius coins, busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we have
nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human shape of Jesus. How can we rely on the Gospels as the word of Jesus when no one even describes what he looked like? How odd that none of the disciple characters record what he looked like, yet believers attribute them to know exactly what he said. Indeed, this gives us a clue that Jesus came to the gospel writers and indirect and through myth. Not until hundreds of years after the alleged Jesus did pictures emerge as to what he looked like from cult Christians, and these widely differed from a blond clean shaven, curly haired Apollonian youth (found in the Roman catacombs) to a long-bearded Italian as depicted to this day. This mimics the pattern of Greek mythological figures as their believers constructed various images of what their gods looked like according to their own cultural image.
Historical people leave us with contemporary evidence, but for Jesus we have
nothing. If we wanted to present a fair comparison of the type of information about Jesus to another example of equal historical value, we could do no better than to compare Jesus with the mythical figure of Hercules.
IF JESUS, THEN WHY NOT HERCULES?
If a person accepts hearsay and accounts from believers as historical evidence for Jesus, then shouldn’t they act consistently to other accounts based solely on hearsay and belief?
To take one example, examine the evidence for Hercules of Greek mythology and you will find it parallels the “historicity” of Jesus to such an amazing degree that for Christian apologists to deny Hercules as a historical person belies and contradicts the very same methodology used for a historical Jesus.
Note that Herculean myth resembles Jesus in many areas. The mortal and chaste Alcmene, the mother of Hercules, gave birth to him from a union with God (Zeus). Similar to Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill Hercules. Like Jesus, Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping mankind and performed miraculous deeds. Similar to Jesus who died and rose to heaven, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god. Hercules gives example of perhaps the most popular hero in Ancient Greece and Rome. They believed that he actually lived, told stories about him, worshiped him, and dedicated temples to him.
Likewise the “evidence” of Hercules closely parallels that of Jesus. We have historical people like Hesiod and Plato who mention Hercules in their writings. Similar to the way the gospels tell a narrative story of Jesus, so do we have the epic stories of Homer who depict the life of Hercules. Aesop tells stories and quotes the words of Hercules. Just as we have a brief mention of Jesus by Joesphus in his
Antiquities, Joesphus also mentions Hercules (more times than Jesus), in the very same work(see: 1.15; 8.5.3; 10.11.1). Just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also mention Hercules manytimes in his Annals. And most importantly, just as we have no artifacts, writings or eyewitnesses about Hercules, we also have nothing about Jesus. All information about Hercules and Jesus comes from stories, beliefs, and hearsay. Should we then believe in a historical Hercules, simply because ancient historians mention him and that we have stories and beliefs about him? Of course not, and the same must apply to Jesus if we wish to hold any consistency to historicity.
Some critics doubt that a historicized Jesus could develop from myth because they think there never occurred any precedence for it. We have many examples of myth from history but what about the other way around? This doubt fails in the light of the most obvious example– the Greek mythologies where Greek and Roman writers including Diodorus, Cicero, Livy, etc., assumed that there must have existed a historical root for figures such as Hercules, Theseus, Odysseus, Minos, Dionysus, etc. These writers put their mythological heroes into an invented historical time chart. Herodotus, for example, tried to determine when Hercules lived. As Robert M. Price revealed, “The whole approach earned the name of Euhemerism, from Euhemerus who originated it.” [Price, p. 250] Even today, we see many examples of seedling historicized mythologies: UFO adherents whose beliefs began as a dream of alien bodily invasion, and then expressed as actually having occurred (some of which have formed religious cults); beliefs of urban legends which started as pure fiction or hoaxes; propaganda spread by politicians which stem from fiction but believed by their constituents.
People consider Hercules and other Greek gods as myth because people no longer
believein the Greek and Roman stories. When a civilization dies, so do their gods. Christianity and its church authorities, on the other hand, still hold a powerful influence on governments, institutions, and colleges. Anyone doing research on Jesus, even skeptics, had better allude to his existence or else risk future funding and damage to their reputations or fear embarrassment against their Christian friends. Christianity dependson establishing a historical Jesus and it will defend, at all costs, even the most unreliable sources. The faithful want to believe in Jesus, and belief alone can create intellectual barriers that leak even into atheist and secular thought. We have so many Christian professors, theologians and historical “experts” around the world that tell us we should accept a historical Jesus that if repeated often enough, it tends to convince even the most ardent skeptic. The establishment of history should never reside with the “experts” words alone or simply because a scholar has a reputation as a historian. Historical review has yet to achieve the reliability of scientific investigation, (and in fact, many times ignores it). If a scholar makes a historical claim, his assertion should depend primarily with the evidence itself and not just because he or she says so. Facts do not require belief. And whereas beliefs can live comfortably without evidence at all, facts dependon evidence.
