> There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure
It's fair to say that there is general consensus amongst Biblical scholars that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Calling it a scientific consensus is a bit of a stretch though. As far as I'm aware there's zero scientific evidence for His existence. Just that the surviving textual evidence makes little sense if He didn't.
I've always heard it as there's enough textual/historical evidence for Jesus (Josephus, etc) that if we didn't count that as proof of his historical existence that would raise the bar high enough to remove hundreds of other historical figures.
He can't have lived in the Roman Empire, because those are words written in English, a language that didn't exist back then.
What's that? You meant, he lived within the bounds of the region that we call one thing, but would have been something else contemporaneously, but both refer to the same geographical location? Great, we agree he lived in Turkey.
One of the more interesting pieces of evidence in the Bible.
The Roman census that required every family go back to their hometown did not happen (why would it?). Romans kept very good records of censuses and such an event would be well covered.
So why does the Bible have this story? The best guess is that Jesus was well known to have come from Nazareth. Yet the older messianic texts say the Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The gospel author undoubtedly was trying to square that circle to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled. Something they'd not need to do if Jesus wasn't real. The author had to explain to people who had grandparents who knew him as being from Nazareth why that still jives with older prophecies.
Before you tie yourself in this knot it might be useful just to look and see if there was a Roman census in that time period:
"When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple"[0]
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
That doesn't describe a census or anything like it. There is absolutely no evidence there was a census covering the Roman empire let alone the whole world (as actually stated in gLuke).
However, there was a census of Judea ordered by Quirinius when Herod Archelaus was kicked out in 6AD. And that makes sense because, prior to that time, Judea was a client state so Rome would not have directly taxed it. Once it became a province, it would be subject to direct taxation and, hence, would have needed a census to determine the taxable population.
So, by far the most likely scenario is that the author of gLuke was referring to this census but got his facts a bit wrong. He made way bigger whoppers than that one.
There's little evidence for a lot of the big claims (such as a global flood). However, there's quite a bit of evidence for people, places, and some of the events.
The bible is a collection of writings by multiple authors over almost a millennium. How accurate it is depends entirely on who is writing about what.
That's not "evidence". The bible mentions Babylon and Babylon existed, but the bible mentioning Babylon is no evidence of Babylon's existence. In this sentence, I'm mentioning the Sun, and it exists, but I provide no evidence whatsoever.
I may have misinterpreted what you are saying. When I read this
> there is no evidence of anything in the Bible
I interpreted it as you saying "Nothing in the bible has corroborating evidence". Not "the bible is not evidence for anything".
The bible mentions the sun and we have corroborating evidence that the sun does indeed exist. The bible's mention of the sun alone isn't evidence for it's existence.
That said, the bible does provide some soft evidence. Like I mentioned, the fact that Jesus probably existed isn't in that the bible says he existed, but rather the fact that the bible makes errors in his history likely to cover up well known facts about him at the time.
An example of 2 figures that likely didn't exist in the bible are Moses and Abraham.
why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe? all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
> why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe?
I don't? I know more about the bible than other writings at the time just because of upbringing/curiosity but I don't particularly hold it in high regard.
> all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.
I agree. How strong the evidence for a writing will is will be based on corroborating evidence and other writings.
Plus what must have been lost in 500 years, all photonegative pictures, fragments, descriptions, recipes, any references for such imagery etc. It is very strange that this is the only image that remained. And an image of a nude Jesus from the back. For which no other instance is known anywhere.
The 14th century theorem has long been debunked, as the Pray-codex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pray_Codex contains strong evidence that the shroud was already known in the 12th century.
The 14th century radio carbon dating is still by far the most accepted dating. Even the wikipedia article you linked describes the Pray-cosex as not being definitive.
IMO a plausible theory here is that imagery of Jesus's death with those "distinctive features" was already popular at the time and both artifacts are representative of that imagery.
The best explanation to what the codex depicts, is the shroud. Which could be a copy of an older shroud e.g., but the C14 dating has its flaws (burnt material etc.).
The Pray codex is listed under “fringe theories” in the Wikipedia Shroud entry. That certainly make it wrong, but it does make it a little more suspect than the c14 dating criticism. The c14 contamination arguments seem more than adequately addressed in the entire last 3rd of the article.
Yes, the wikipedia article makes an argumentation error. Even if the Pray Codex doesn't show the shroud, it contains a very unique depiction of a nude Jesus. So the painter of the codex with high probability have seen the exact same picture as what is on the Shroud now. This doesn't prove that the shroud is earlier than the Pray codex, but this is something an unbiased scientist have to try to answer. I find it very annoying that all these very scientific-looking articles never try to explain how the hell is it possible that the Pray codex contains a depiction of the dead Jesus in a way, of which the first known depiction is from a century later in a photonegative form. Not to mention the other ridiculous arguments, that the shroud is one from the enormous amount of medieval forgeries. Where are all the other photonegative shrouds and pictures. I personally don't think that a supernatural creator omniscient etc god would create a photo of his resurrecting son, but I am really annoyed by all that bad science around the shroud. Ok, the C14 is real, because they told so (yeah, science never tries to find contradicting evidence, never challenges previous knowledge or belief...) but then you could still use Occam's razor to find simple explanations for like the Pray Codex depiction. At least please try to explain, why the drawing there is so different to all other drawings of Jesus in that era.
'Cause A caused both B and C? If you see the codex and the shroud contain the "same" information, doesn't it seem reasonably likely they got it from the same place? And people weren't bad at copying back then, so the "same place" could really be all over.
I don't think you can "debunk" something merely with strong evidence.
Besides that, I wasn't aware of this codex, so I'm glad you shared it. Has anyone suggested that (assuming there is a relationship) the arrow of causality might go the other way? That perhaps this image was a reference for the shroud itself?
The C14 dating is one evidence, and there are plenty of contradicting evidence for the 14th century dating. But my main point is that there is at least doubt for the 14th date, and any proper scientific approach should at least mention the codex.
I have many accounts with the same user names, and they don't get overwritten. There might be some design flaw somewhere, but it's surely not what the article states, ie. that you cannot have the same username on different sites.
Same. I mean I don’t doubt some bug exists, but I use it on iOS, almost always with QR codes and the same email address with no issues. I quite like the product. I switched from Google and it’s been much better.
I am sure whatever is going on, it’s a bug and not a feature.
All the cancers were diagnosed between 2000-2019 and they didn't check the incidence by year but by birth date of victims. So the testing should not affect, unless diagnostic procedures are 2 times more effective in young people.
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