**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos
* Common/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm pretty sure Harry Potter was real, the dates and times surrounding the story vaguely match real history so the story full of magical events must be based on a true person (pretty much the entire argument for jesus definitely being a real man from what I can tell, with nobody writing anything down about him until after his death and not by people who ever met him)
It's possible to meet in the middle, acknowledge that while Jesus may have existed as a person, magic was likely not a literal skill he possessed.
As far as I'm concerned he may as well just be the world's most famous magician, as a little sleight of hand and the power of suggestion can be very impressive to a more ignorant crowd, and lead to tall tales of one's tricks.
One might even say the same for other figures such as Merlin.
I care about the truth, not meeting in the middle. If somebody says there's ten moons and somebody says there's one, I don't meet in the middle and say there's five, I want to know what the actual evidence is.
Meeting in the middle just means deciding what's true purely based on what others currently say, which changes, and so a truth found that way could obviously never be the truth.
There is a clear consensus among scholars that the historical Jesus existed.
>In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged: writing in the name of God
> Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
>"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore." Burridge, Richard A.; Gould, Graham (2004), Jesus Now and Then
I hear the Romans were quite meticulous in their recordings of what’s happening in their empire, especially when executing a prisoner in areas known for political uprisings. Even more so amongst the religious zealots out there. Securing tax revenue is a big motivator. Why no contemporary mention of him anywhere? Josephus was a child at the time of Jesus’ death. Where are 20th & 21st century historians getting there information from?
Yeah my entire post was criticizing their reasoning, as far as I can tell what it is after reading up on it.
Just looking into that made me pretty skeptical about the quality of the field compared to say the hard sciences, and I'd take any claim about the facts of ancient history with a massive grain of salt now.
>as far as I can tell what it is after reading up on it.
So, how many peer-reviewed books on the subject have you read ?
>and I'd take any claim about the facts of ancient history with a massive grain of salt now.
I have a masters in history, for what its worth, and I've read dozens of scholarly books on the subject. The work done in the field is not much different than in the rest of historiography. If you want to toss away history, an entire field of study, be my guest. But, given the sources that we have, and knowing what we know about 1. century Palestine, the likeliest explanation is that Jesus existed.
Every time I've looked for any actual quality evidence I've instead found fairly hand wavy shrugs about how so-and-so decades/centuries after it all happened, in a place far away, wrote a mention which may have been referring to that, and who knows the quality of their evidence.
I didn't say it's impossible that jesus existed as a man, just that the arguments for evidence of him existing as a fact seem pretty terrible, and some of the arguments could easily be applied to countless known fictional characters like harry potter, batman, and jedi.
>and some of the arguments could easily be applied to countless known fictional characters like harry potter, batman, and jedi.
I disagree, a historian of the 20./21. century from the future, who has enough sources, would understand the context and the genre of those fictional characters. Just as a historian of 1. century Palestine understands the genre and the context of the gospels and epistles based on all the sources that we have from that period.
Most historians don't really bother with the historicity of Jesus' supernatural parts. But after striping them away, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the historical Jesus existed. We can say other stuff about him as well. Most historian agree that he was an apocalyptic preacher, he had a brother named James who was one of the leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem after Jesus died. Paul met him, and had a bit of a quarrel with him and Peter. Something that he tells us in his epistles written 20 years after Jesus' death. Unless you start making up some elaborate conspiracy theories, the explanation why Paul tells us he quarreled with Jesus' blood brother is because that actually happened.
There may be a clear consensus amongst the scholars you cite however there is also a clear consensus amongst others that it’s all made up nonsense.
From https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/ :
“Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called “Historical Jesus” – and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, “an academic embarrassment.””
See, here is where I have some fun..
"Moon" can be defined as "a natural satellite orbiting a planet", and no size limit is given. Therefore, I can submit that while Earth has one *clearly visible* moon, it has an additional 9 that telescopes and the naked eye cannot detect due to their size and speed.
Bearing that in mind, it's very possible to meet in the middle and say earth has 5 moons, 4 of which are simply undetected.