THEN WHY THE MYTH OF JESUS?
Some people actually believe that just because so much voice and ink has spread the word of a character named Jesus throughout history, that this must mean that he actually lived. This argument simply does not hold. The number of people who believe or write about something or the professional degrees they hold say nothing at all about fact. Facts derive out of evidence, not from hearsay, not from hubris scholars, and certainly not from faithful believers. Regardless of the position or admiration held by a scholar, believer, or priest, if he or she cannot support a hypothesis with good evidence, then it can only remain a hypothesis.
While the possibility exists that an actual Jesus lived, a more likely possibility reveals that a mythology could have arrived totally out of earlier mythologies. Although we have no evidence for a historical Jesus, we certainly have many accounts for the mythologies of the Middle East during the first century and before. Many of these stories appear similar to the Christ saviour story.
Just before and during the first century, the Jews had prophesied about an upcoming Messiah based on Jewish scripture. Their beliefs influenced many of their followers. We know that powerful beliefs can create self-fulfilling prophesies, and surely this proved just as true in ancient times. It served as a popular dream expressed in Hebrew Scripture for the promise of an “end-time” with a savior to lead them to the promised land. Indeed, Roman records show executions of several would-be Messiahs, (but not a single record mentions a Jesus). Many ancients believed that there could come a final war against the “Sons of Darkness”– the Romans.
This then could very well have served as the ignition and flame for the future growth of Christianity. We know that the early Christians lived within pagan communities. Jewish scriptural beliefs coupled with the pagan myths of the time give sufficient information about how such a religion could have formed. Many of the Hellenistic and pagan myths parallel so closely to the alleged Jesus that to ignore its similarities means to ignore the mythological beliefs of history. Dozens of similar savior stories propagated the minds of humans long before the alleged life of Jesus. Virtually nothing about Jesus “the Christ” came to the Christians as original or new.
For example, the religion of Zoroaster, founded circa 628-551 B.C.E. in ancient Persia, roused mankind in the need for hating a devil, the belief of a paradise, last judgment and resurrection of the dead. Mithraism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism probably influenced early Christianity. The Magi described in the New Testament appears as Zoroastrian priests. Note the word “paradise” came from the Persian
pairidaeza.
Osiris, Hercules, Hermes, Prometheus, Perseus, Romulus, and others compare to the Christian myth. According to Patrick Campbell of
The Mythical Jesus, all served as pre-Christian sun gods, yet all allegedly had gods for fathers, virgins for mothers; had their births announced by stars; got born on the solstice around December 25th; had tyrants who tried to kill them in their infancy; met violent deaths; rose from the dead; and nearly all got worshiped by “wise men” and had allegedly fasted for forty days. [McKinsey, Chapter 5]
Even Justin Martyr recognized the analogies between Christianity and Paganism. To the Pagans, he wrote: “When we say that the Word, who is first born of God, was produced without sexual union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter (Zeus).” [First Apology, ch. xxi]
Virtually all of the mythical accounts of a savior Jesus have parallels to past pagan mythologies which existed long before Christianity and from the Jewish scriptures that we now call the Old Testament. The accounts of these myths say nothing about historical reality, but they do say a lot about believers, how they believed, and how their beliefs spread.
