I am of the minority opinion that Jesus is totally fictitious, as is the entire Gospel. She was written into the Gospels for much the same reason John the Baptist was. Like John, she had her own Gnostic cult following and the Gospel writers had to show that she approved of and followed Jesus-- just like John.
Unlike John, when that was no longer the issue, that is when the Jesus side of the early cult had absorbed the Mary Magdalen followers, her role in the Gospel stories was largely removed, leaving the scant references we see today.
Her role in the approved Gospel stories? She's a disciple. Nothing more or less.
You said "I am of the minority opinion that Jesus is totally fictitious, as is the entire Gospel."
You don't have to be Pat Robertson to believe that Jesus existed. I have absolutely no religious beliefs and I don't believe in the supernatural, but even I believe that Jesus was an actual historical person. Aren't there independent records outside of the bible?
Can't we move this to Politics and Religion?
This is about pussy and dicks
I'm a big time sinner but to me Jesus was God's son.
You can knock him and say whatever you want - but over in the other section.
Thanks
suspect that Jesus was not a historical person, precisely because if the gospel descriptions were fairly accurate (eg in describing that some sort of rebel was released by Pilate to be crucified, and many of the other events) there should have been SOMETHING, some sort of contemporaraneous record or mention by a historian, but as far as I've hear, the ONLY record is in the bible itself, and none of those were contemporary accounts - many were several centuries later.
There's also the fact that a lot of this symbolism ties closely to other earlier religions in adjacent areas, and that christianity never really took off until it was adpted by constantine, who needed it for his own political purposes.
People should not be surprised that the church and state are usually in bed with each other.
I don't say this without having been persuaded: there are no contemporary secular accounts from witnesses of Jesus having lived. Though many would have known of him including most notably people like Philos Judeaus, who was right in Palestine at the purported time Jesus was alive, and whose father was a Judean High Priest; Philos would have been extremely interested and impartial, should have known something; he wrote about every conceivable topic and there's a lot of his work that survives.
Then there is an extremely brief accounts such as Flavius Josephus who mentions Jesus inaptly right in the middle of a narrative, and the short mention transparently and clumsily forged.
Moreover, the early Church under Clement and Eusebius was a censorship and forgery mill, and three of the Church fathers were on record as saying that lying in service of the faith was virtuous.
Philos did notice a mystical cult called the Therapeutae-- who were quite literally Christians without Jesus. They had scriptures, they had bishops, priesthood, laity, nuns, monks and deacons. The problem is they were around at the exact time Jesus was supposed to be on earth, and they were already everywhere in the Roman Empire. So there was a cult in the first century already structured like the Church, with strict obedience to its bishops, where where the Jesus myth could have gestated and evolved.
Moreover, there's no evidence that Nazareth was settled before the second century AD, and other places, like Magdala-- nobody can identify where they were.
Mark's Gospel refers to Jesus as "the Jesus" in every place except in the genealogy account at the very beginning. No other Gospel, which was written later, does this. No coincidence, Jesus means "savior." It indicates that when the earliest Gospel was written, "Jesus" was a title, not a proper name yet.
In his epistles, Paul never quotes, never mentions any of Jesus's teachings. Perhaps because they hadn't been written yet?
I'll stop here, but there is much more I can give you which indicates that Jesus, his Apostles, and their entire story were concocted and evolved over time. There is not even any evidence that Christianity actually started in Palestine. The further you get away from Jesus' life by distance and time, the more details of his life get filled in.
My views have nothing to do with Pat Robertson.
You will find the mention of Jesus as a historical figure in history books written by Flavius Josephus.
His account of Jesus is the only account that can be considered history in the way we understand the word today.
That's what I originally thought. Josephus mentions Jesus in "Antiquities of the Jews." For those who don't know, Josephus was sort of an "Uncle Tom," if you will. He was a Romanized Jew who chronicled the major events of his day, and is probably best know for his account of the events surrounding the First Jewish-Roman War and the subsequent Siege of Mount Masada. Anyone who hasn't heard of these historical events should read a little about them: it's easy to draw some superficial parallels to our modern conflicts in the Middle East. Still, zinaval seems to know what he's talking about; perhaps Jesus was real, and perhaps he wasn't.
Josephus' "Testimonium" st's what's called an "interpolation," a forgery inserted later into Josephus's document "Antiquities" This is indicated in many ways. One thing, it doesn't fit with what is written immediately before an after. It interrupts a story narrative that has nothing to do with the subject. Second, there is a surviving manuscript from an eastern monastery where the Testimonium is missing, and others that have widely different versions the same interpolation dropped elsewhere in the document. There's even a surviving, mutated version of the Testimonium being dropped into Josephus' other work: "The Jewish War."
Then you have the Church Fathers, like Photius and St. John Chrystostum who review Josephus thoroughly without mentioning the Testimonium, and Photius (the Patriarch of Constantinople in the 9th Century) admitting that Josephus doesn't mention Jesus.
Most damning, other Church Fathers directly quote things (about Jesus and about John the Brother of Jesus) from Josephus that aren't currently in it, indicating that they had other, now extinct versions, of Josephus forgeries.
That's just some of the things.
See Frank Zindler's work: "The Jesus the Jews Never Knew," especially the chapter "Faking Flavius."
Remember that you did not know the difference between someone claiming to be an agnostic versus gnostic beliefs... Using Wikipedia again?
I've always known the difference between those, though I remember there was somebody on these boards who got the wrong impression about that. Maybe you're thinking of agnosticism and atheism, which can cross meanings on details.
I use Wikipedia as a fact checker mostly. I'm limited in my studies of scriptures by the fact that I don't know the ancient languages and don't have access to the original writings.
As for hell, I don't anticipate an afterlife. I'm in much the same position as a theist who may guess right on their being a God, but who guesses wrong about which God it is. Woe is he who follows Jehovah when God is actually Allah.
Why posit a distinction?
As for the whole "Was Jesus real, or wasn't he?"
I say, what difference does it make. The reality is that it is a reality today that people believe it and nothing including someone finding a whole box of contemporary newspapers will ever change people's minds.
It brings back to me a much overused but oh so still germaine throw away line from the sixties:
"What is reality?"
It's what ever we want it to be. Same as it ever was.
Luke 10:38 - Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. 40But (D)Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me." 41 But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Mark 16:9 - Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to (A)Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.