Isn't the James Ossuary undeniable physical evidence that Jesus existed?

Actually, the name on the box says Jacob, but everyone (Christians) just say James for some reason.

Talk to any professor of classical history they will probably tell you that Jesus was a real person, most likely an apocalyptic preacher who though the world would end in his follower's lifetimes

Don't be that sort of faggot.
t. Antitheist

...

When a sentence starts by "virtually" you know this is not serious. I'm pretty sure this article provides no more than 10 authors backing this claim, ignoring the thousands other convinced of the contrary (who obviously don't bother to write on the topic).

Because the name that eventually became "James" in English started in Hebrew as "Jacob;" it actually still is in other Germanic languages (at least for the names of saints), we got James from the French. Similarly, "Jesus" was originally "Joshua," and countless other examples of the same thing exist for other historical figures.

Languages change names all the time.

lmao BTFO hardcore

Because James is derived from Jacob ya doofus.
In eastern European countries James the lord's brother is called Jacob

The world's leading authority in New Testament Criticism thinks he existed.

Assblasted atheist detected

Bart Ehrman says he doesn't know of any scholars who doubt Jesus existed.

youtube.com/watch?v=43mDuIN5-ww

He's right at the end, buying into Jesus mythicism does atheists a disservice since it's clearly an ideological stance in opposition to Christianity and not based on the available evidence.

You can always find a handful of people not in agreement with a consensus. "Thousands of others" dont matter in this case unless they are accredited historians or members of a similar field, in which case its their job to write about such topics.

>there is more evidence for the life of Jesus than evidence for most figures of classical antiquity;

there is not one single record of the existence of a Jesus from any contemporary source - hebrew or roman. The first account is fully half a century after his death, and that one's suspected to be a later (4th C) insert into a text.

there is no more evidence from when he was alive than there is for King Arthur.

>there is not one single record of the existence of a Jesus from any contemporary source - hebrew or roman

So insta-self destruct your own credibility.

>the NT itself had tens of thousands of extant copies, Caesar's Gaulic war had something like a dozen
>Nag Hammadi's mention him
>Manichaean drew from texts about Jesus and extended out to China
>Publius Lentullus' letter

>I am too stupid to understand what "Contemporary" means.

oed.com/ Go play here and come back when you are capable of writing correctly.

>didn't check the list
>didn't realize Publius Lentullus was very narrowly contemporary

Like I said. Self destructed credibility.

smugface.jpg

The letter of Lentulus is a 15th century forgery retard. Which makes it over a millenia removed from "contemporary".

Seriously, learn to read.

>The letter of Lentulus is regarded as apocryphal for a number of reasons. No Governor of Jerusalem or Procurator of Judea is known to have been called Lentulus, and a Roman governor would not have addressed the Senate in the way represented. However, the Deeds of the Divine Augustus list a Publius Lentulus as being elected as a Roman Consul during the reign of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). Also, a Roman writer would not have employed the expressions "prophet of truth", "sons of men" or "Jesus Christ". The former two are Hebrew idioms, and the third is taken from the New Testament. The letter, therefore, gives a description of Jesus such as Christian piety conceived him.

or in other words, its a fake.

Bart Ehrman disagrees
>The reason for thinking Jesus existed is because he is abundantly attested in early sources. Early and independent sources indicate that certainly existed. One author that we know about knew Jesus brother, and knew Jesus closest disciple Peter. He's an eye witness to Jesus closest disciple and his brother.

>In "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman recounts becoming a born-again, fundamentalist Christian as a teenager.

I wonder why he might disagree. Could it be that his entire body of work is biased to reaffirm his own belief?

Meanwhile, actual historians who look at it without biases, find... Nothing. because there is no evidence.

>The letter of Lentulus is a 15th century forgery retard.

Evidence for that claim? Oh, I just updated and see you studied wikipedia for this. Excellent sourcing. Let's dive in:

>No Governor of Jerusalem or Procurator of Judea is known to have been called Lentulus

That's not incriminating. The vast majority of Greco-Roman figures are only mentioned by one person or in one writing.

>a Roman governor would not have addressed the Senate in the way represented

This is clearly an assumption based on precedent. Probably Roma boos whining about mos maiorum and extending it as a strict set of rules rather than guidelines.