In the book
, the biblical scholar, Earl Doherty, presents not only a challenge to the existence of an historical Jesus but reveals that early pre-Gospel Christian documents show that the concept of Jesus sprang from non-historical spiritual beliefs of a Christ derived from Jewish scripture and Hellenized myths of savior gods. Nowhere do any of the New Testament epistle writers describe a human Jesus, including Paul. None of the epistles mention a Jesus from Nazareth, an earthly teacher, or as a human miracle worker. Nowhere do we find these writers quoting Jesus. Nowhere do we find them describing any details of Jesus’ life on earth or his followers. Nowhere do we find the epistle writers even using the word “disciple” (they of course use the term “apostle” but the word simply means messenger, as Paul saw himself). Except for a few well known interpolations, Jesus always gets presented as a spiritual being that existed before all time with God, and that knowledge of Christ came directly from God or as a revelation from the word of scripture. Doherty writes, “Christian documents outside the Gospels, even at the end of the first century and beyond, show no evidence that any tradition about an earthly life and ministry of Jesus were in circulation.” [The Jesus Puzzle]
Furthermore, the epistle to the Hebrews (8:4), makes it explicitly clear that the epistle writer did not believe in a historical Jesus: “If He [Jesus] had been on earth, He would not be a priest.”
Did the Christians copy (or steal) the pagan ideas directly into their own faith? Not necessarily. They may have gotten many of their beliefs through
[syncretism]or through independent hero archetype worship, innate to human story telling. If gotten through syncretism, pagans could very well have have influenced the first Christians, especially the ideas of resurrection, beliefs about good and evil, and virgin births. If gotten through independent means, it still says nothing about Christian originality because we know that pagans had beliefs about resurrected gods, long before Christianity existed. The hero archetypes still exist in our story telling today. As one personal example, as a boy I used to read and collect Superman comics. It never occurred to me at the time to see [Superman as a Christ-figure]. Yet, if you analyze Superman and Jesus stories, they have uncanny similarities. In fact the movie [explicitly tells the Superman story through a savior’s point of view without once mentioning Jesus, yet Christians would innately know the connection. Other movies like] Superman Returns Star Wars, Phenomenon, K-PAX, The Matrix, etc. also covertly tell savior stories. So whether the first Christians borrowed or independently came up with a savior story makes no difference whatsoever. The point here only aims to illustrate that Christians did not originate the savior story.
The early historical documents can prove nothing about an actual Jesus but they do show an
evolutionof belief derived from varied and diverse concepts of Christianity, starting from a purely spiritual form of Christ to a human figure who embodied that spirit, as portrayed in the Gospels. The New Testament stories appears as an eclectic hodgepodge of Jewish, Hellenized and pagan stories compiled by pietistic believers to appeal to an audience for their particular religious times.
A NOTE ABOUT DATING:
The A.D. (
Anno Domini, or “year of our Lord”) dating method derived from a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little), in the sixth-century who used it in his Easter tables. Oddly, some people seem to think this has relevance to a historical Jesus. But of course it has nothing at all to do with it. In the time before and during the 6th century, people used various other dating methods. The Romans used A.U.C. ( anno urbis conditae, “year of the founded city,” that being Rome). The Jews had their own dating system. Not until the tenth century did most churches accept the new dating system. The A.D. system simply reset the time of January 1, 754 A.U.C. to January 1, of year one A.D., which Dionysius obliquely derived from the belief of the date of “incarnation” of Jesus. The date, if one uses the Bible as history, can’t possibly hold true. *
Instead of B.C. and A.D., I have used the convention of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) as often used in scholarly literature. They correspond to the same dates as B.C. and A.D., but without alluding to the birth or death of an alleged Christ.
* Dionysius believed that the conception (incarnation) of Jesus occurred on March 25. This meant that the conception must have occurred nine months later on December 25, probably not coincidentally, the very same date that the Emperor Aurelian, in 274 C.E., declared December 25 a holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336 C.E., Christians replaced Mithras with Jesus’ birth on the same date. Dionysius then declared the new year several days later on January 1, probably to coincide with the traditional Roman year starting on January 1st. Dionysius probably never read the gospel account of the birth of Jesus because the Matthew gospel says his birth occurred while Herod served as King. That meant that if he did exist, his birth would have to occur in 4 B.C.E. or earlier. He made another ‘mistake’ by assigning the first year as 1 instead of 0 (everyone’s birthday starts at year 0, not 1). The concept of zero (invented from Arabia and India) didn’t come into Europe until about two hundred years later.
QUOTES FROM A FEW SCHOLARS:
Although apologist scholars believe that an actual Jesus lived on earth, the reasons for this appear obvious considering their Christian beliefs. 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 scholars, past and present:
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second-century guesses, are all four wrong.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
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?)