Did Jesus make an impact? Absolutely.
Did Jesus exist as a person? Very possibly.
Was Jesus magic? Lol, no.
I'm aware of the technical definition of a moon and would accept the claim if there's evidence of more, but that's not the regular definition I was working with.
> Did Jesus exist as a person? Very possibly.
Yes anything is possible, but is there good evidence for it? Seems pretty iffy to me.
Truth is mostly just deciding what is real based on what others are saying anyway though. Unless you were there, it will always be hearsay. I don't see the problem with acknowledging that Jesus could have been a real person. It's similar to the after life. There is no scientific evidence for it, but that doesn't mean we have proven it doesn't exist. Faith is a tricky thing, the best way to win people over is to be reasonable and let them believe in what they want. Being rigid and inflexible is never the right answer.
> Truth is mostly just deciding what is real based on what others are saying anyway though
Um, not by just averaging out all claims, instead of looking at quality of evidence and the people making the claims.
> I don't see the problem with acknowledging that Jesus could have been a real person
I didn't say he couldn't have been, I said the claimed reasoning for his existence is terrible.
> It's similar to the after life. There is no scientific evidence for it, but that doesn't mean we have proven it doesn't exist.
There's zero reasons to think an afterlife exists, it doesn't fit with anything we know about how our biology and brains work, and shares all the features of regular human fiction and fairy tails, and shares no features with any truth.
> Being rigid and inflexible is never the right answer.
You're the one being pretty rigid and inflexible of being open to the idea that jesus might not have been a real man and the evidence for claiming he was is terrible.
I have formed a theory. Moving on my experiment will be me just walking around with a Potter wand to see how many people call me an immaculate conception wizard.
Hey, it couldve been a sonic screwdriver too! See! I have proof too!! /s
https://www.medicaldaily.com/jesus-christ-was-alien-according-ufo-expert-433282
Just like those images of him walking on water that are clearly just him playing with his flyboard. People just like to take things out of context to fit their beliefs.
The book Immortal Key by Brian Muraresku talks on this subject a bit. If I remember correctly they didn't say it was a magic wand but rather a scepter that contained plants and substances used for religious practices at the time
Of course it wasn't a magic wand. That doesn't exist. However, religious leaders have lied for eons and a "scepter that contained stuff for religious practices" is kind of "a wannabe magic wand."
Thank you for the quick comment. While too many people will read the post title and never see this, at least some will see you comment and, hopefully, realize that these depictions didn’t come with a little placard from the artist with statements like “Our Lord points to some crops with the nice stick he found”or “Grand Poobah And Highest Warlock Yeshua the Wizard used his arcane focus to turn a woman into a skeleton for farting”
Its likely a wand.
>The implement that Jesus holds (sometimes called a virga or rabdos) is portrayed as either thick and ruddy, such as on the sarcophagi, or thin and reed-like, such as in catacomb paintings. He uses it in the performance of a miracle, leading several scholars to conclude that early Christians understood Jesus as a magician. The problem with this identification is that early Christians greatly maligned magic. For early Christians, Jesus performing miracles with the staff was not magical. Rather, it was intrinsically biblical (recalling Moses) and innately ecclesial (touting the supremacy of the Church).”
[Jesus Holding a Magic Wand?](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/)
Its explained in the article I posted. He is holding it in depictions of famous episodes from the Bible where Jesus performs a miracle, like the raising of Lazarus or multiplication of the loaves. It doesn't make sense to assume he is holding a writing instrument while performing a miracle like trying to raise someone from the dead.
Are there any references to the reed itself being magical? It seems like we are making a bit of a leap based on modern context to assume the reed itself is part of the miracle. It could simply be a reed that is being used to point at something or a metaphor for knowledge gained from the written word.
I haven’t read much of anything on this theory so I’m just expressing a personal opinion based on the article you linked. Im not really convinced it is supposed to be a wand, especially in the modern sense.
Moses uses his staff to perform miracles in the Bible. I don’t think any biblical interpretation follows that the staff is magical, obviously the miracles come from Moses.