>However, the Deeds of the Divine Augustus list a Publius Lentulus as being elected as a Roman Consul during the reign of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD)

So either the forger would've known about this and copied the name, it's a random chance of luck, or we have the same guy who lived at about the same time frame that we're looking at, within a couple of years. He'd certainly be alive for Jesus.

>Also, a Roman writer would not have employed the expressions "prophet of truth", "sons of men" or "Jesus Christ".

More assumption based on the precedent of Roman religious dogma. If Lentulus was a believer, and he might have been, then yes he might have.

>The former two are Hebrew idioms,

He was governor of fucking Judaea. No shit he used would've used Hebrew idioms. Honestly at this point you're supplying evidence that Lentulus was real and was in Judea. We already have a correct date lined up to.

> The letter, therefore, gives a description of Jesus such as Christian piety conceived him.

Which means Lentulus was probably Christian, after having personally met Jesus. If you read the letter you'd know he was impressed with him. You probably still don't realize it, but you've just advanced my case for me using information that supports my argument, not yours.

You're the one who is tendering it as proof that it's a contemporary document. YOU prove that it's accurate. Given how there isn't even an original manuscript anymore, I don't know how you'd even begin to do that, but go ahead, prove that it was legitimate.

Ehrman is agnostic you tard. That quote was taken from a "Freedom from Religion" seminar where he gave a talk. Once again your desperation is clearly revealing your ideological bias.

youtube.com/watch?v=BeFdhyuVyzI

>Given how there isn't even an original manuscript anymore

The original. A copy is kept in the archives. Here's the thing, we don't have an original Caesar in Gaul or original NT. We know what the document says, so are you saying that the information you already posted about it can't be trusted either? That's an incredibly weak argument user. We might as well purge history because we don't have just about any extant originally written copies.

so are people finally admitting that Jesus had biological siblings? or are they still holding onto that brotherhood of man nonsense?

>implying Mary was a virgin for ever, which is silly.

>The original.
What original?

>A copy is kept in the archives
Which archives have which copies?

>Here's the thing, we don't have an original Caesar in Gaul or original NT.
Correct, but we also have either fragmentary texts or attributions of the text, people talking about them in texts we DO have. Nothing similar exists for the letter of lentulus; the first mention of it is 15th century.

>so are you saying that the information you already posted about it can't be trusted either?
No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if a document suddenly appears out of nowhere around the 15th century, with no mention of it whatsoever in preceding times even by the most fragmentary of mentions, it's probably actually from the 15th century instead of being locked in someone's basement for millennia and serendipitously discovered, but oh yeah there's no manuscript or anything you can use to reliably date it.

>the information you already posted about it
What "information I already posted about it"? I haven't done anything except decry it as a fraud.

>there is not one single record of the existence of a Jesus from any contemporary source
How to tell if someone knows absolutely nothing about history: the post. There are tons of historical figures that have no contemporary sources written about them, that doesn't mean they didn't exist.
The only reason you're making a fuss about it with this one person is because he's Jesus.

>"oh hey look at this document it says here on pop pedia it's fake using contextual evidence"
>no actually that's actually supporting evidence
>"oh ignore all those arguments then, it's impossible to prove because we don't have the original"
>but we have copies and we know what the original says, you just posted context taken from the document as evidence

????

>Which archives have which copies?
The Vatican Archives user. The people who would keep copies of this.

>the first mention of it is 15th century.
No, the first mention of it is in that wikipedia article when you browsed it. The first actual mention of it is in antiquity, written by a man who was corroborated to hold consulship around the same time, being only a few years off. The Hebrew phrases match up with the location he's said to have been in.

>but we also have either fragmentary texts or attributions of the text

False. There's an entire copy kept by said archives above.

>but oh yeah there's no manuscript or anything you can use to reliably date it.

Doesn't stop Veeky Forums from talking about every other important person who doesn't have an actual manuscript dedicated to them.

>I'm saying that if a document suddenly appears out of nowhere around the 15th century

This meme you literally looked up ten minutes ago is the basis of your entire argument and it's not even uncommon. The Hypatian Codex and the Nag Hammadi's were the same way(well, the NH did have loose references in one other book from antiquity).