Mark himself clearly did not know any eyewitnesses of Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
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)
The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.
-Bishop John Shelby Spong
Many modern Biblical archaeologists now believe that the village of Nazareth did not exist at the time of the birth and early life of Jesus. There is simply no evidence for it.
-Alan Albert Snow (The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You To Read)
But even if it could be
provedthat 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 & Bible scholar (Testament)
It was not until the third century that Jesus’ cross of execution became a common symbol of the Christian faith.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
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)
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)
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)
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, Dec. 1994, p. 37)
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)
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
The Gospel authors were Jews writing within the
midrashictradition and intended their stories to be read as interpretive narratives, not historical accounts.
-Bishop Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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)
The origins of the three letters of John are also far from certain.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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)
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, Dec. 10, 1990)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
The gospels are not eyewitness accounts
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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
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
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]
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)
CONCLUSION
Belief cannot produce historical fact, and claims that come from nothing but hearsay do not amount to an honest attempt to get at the facts. Even with eyewitness accounts we must tread carefully. Simply because someone makes a claim, does not mean it represents reality. For example, consider some of the bogus claims that supposedly come from many eyewitness accounts of alien extraterrestrials and their space craft. They not only assert eyewitnesses but present blurry photos to boot! If we can question these accounts, then why should we not question claims that come from hearsay even more? Moreover, consider that the hearsay comes from ancient and unknown people that no longer live.
Unfortunately, belief and faith substitute as knowledge in many people’s minds and nothing, even direct evidence thrust on the feet of their claims, could possibly change their minds. We have many stories, myths and beliefs of a Jesus but if we wish to establish the facts of history, we cannot even begin to put together a knowledgeable account without at least a few reliable eyewitness accounts.
Of course a historical Jesus
mayhave existed, perhaps based loosely on a living human even though his actual history got lost, but this amounts to nothing but speculation. However we dohave an abundance of evidence supporting the mythical evolution of Jesus. Virtually every detail in the gospel stories occurred in pagan and/or Hebrew stories, long before the advent of Christianity. We simply do not have a shred of evidence to determine the historicity of a Jesus “the Christ.” We only have evidence for the beliefof Jesus.
So if you hear anyone who claims to have evidence for a witness of a historical Jesus, simply ask for the author’s birth date. Anyone whose birth occurred
afteran event cannot serve as an eyewitness, nor can their words alone serve as evidence for that event.
Sources(click on a blue highlighted title if you’d like to obtain it or read it):
Briant, Pierre, “
[Alexander the Great: Man of Action Man of Spirit],” Harry N. Abrams, 1996
Carrier, Richard, “
[Reply to McFall on Jesus as a Philosopher (2004)]”
Crossan, J.D., “
[Jesus: a revolutionry biography]”
Doherty, Earl, “
[The Jesus Puzzle],” Canadian Humanist Publications, 1999
Flavius, Josephus (37 or 38-circa 101 C.E.),
Antiquities
Gauvin, Marshall J., “
[Did Jesus Christ Really Live?]” (from: [http://www.infidels.org/])
Gould, Stephen Jay “
[Dinosaur in a Haystack],” (Chapter 2), Harmony Books, New York, 1995
Graham, Henry Grey, Rev., “Where we got the Bible,” B. Heder Book Company, 1960
Helms, Randel McCraw , “
[Who Wrote the Gospels?]“, Millennium Press
Irenaeus of Lyon (140?-202? C.E.),
[Against the Heresies]
McKinsey, C. Dennis “
[The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy],” Prometheus Books, 1995
Metzger, Bruce,”
[The Text of the New Testament– Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration],” Oxford University Press, 1968
Pagels, Elaine, “
[The Gnostic Gospels],” Vintage Books, New York, 1979
Pagels, Elaine, “
[Adam, Eve, and the Serpent],” Vintage Books, New York, 1888
Pagels, Elaine, “
[The Origin of Satan],” Random House, New York, 1995
Potter, David Stone, Mattingly, Dr. David J., “
[Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire]”
Price, Robert M.,”
[Deconstructing Jesus],” Prometheus Books, 2000
Pritchard, John Paul, “A Literary Approach to the New Testament,” Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1972
Robertson, J.M. “
[Pagan Christs],” Barnes & Noble Books, 1966
Romer, John, “
[Testament : The Bible and History],” Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1988
Schonfield, Hugh Joseph, “A History of Biblical Literature,” New American Library, 1962
Spong, Bishop Shelby, “
[Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism],” HarperSanFrancisco, 1991
Tacitus (55?-117? C.E.),
[Annals]
Wilson, Dorothy Frances, “The Gospel Sources, some results of modern scholarship,” London, Student Christian Movement press, 1938
[The Revell Bible Dictionary,]” Wynwood Press, New York, 1990
[King James Bible], 1611
U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990
Various issues of Bible Review magazine, published by the Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington D.C.