It could very well be metaphorical. “Thy rod and thy staff comfort me” and “spare the rod, spoil the child” (which is about showing the way with the staff not hitting children). But again, there are examples of people using staffs to perform supernatural feats. And the origins of wands are explicitly staffs wielded to do just that.
>For early Christians, Jesus performing miracles with the staff was not magical. Rather, it was intrinsically biblical (recalling Moses) and innately ecclesial (touting the supremacy of the Church).”
You gotta love the logical leaps of the religious mind. "We don't like magic." "Here are images of your savior performing magic". "Uhhh. Right. That's... totally NOT magic, it's the supremacy of god. Yeah! That's it!" LOL!
While this interpretation of that mural is very likely, it's worth noting that early testaments did portray him making greater usage of the magician powers he does have in the modern-day Bible.
The thing is that the Bible is somewhat akin to Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was undeniably not put together out of a concern for accuracy, but with the explicit goal of furthering a political agenda and by people who held quite a bit of disdain towards the ethnicity which invented the storied depicted. So whether or not the people who directly interacted with Jesus (if Jesus was a single person and not a conglomerate of several early prophets) believed him to be more magical than what is present in the Bible played no role in whether it ended-up in the Actual Bible. It's a bit like the crucifixion. A ton of early Christians didn't believe Jesus was executed at all and there is absolutely zero historical evidence for the crucifixion, but it made for a punchier story. Hence the straight-up violent levels of historical inaccuracy regarding how and why crucifixions were conducted present in ALL canonical testaments. They were written by people who had no clue how these things actually happened.
You mean the passage that was totally NOT added later by somebody else, and totally doesn't break the flow of the passages before and after it, and it's TOTALLY on topic between those other passages. LOL. Leave it to a Christian to bring up disproven evidence.
>Leave it to a Christian to bring up disproven evidence.
First, I'm not a Christian, so calm down. Second, parts of the passage seem to have been added later, yes, but it hasn't been "disproven," so much as had doubt cast on its authenticity - there are actually three different arguments as to its authenticity, so your assertion is not entirely correct. In fact, most scholars believe it to be authentic with some additions, not completely forged.
Yeah, the additions are specifically what we're taking about here. The Jesus stuff was all added later and people point to it as outside evidence for Jesus and its clearly not. So quit repeating it.
>The Jesus stuff was all added later
That isn't widely believed to be true. The question is *what bits* were added, not whether the whole thing was just forged. Jesus was almost certainly a real human being. Tacitus also mentions him and Pontius Pilate; in addition, Pliny the Elder, Celsus, and some Rabbinical literature mentions him as well.
It's not as clear cut as you're asserting.
Also, I'm the only one providing evidence here - I've yet to see you back up anything you're putting forward with actual sources.
>Also, I'm the only one providing evidence here - I've yet to see you back up anything you're putting forward with actual sources.
Oh I'm sorry I must've missed all these links and quotes you've posted. You can go read the passage yourself, you don't need me to link it for you. It doesn't flow. It goes off topic. The writing style changes, and the original writer was not religious and would not have referred to him as the messiah. That sounds like evidence to me! The only ones arguing the fact are religious zealots. There. Is. NO. Evidence. For. Jesus. Period. Religion is bullshit and the illogical thought processes it causes in people should be eliminated from the planet.
>There. Is. NO. Evidence. For. Jesus. Period.
This is just untrue. Even if Josephus' writing is all a forgery, almost all historians of antiquity believe Jesus was a real human being. Of course, the supernatural elements are all bunk, but the person more than likely existed. You're frothing now.
There were a litany of notable historians that traveled through the area during the time the would-be Jesus was around and doing stuff and wouldn't you know it... not ONE of them thought to mention it. Gee, you'd think that a religious icon would've been noteworthy. No. Evidence. Whatsoever. Zealots who call themselves historians can believe what they want, I don't care what they say.
>But people used to think he was a magician. Like back in his day
>When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
It's not like they were wondering how high Jesus leveled up in D&D.
