The Jesus Myth

[Toz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMo5R5pLPBE

Would this change anyone's views on Christianity? And for the love of (pun unintended) God, please watch the whole damn thing.

[dr2005]

I got about two minutes in and hit my first gripe, so you can probably imagine what my answer to your question is. Blithe misrepresentation of a Biblical quote your entire argument hinges upon is never a good start, especially when it's by way of omitting any kind of context (Matthew 6:34 actually says "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," which in my mind says you should focus on the immediate problems first rather than wistfully dreaming about the future rather than what the late Christopher Hitchens implies). He also doesn't seem to know his ancient history if he thinks Jesus was alive in the Bronze Age, given that ended in around 1300 BCE in that region. He also claims that "no such census ever took place" when there are records of at least 3 in Augustus' reign alone and of a dedicated office within the Senate responsible for such censi, and while he is correct in saying that Quirinius was NOT governor at the time of the most likely one (8 BCE - it is widely accepted that Dionysius Exiguus probably got his numbers wrong), the Greek original version of Luke can also be translated as saying the census took place "before Quirinius was governor of Syria, which is correct. As such, the fabrication argument has a hole below the waterline before we've even got going (or even 4 minutes in, for that matter). His comments about the witnesses to the resurrection, meanwhile, are sexist to the point of being offensive - literacy does not equal intelligence (as a number of public figures make all too clear...), and the slagging off of Dinesh D'Souza in his closing statement is both poor debating etiquette and unnecessary. More worrying for me, however, is that he is perfectly happy to adopt one form of philosophical teaching in spite of claims that its author never existed (claims which personally I am sceptical of but that's another matter), yet in the same breath denounces another on these same grounds. I don't like speaking ill of the dead - for one, it deprives the late Hitchens of the right to reply - but that is a breathtaking inconsistency and combined with a complete lack of intellectual rigour on the other points mentioned above leaves it an unconvincing argument indeed.

So, much as I am prepared to give everyone a chance to air their views and opinions, this does not change my views on Christianity simply because it is as full of holes as Swiss cheese. And yes, I did watch the whole thing and was secretly hoping it would get better as it got further along. Christopher Hitchens was an effective public speaker, but on this occasion he really should have done his prepwork better.

[ALLorNOTHINGforCHRIST]

I did watch the whole thing and no it is NOT made up. Where did he get the idea that the registering never happened? The reason that He(Jesus) is said to be from Nazareth and not Bethlehem is where He was raised. In addition, they HAVE found proof the Excues to say nothing of the Dead Sea documents(fond with a large portion of the book of the Prophet, Isaiah.

As for the women, others saw Him too the Bible says He appeared to many people (over a forty day period to prove He was alive. Consider as well both directly after He rose and once He went to Heaven and the followers were witnessing Peter ECT. They KNEW they were risking their lives. Why would they so boldly say something that could get them killed if it was NOT true? They saw Him.
On a different note C.S. Lewis may well have written and said those things, BUT he went from being such a hard-core atheist to one of the greatest Christian writers of ALL time. C.S. Lewis then clearly after researching more found the story to be true.

[Xujhan]

Toz: Generally speaking, I think that this is not a fruitful direction to take when approaching debates of Christianity. A historicity argument might sway a historian, if the evidence were good, but I don't think it would affect anyone else. The moral and logical arguments against Christianity are so much simpler and so much stronger - not being contingent on small historical points of fact - that I think anyone unconvinced by the latter would be similarly unconvinced by the former.

Or to put more simply: to someone who doesn't need good evidence to support their beliefs, why would relatively obscure evidence cause them to abandon those beliefs?

Originally Posted by ALLorNOTHINGforCHRIST

On a different note C.S. Lewis may well have written and said those things, BUT he went from being such a hard-core atheist to one of the greatest Christian writers of ALL time. C.S. Lewis then clearly after researching more found the story to be true.

Having read Lewis' arguments, this is not really something to advertize in defense of Christianity. Mere Christianity particularly reads like a bad high school philosophy paper.

[Zen Ryochan]

I agree with Xujhan