Online sources:
[1]
[Epistle of James], from Theopedia
[2]
[Epistles of John], Wikipedia
[3]
[First Epistle of Peter], from Theopedia
[4]
[Second Epistle of Peter], from Theopedia
Source:
[http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm](http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm)

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markdown: Diendanraovataz.net - Diễn đàn rao vặt - Đăng tin mua bán - Quảng cáo miễn phí - Hiệu quả - Nguyên nhân gây ra bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn ở nam giới? Nếu bị bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn thì thực tế đây không phải là chuyện đơn giản, bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn xuất hiện, nếu như không kịp thời chữa trị thì chắc chắn nó sẽ mang đến cho bạn mối nguy hại rất lớn. Nhưng phần lớn người không biết nguyên nhân gây nên chứng bệnh này, bài viết sau là một vài lời chia sẻ của những bác sĩ của phòng khám đa khoa Nhân Ái. Xem thêm về =>> xoắn tinh hoàn Những nguyên nhân dẫn tới viêm mào tinh hoàn. 1.Rất đông người mắc bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn: Lý do là vì chưa có điều trị kịp thời bệnh này, cuối cùng dẫn đến những bệnh như là viêm tuyến tiền liệt, viêm túi tinh, viêm tinh hoàn, viêm bàng quang…, bệnh viêm này thông qua ống dẫn tinh rồi xâm nhập vào tinh hoàn của đàn ông, sau thời gian ủ bệnh khiến cho nam giới mắc bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. 2.Có rất nhiều người không chú ý tới lối sống sinh hoạt của bản thân: Đặc biệt là quan hệ tình dục bừa bãi, thủ dâm, trong lúc quan hệ tình dục thích không cho xuất tinh, gây ra mào tinh hoàn của đàn ông xuất hiện biểu hiện tắc nghẽn. Từ đây gây ra cho đàn ông mắc căn bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. 3.Có rất nhiều thứ không tốt sinh ra bệnh viêm nhiễm của đàn ông: Các bác sĩ chuyên khoa chỉ ra rằng, nguyên nhân của bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn là liên quan tới việc hút thuốc của nam giới, hút thuốc và uống rượu trong thời gian dài, tiêu thụ một số đồ có chất nóng cay, dẫn tới sức đề kháng của nam giới giảm, từ đây gây nên bệnh viêm nhiễm, vì thế dẫn tới đàn ông bị mắc bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. 4.Nhiễm trùng niệu đạo hoặc là viêm tuyến tiền liệt: Đây là nguyên nhân quan trọng tạo ra bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn, khi nam giới đi đái thì nước tiểu sẽ chảy ngược vào bên trong ống dẫn tinh ở nam giới, từ đó gây nên bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. 5.Bệnh nhiễm trùng vi khuẩn: Đây cũng là một trong các tác nhân gây nên bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn, nam giới khi phát hiện mắc phải chứng bệnh này cần phải chữa trị kịp thời, cần tìm bệnh viện chuyên khoa để chữa trị, tránh dùng thuốc không đúng gây nên nhiều biến chứng, khiến cho bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn của đàn ông càng nặng hơn, hoặc là trường hợp nước tiểu chảy ngược vào bên trong gây ra bệnh viêm nhiễm. 