Jenny Hawkins's answer to Do modern historians agree that Jesus existed?

Quora.com ^ | 2019 | Jenny Hawkins ·

[daniel1212]

Posted by permission. I appreciate the substantive content, and the exceptional amount of work in collecting and posting it on Quora (an informative but often mixture of intelligent replies and some vulgar,often atheistic, replies) .

[daniel1212]

https://www.quora.com/profile/Jenny-Hawkins-4

I was an atheist until I became an adult, but I had begun searching for “the truth” about God years before. Eventually God got through to me, shook me to my core, and changed everything. In the process of searching, I studied religion and philosophy and ethics at the college and graduate levels. Today I try to use my powers for good. :-)

I am now a Christian apologist, and like other apologists: “The weapons of warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds… tear down arguments, and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God…” (2 Cor.10)

I am a mother of four, a grandmother of 13 perfect :-) grandchildren, and have a wonderful husband of 48 years. (That’s an old picture of when I was first married. I am sentimental about it).

[jeffc]

Is there as much question to the existence of Muhammed?

[Tell It Right]

SOURCES: Mythicists cite sources they believe should mention Jesus and don’t; the absence of contemporary non-biblical eye-witness accounts; and the limited sources and information about Jesus outside the Bible.

I've never understood their basis for that reasoning. Jesus was a monkey wrench thrown into their Greco-Roman worldview. In fact, early Christians were heavily persecuted. It's unreasonable to expect the people who hated Jesus to write about Him.

That'd be like someone 100 years from now questioning if Nick Saban recently won 6 national championships while coaching at Bama.... because Auburn fans today don't like talking about it. Of course you're not going to see much about Jesus written by the people who openly persecuted the early Christians.

[MotorCityBuck]

“ There is a near universal majority of scholars in many fields—”
That disagree with you.
Fixed it.

[reasonisfaith]

It’s rather silly to question whether Jesus existed.

The serious question is whether he was raised from the dead, which has also been answered by mainstream historians.

Gary Habermas shows how the consensus heavily favors Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead.

[No name given]

Exactly.

[reasonisfaith]

Habermas’ book is The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.

[EnderWiggin1970]

Thanks for sharing this! Now let's get on to the real myths, like the silly notion that America was founded by some guy named "George Washington". Obvious myth. How can anyone believe those ridiculous moralizing stories about the cherry tree, or that exalt him as some sort of "bullet-proof" superhuman? Obvious fabrications of an obviously fictional character designed to provide a founding myth to justify the ruling elites in their oppression of the BIPOC masses. /s

(The point being, using the biased over-skepticism of the mythicists leads to absurd conclusions in any other context.)

[sphinx]

Bookmark

[Tell It Right]

George Washington could have been king, yet chose not to. He was popular enough to be elected as President repeatedly until he died, yet he chose to limit himself to two terms.

You'd be hard pressed to find another country who had a more moral person who served as their first president or first prime minister. IMHO it seems inconsequential to debate whether or not Washington as a boy chopped down a cherry tree.

[Big Red Badger]

Thirteen Apostles...
One died at his own hands.
One died of Old Age.
The Remaining Eleven Died at the Hands of Torture,Crucified or Stoned to Death-—
All Proclaiming Jesus As LORD !
.

[daniel1212]

You fixed nothing. What forum were you looking for?

[daniel1212]

Is there as much question to the existence of Muhammed?

600 years of improved writing materials after Christ, and with a militant warmongering controlled leader means far more is recorded and preserved from day one.

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmark.

[vpintheak]

Amen. And that seals the deal without question for me. Jesus existed, that is beyond doubt. He was raised from the dead, beyond doubt. His disciples went to their deaths under horrific circumstances and refused to give in. No one beyond an insane person would do that, let alone multiple people. the absolutely knew He was real and He was the Truth. It is irrefutable. An honest person who researches it can only come to this conclusion.

[daniel1212]

Thanks for sharing this! Now let's get on to the real myths, like the silly notion that America was founded by some guy named "George Washington". Obvious myth. How can anyone believe those ridiculous moralizing stories about the cherry tree, or that exalt him as some sort of "bullet-proof" superhuman? Obvious fabrications of an obviously fictional character designed to provide a founding myth to justify the ruling elites in their oppression of the BIPOC masses. /s (The point being, using the biased over-skepticism of the mythicists leads to absurd conclusions in any other context.)

I get the point. Relates to the "bronze age God" atheism parrots, which ignores that this is due to the bronze age being when written records of much substance was found, and archaeology only finds a relative smidgen of what is buried, decomposed.

Atheist also parrots the argument that the absence of contemporary (meaning within His brief approx. 33 year life!) non-biblical evidence that Jesus was a real person means he could not have existed, by that measure, neither did Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Spartacus, Pythagoras, Sun Tzu, Leonidas the Spartan, Boudica the Celtic warrior queen, Sargon Of Akkad, Socrates, Archimedes,[1] and maybe even Alexander The Great, and Attila The Hun, and Homer,[2] whom historians overall affirm existed, as they do Jesus of Nazareth. Likewise, requiring writings from the figures themselves negates many.

However, without any actual proof, atheists overall believe that an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for complex life with its profound intricate complexity and extensive diversity, can be all a result of purely natural processes.

Which requires much faith (biblically meaning, confidence based upon a degree of evidential warrant) more so I think, than that the universe logically testifies to design, requiring a First Cause (at the least), that of a being of supreme power and intelligence being behind the existence of energy and organization of matter, and laws regarding the same.

Footnotes

[1]

Archimedes - Wikipedia

[2]

Well-Known Historical Figures Whose Lives Are Surprisingly Poorly Documented

[Big Red Badger]

One Cannot be Honestly searching for the Absolute Truth and Denie JESUS As Lord.
.
Amen

[grey_whiskers]

Hey, nice post, dude.

[x]

Our new God, AI, tells me that there is roughly a 95% possibility that Jesus Christ actually existed.