>The only reason you're making a fuss about it with this one person is because he's Jesus.

Outstanding post. This is basically it.

>so are people finally admitting that Jesus had biological siblings?
Half brother, of course. James is the son of Joseph and Mary. Jesus was a virgin birth. So James and Jesus are half brothers through Mary.

>Mary

They said she was a virgin. -_-

That's autism adopted by the Catholic Church in the 19th century; tons of Christian religions accept that he had siblings.

>That's autism adopted by the Catholic Church in the 19th century
No, that's common sense. If two men have the same mother but a different father, by definition they are half-brothers.

>Make blatant strawman of argument
>Don't actually provide evidence
>Surprised when your baseless claims that have nothing to do with the argument presented are ignored.

I dind't bring up wikipedia, YOU did. I feel no obligation to defend any of those claims, because I didn't make them.

>The Vatican Archives user. The people who would keep copies of this.
Prove that they have a copy. What is the provenance of this copy?

>No, the first mention of it is in that wikipedia article when you browsed it
I didn't browse wiki, and prove that there is anyone ever making a reference to this letter before the 15th century.

> The first actual mention of it is in antiquity, written by a man who was corroborated to hold consulship around the same time, being only a few years off.
No, the letter CLAIMS to be from a man in antiquity. Nobody has ever talked about the letter (as in the document) before the 15th century.

>The Hebrew phrases match up with the location he's said to have been in.
There are no Hebrew phrases in it. The document such as it is is written in Latin.

>False. There's an entire copy kept by said archives above.
That has nothing to do with what I said you idiot. I'm saying that we can know of texts existing before the oldest surviving manuscripts because we sometimes have fragments or OTHER documents talking about them.

>The Hypatian Codex and the Nag Hammadi's
The former is carbon dated (from the manuscript) and the latter includes manuscripts that are around 3rd-4th century from carbon dating. You'll notice that nothing similar can be done with the Lentulus letter, because the oldest surviving copies are indeed from the 15th century.

Now, are you deliberately and dishonestly making strawmen, or are you literally too stupid to understand what I've been writing? Because your responses have very little to do with the arguments I've made. I'm not going to give you further (you)s until you answer this one.

>The Vatican Archives user.
That's a pretty bold claim, not only because of the complete lack of evidence behind it, but especially considering that the Catholic church regards the letter as a forgery. I'm sure if they had an original manuscript dating to antiquity, they'd have a different position.

But no, like the other user said, it pops up out of nowhere in the 15th century and conveniently happens to reflect a pretty 15th century understanding of history and the early church. There's a reason it's seen as an obvious hoax by every qualified historian that's studied it, as well as the Catholic church.

>in which case its their job to write about such topics
>let's write a book to explain that the Earth isn't flat
I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, serious historians write about serious topics usually.

So all the visible experts say Jesus existed and there is a large majority of unseen, unspoken experts who disagree and consider the matter so trivial they don't bother making their view that Jesus was a myth known?

Interesting. I wonder how far you're willing to go to delude yourself that the mythical jesus is a valid theory, you're going whole hog right now.-

All the "visible experts" say Ayy Lmaos landed in the area 51, notice that almost no one says otherwise, they simply have no time to waste.

>notice that almost no one says otherwise
They do though. Lots of credible experts have debunked it. Not so with Jesus. Funny that.

>faith is belief in the absence of evidence.
Wrong
Hebrews 11:1 KJV Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

>Lots of credible experts have debunked it
I doubt many credible experts risked their credibility to debunk that shit.

Ehrman says Mythicism is about as respected in acedamia as YEC

>I dind't bring up wikipedia, YOU did. I feel no obligation to defend any of those claims, because I didn't make them.

You said it was a fraud. Then you cited wikipedia. Then you said wikipedia, the "evidence" you ripped from it, wasn't valid because nobody could really know what it said. It was obvious you didn't know there was a copy since your wikipedia article only mentioned that the original didn't exist.

>Prove that they have a copy

In other words, unless there's a wikipedia article it didn't happen. I'll tell you what, you can dick around on Vatican archives online(their simple search is very...simple).

>I didn't browse wiki

So you're telling me this:isn't here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Lentulus

That bit about the original copy is even in the article genius. This is what's being argued here.