6.Nhiễm trùng thứ cấp: Trường hợp này cũng dẫn đến bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn ở nam giới, nếu như nam giới đã bị bệnh viêm tuyến tiền liệt, viêm túi tinh, viêm niệu đạo… thì có khả năng dẫn đến viêm mào tinh hoàn của đàn ông, khi nam giới bị bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn thì có thể gây nhiễm khuẩn ở tuyến bạch huyết. Bên cạnh đó còn có một số nguyên nhân khác gây ra bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn là: Bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn là bệnh nhiễm khuẩn đường tiết niệu lâm sàng phổ biến. bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn bệnh không chỉ gây ra các bệnh viêm nhiễm khác mà nó còn ảnh hưởng tới tuần hoàn máu ở nam giới, từ đây nó dẫn đến mối nguy hiểm sức khỏe cho nam giới. Vì vậy các bác sĩ chuyên khoa khuyên bạn nên hiểu biết về tác nhân gây bệnh, để có cách phòng chống và trị liệu cho tốt. + Nam giới thanh niên trong cuộc sống sinh hoạt hàng ngày thường hay có những hoạt động có động tác mạnh , đạp xe đạp đường dài, cưỡi ngựa, thời gian ngồi lâu ít di chuyển. Dẫn tới vùng chậu của nam giới bị tắc nghẽn tuyến tiền liệt, từ đó dẫn đến bệnh viêm vô trùng, gây ra cho nam giới bị mắc bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. + Do nam giới ít tuổi thiếu kiến thức và hiểu biết về tình dục, trong quan hệ tình dục, quan hệ tình dục thường xuyên, thủ dâm quá độ, kéo dài thời gian không xuất tinh, gián đoạn quan hệ tình dục… các yếu tố khác, dẫn tới nam giới bị mắc bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn. Trên đây là một số nguyên nhân dẫn tới bệnh viêm mào tinh hoàn mà chúng ta nên biết. Trong cuộc sống hằng ngày cũng như bản thân mình, hãy bảo vệ giữ gìn bản thân một cách hợp lý. Phòng tránh những trường hợp nêu trên dẫn tới viêm mào tinh hoàn bạn nhé. Mọi thắc mắc liên quan khác bạn hãy gọi điện tới đường dây nóng 0432 969 666 để được hỗ trợ và tư vẫn miễn phí nhé.

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Adobe AIR cho Android
21.0.0.176
Mở file ứng dụng adobe air trên điện thoại
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Phát hành
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- Lượt tải 2.447
- Sử dụng Miễn phí
- Cập nhật 02/06/2016
- Yêu cầu Android 2.3 and up
## Giới thiệu
**Adobe AIR cho Android - Chạy ứng dụng trên web miễn phí** **Adobe AIR cho Android - Chạy ứng dụng trên web miễn phí** **Tải Adobe AIR cho Android, và cùng thưởng thức những trang web yêu thích hay chơi game ngay trên thiết bị của mình mà không cần phải tải chúng về máy.**
**Adobe Air là gì?** **Adobe Air là gì?**
Adobe Air (Adobe Integrated Runtime) là một sản phẩm của Adobe cho phép bạn chạy các chương trình , ứng dụng trên web với đầy đủ các tính năng và đặc trưng của các ứng dụng desktop truyền thống – Rich Internet applications (RIA) . AIR của Adobe giữ vai trò làm môi trường hoạt động cho các chương trình RIA được xây dựng trong các ứng dụng Adobe Flash, HTML, và AJAX. Sản phẩm AIR bao gồm Safari WebKit browser engine, chức năng cơ sở dữ liệu cục bộ SQLite và các hàm APIs.
## Download Adobe AIR cho Android - Mở file ứng dụng adobe air trên điện thoại
Nhà sản xuất Adobe Systems đã cho ra mắt người dùng trên toàn thế giới ứng dụng Adobe AIR và chỉ trong thời gian ngắn nó đã trở thành ứng dụng được yêu thích nhất trên Google Play, điều gì đã tạo nên sức hút của nó như vậy. Truy cập và sử dụng các ứng dụng, game ngoại tuyến ngay trên thiết bị của mình mà không cần phải tải chúng về máy, bạn tin được không? Ứng dụng Adobe AIR cho phép chạy ngoại tuyến các ứng dụng web, tăng cường hỗ trợ cho nhiều thiết bị lưu trữ, mạng ngang hàng (peer-to-peer) và UDP (User Diagram Protocol). Nó cũng cho phép bạn khám phá trò chơi chất lượng cao mới được phổ biến trên toàn thế giới, và giúp bạn truy cập tất cả các trò chơi được cài đặt trên thiết bị của bạn.
Adobe AIR hiện đang được hàng triệu người dùng trên toàn thế giới yêu thích và sử dụng với những tính năng tuyệt vời của nó, hỗ trợ thêm nhiều tính năng chạy thực, hỗ trợ đồ họa, bitmap độ phân giải cao, library mở rộng nội bộ, chạy thực cố định, ứng dụng camera tiền cảnh… cho phép người sử dụng phát triển các ứng dụng trực tuyến dựa trên các ngôn ngữ như Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax... Đặc biệt ngay cả khi không có kết nối internet thì với chương trình runtime, người dùng vẫn có thể chạy các ứng web.
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Bộ xếp hình
**Lego Technic 42028 - Trench Digger** thuộc chủ đề Lego Technic vô cùng nổi tiếng của [thương hiệu Lego](http://megamart.vn/lego) đến từ Đan Mạch với lịch sự phát triển và thành công hơn 80 năm qua. Đồ chơi Lego hiện nay là thương hiệu đồ chơi số 1 thế giới và ngày càng khẳng định vị thế với những miếng ghép Lego tưởng chừng đơn giản nhưng có thể làm say mê hàng triệu fan hâm mô trên khắp thế giới.
Miếng ghép Lego được làm từ chất liệu nhựa ABS vô cùng an toàn cho sức khỏe trẻ em và được thiết kế ngày càng tinh xảo, hoàn hảo hơn giúp cho người chơi có thể thỏa sức khám phá và lắp ghép ra những mô hình mà mình thích. Bộ
**Lego Technic 42028 - Trench Digger** với 617 miếng ghép dành cho các bé từ 9- 16 tuổi có thể thử sức và cố gắng hoàn thành mục tiêu lắp ráp hoàn chỉnh mô hình chiếc xe máy xúc khá phức tạp này.
Đặc biệt, đây còn bộ ghép hình 2 trong 1 để có thể lắp ghép được 2 mô hình xe khác nhau. Mô hình xe của bộ Lego Technic 42028 có thể di chuyển được cùng bánh xe có xích, phía trên thân xe cũng có thể chuyển động. Bé hãy thử khám phá lắp ghép cả 2 mô hình khác nhau của bộ đồ chơi này xem mô hình nào ấn tượng hơn nhé.
Trong quá trình chơi lắp ghép và xây dựng chiếc xe Trench Digger với 2 kiểu lắp ghép khác nhau, bé sẽ có thể rèn luyện khả năng tư duy thông minh và sáng tạo, cũng như phát huy khả năng tư duy logic và trí tưởng tượng phong phú để có thể hoàn thành bộ lắp ghép này.
Hãy cùng thử nghiệm lắp ráp ngay chiếc xe hạng nặng
[Lego Technic](http://megamart.vn/lego-technic) này với cấu hình vận hành siêu mạnh và có thể di chuyển trên những địa hình gồ ghề.
Ngoài ra bạn cũng có thể có những sự lựa chon khác cho bé như:
Thương hiệu: LEGO
Mã sản phẩm : 42028
Kích thước: 28.2 x 26.2 x 15 cm
Số Mảnh ghép: 617
Độ Tuổi: 9 - 16
Chất liệu: Nhựa ABS
Xuất xứ: Đan Mạch
|KHU VỰC||GIÁ TRỊ ĐƠN HÀNG||CƯỚC PHÍ VẬN CHUYỂN|
|Nội thành Hà Nội||Từ 250.000 VNĐ||Miễn phí|
|Dưới 250.00 VNĐ||20.000 VNĐ|
|Ngoại thành Hà Nội và các tỉnh thành khác||Từ 600.000 VNĐ||Miễn phí|
|Dưới 600.000 VNĐ||40.000 VNĐ|**Đơn nội thành Hà Nội:**
Khi nhận hàng, quý khách hàng cần lưu ý thực hiện:
Nếu không hài lòng với 1 trong 3 điều trên, Khách hàng có thể yêu cầu Nhân viên giao hàng xác nhận và trả lại hàng.
** Đơn ngoại thành Hà Nội và các tỉnh thành khác:** **Lưu ý:** **Lưu ý:**
Đơn hàng sẽ tự động hủy nếu:
Megamart áp dụng 2 hình thức thanh toán bao gồm thanh toán Trả trước và thanh toán Khi nhận hàng (hay còn gọi là thanh toán COD).