>There are no Hebrew phrases in it. The document such as it is is written in Latin.

The wikipedia article used earlier is attempting to say that phrases it has are used in Latin but derived from Hebrew. But how could you say that it is entirely written in Latin, if you have no proof of that and are simultaneously arguing there is no definitive proof?

>You'll notice that nothing similar can be done with the Lentulus letter, because the oldest surviving copies are indeed from the 15th century.

Except it can't because the original copy is gone.

>That's a pretty bold claim
In no way shape or form. If they regard it as a forgery, they would still keep it in possession. Are you saying there is nothing questionable in the Vatican archives? There certainly is, but this isn't one of them.

They lose literally nothing by saying jack shit happens at Area 51 you brainlet. It's only trying to prove there is something happening that it becomes questionable.

>In no way shape or form.
Then show us something from the Vatican saying they possess an original copy of the letter, and it clearly originates in antiquity and not the 15th century.

You're claiming the letter is authentic, and one of your arguments is that the original copy is being held in the Vatican archives and is actually much older than its first appearance in the historical record. So far, you haven't done anything to show that you aren't pulling that argument completely out of your ass. At this point, I'm assuming you're either trolling, or you have no idea how a logical argument is constructed, or how historical evidence works.

>be a respectable historian
>take your pen to tell the obvious about a puerile topic
nah
Name these "credible experts" please.

>Caesar's Gaulic war had something like a dozen references to Jesus
Never go full retard user.

>The only reason you're making a fuss about it with this one person is because he's Jesus.
Not that user but seeing as this person has alot of supernatural claims tied to him you really find it weird that some people would want more proof of his existance? Without Jesus there can be no christianity or even islam.

What sort of dingus are you?

We are all the children of god

Jesus, no matter if we believe the claims about him is a person of huge historical impact due to the religions based off of those claims, the same cannot be said about a fucking conspiracy theory.

Brainlet. James is just a Norman form of Jacob.

>believing jews

They are all Jews, user

...

>the NT itself had tens of thousands of extant copies, Caesar's Gaulic war had something like a dozen
That doesn't prove anything. We have more copies of the Iliad than we have of the Gaulic Wars, that doesn't mean that Diomedes actually fought gods.
>Nag Hammadi's mention him
>Manichaean drew from texts about Jesus and extended out to China
Gnostic scriptures aren't exactly unbiased sources.
>Publius Lentullus' letter
This is a fake that first appeared in the 14th century.
Your evidence that "Jesus Christ" as we know him in the Bible existed is laughable. Yes, there was an apocalyptic cult that preached in Judea in the 1st Century. But to assume that the Biblical Jesus existed because we have a lot of copies of the book that the members of this cult wrote about how their God became a man who died for their sins is unsound.

>No shit he used would've used Hebrew idioms.
Are you retarded? A Roman official wouldn't have spoken Hebrew, they would have spoken Greek or possibly Aramaic. There's no reason as to why they would learn a language that was already dying when the majority of the population, or at the very least the people that actually mattered to the Romans, would have spoken Greek.
Also if he was, as you are so desperate to prove, a Christian, he wouldn't have made that obvious to the government that wasn't exactly friendly to trouble making Jewish cults.

>Isn't the James Ossuary undeniable physical evidence that Jesus existed?

Who's Jesus?

What the fuck are you doing on an English imageboard if you can't read English, you fucking retard.

Apparently misreading things you obvious vaginahead.

what about Tacitus?

you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about if you think Ehrman is a fucking christian lmfao

Faith is belief in the absence of proof not belief in the absence of evidence. Stop conflating evidence with proof holy shit.

Tacitus is well known to be unreliable.

>half a century after his death
The oldest parts of Mark are from the 60s AD, that's 30 years after Jesus died, and well within the lifespan of his contemporaries and their immediate followers. What exactly do you want, his birth certificate?

Pontius Pilate was a Roman prefect, and the only thing we have objectively identifying him as a historical figure is one inscription. The Christ Myth theory is pure crankery.

St. Paul documents his struggles with the ideology of the Church led by James the Lesser who is the biological brother of Jesus.

At what point is Jesus invented, exactly?

Jesus and Joseph are pretty common name in this period and area you fucking retard.