Quý khách hàng có thể thanh toán đơn hàng bằng cách chuyển khoản vào 1 trong các tài khoản ngân hàng sau:
Quý khách tiến hành đặt hàng và xác nhận thông tin đơn hàng khi tổng đài viên của Megamart liên hệ. Khi nhận hàng tại nhà hoặc địa điểm nhận hàng theo đơn đặt hàng cung cấp, quý khách sẽ tiến hành kiểm tra hàng hoá đúng với đơn hàng đã đặt. Sau đó tiến hành thanh toán cho nhân viên giao hàng.
Nếu quý khách có bất cứ thắc mắc gì, hãy liên lạc cho Megamart để được giải đáp theo số điện thoại:
Hotline:
**090.452.8848** hoặc **04.6259.3388** hỗ trợ **24/7**
Megamart.vn luôn trân trọng sự tin tưởng của Khách hàng khi đặt mua sản phẩm. Chính sách hậu mãi ở Megamart.vn được xây dựng dựa trên cam kết bảo vệ quyền lợi người tiêu dùng để Quý khách có thể yên tâm mua sắm và trải nghiệm dịch vụ tại Megamart.vn.
Megamart.vn đảm bảo sản phẩm được bán tại Megamart.vn là sản phẩm mới và 100% chính hãng. Trong một số ít trường hợp sản phẩm quý khách nhận được có khiếm khuyết, hư hỏng hoặc không như mô tả, Megamart.vn cam kết bảo vệ khách hàng bằng chính sách đổi trả và bảo hành sau đây:
Trong 90 ngày kể từ khi Megamart.vn giao hàng thành công:
Sau 90 ngày kể từ khi Megamart.vn giao hàng thành công:
**Lưu ý:** Chính sách này áp dụng cho hầu hết các sản phẩm ở Megamart.vn, ngoại trừ đơn hàng có sản phẩm yêu cầu đổi – trả do lỗi ngoại quan nhưng đã có biên bản đồng kiểm giữa bên vận chuyển và khách hàng.
Nếu gặp bất cứ trở ngại nào trong quá trình chuyển sản phẩm đổi trả về Megamart.vn, Quý khách liên hệ với số hotline 04.6259.3388 để được hỗ trợ nhanh chóng.
Megamart.vn chỉ đổi sản phẩm trong trường hợp sản phẩm bị lỗi không phát sinh từ phía khách hàng, cụ thể:
**Trả do nhu cầu khách hàng:**
Trong trường hợp khách hàng trả sản phẩm vì lý do cá nhân, điều kiện để trả và hoàn tiền là:
**Trả do sản phẩm lỗi không phát sinh từ phía khách hàng:**
Lỗi ngoại quan:
Khi sản phẩm có dấu hiệu bị trầy xước, hư hỏng bên ngoài, không như mô tả ban đầu hoặc đơn hàng không đầy đủ sản phẩm,...
Lỗi sản xuất - do Mgamart.vn hoặc nhà sản xuất:
Điều kiện bảo hành sản phẩm
Cách thức tiếp nhận bảo hành

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[Cảnh báo những cách bảo quản và chế biến thịt lợn gây ảnh hưởng sức khỏe](https://meovatdoisong.net/nhung-cach-bao-quan-va-che-bien-thit-lon-gay-anh-huong-suc-khoe/)
Thịt lợn là một trong những thực phẩm phổ biến hàng đầu trong các bữa ăn gia đình Việt. Tuy nhiên, hàng ngày mọi vẫn đang làm những cách bảo quản và chế biến thịt lợn gây ảnh hưởng sức khỏe mà không hề hay biết. Cách bảo quản
Tác giả

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[Cách chữa môi khô, môi nứt nẻ cực kỳ hiệu quả](https://meovatdoisong.net/cach-chua-moi-kho-moi-nut-ne-cuc-ky-hieu-qua/)
Bờ môi mềm gợi cảm không chỉ giúp bạn thêm xinh đẹp, hấp dẫn mà còn giúp bạn tự tin trong giao tiếp, để lại ấn tượng sâu đậm trong mắt mọi người. Sẽ thật là tệ nếu bờ môi của bạn bị khô, thậm chí nứt nẻ, bong
Tác giả