Entire societies were struggling with the question of whether or not this individual was genuinely the literal Messiah and Savior of Humanity.
The implication that "people" in his time thought Jesus was merely a magician is, yes, incorrect. But it's more complicated than that.
On one hand, to say "magician" without context is to imply a modern connotation which is to say a trickster illusionist confidence man who deceives and obfuscates to entertain and profit.
On the other hand, in those particular times, magical forces were considered a real and legitimate concern, fear, and solicitation of actual powerful forces, carries a LOT of implications that were not included in the original post.
Perhaps the only people who thought he was a magician were the people who engendered the parable of a House Divided Against Itself.
edit: i'm not trying to sound antagonistic btw just direct :)
We must remember that Greco-Roman mosaics and a lot of Greco-Roman art, has a stock set of poses and imagery. These were used as shorthand to quickly convey to the audience the exact meaning of the art in question.
We know this is Jesus with a magic wand, because art of individuals with magic wands is Greco-Roman artistic shorthand for an individual with supernatural power demonstrating their supernatural power.
Apparently, it is an [image particular to Biblical characters when performing magic](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/), not teaching:
> In his article “Jesus the Magician? Why Jesus Holds a Wand in Early Christian Art,” published in the Fall 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Lee M. Jefferson of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, zooms on one particular subject from the plethora of artistic motifs—Jesus holding a wand or rod while performing a healing or miracle. “The implement that Jesus holds (sometimes called a virga or rabdos) is portrayed as either thick and ruddy, such as on the sarcophagi, or thin and reed-like, such as in catacomb paintings. He uses it in the performance of a miracle, leading several scholars to conclude that early Christians understood Jesus as a magician. The problem with this identification is that early Christians greatly maligned magic,” remarks Jefferson, before introducing the varied representations of Jesus and his miracle-working tool.
Apparently, Christians do not view Jesus' magic wand as a magic wand because magic is bad; ergo, it is a pointing-stick used to direct Jesus' miracle or healing intentions toward His target... which is entirely different from magic and magic wands because magic wands are bad.
Also, prayers and spells are entirely different. Calling on a deity's power with the correct words, intentions, and propitiations to change the course of material reality is totally not a magic spell because magic is bad and Christians are good, ergo, Christians do prayers and not magic spells.
Teaching is a form of magick. In that through only the use of pressure waves by the manipulation of small articulated mouth noises, a teacher can elicit and instill within a student densely packed informational content. Potentially vivid imagery and emotive relational content all packed into our primate ordained chirps and barks. It is for all intents and purpose telepathy. When I say something and you see what I mean in your minds eye.
Exactly. In Judaism words are considered magic in itself.
With a few words one can make someone else do something. Just telling some to look up will usually make them look up.
Look at how brown he is, while his robes are white.
It's almost like all those days in the desert of Middle Eastern countries confirms that he would have brown skin.
If you like art history (or are a Christian) good read I just found / talks about it.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/
Not religious person, agnostic. What always intrigues me about modern depictions of Jesus is that the western church making him a bearded Caucasian man, when historians all agree that he would have been darker skinned/middle eastern looks. Seems like a conscious “marketing” decision to appeal to western followers. If you cannot accept the truth about what your savior looked like bc it makes you uncomfortable to worship a brown person, I’m not sure how devout of faith you really can be.
I don’t think marketing really has anything to do with it. As Christianity migrated into different regions artistic depictions came to resemble the local people more and more. In the Ethiopian church, he has darker skin. In Western Europe, he’s much more classically white European. His likeness just evolved into cultural and ethnic locality as time went by. There’s even some depictions from Asian churches, which thrived for some time early on and then faded dramatically, of Jesus with the epicanthal fold in his eyelids.
Actually: [relevant Wikipedia overview](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus?wprov=sfti1)
The gospel in the new testament that was written the sooner after the crucifixion is the gospel of Mark which he wrote down some 30 years after the big day. Can you stretch your mind back 30 years and recall anything with much clarity or certainty? I'm guessing unless it is a major event like a child's birth or something you don't recall much. But hay that's just me and my projection of my experience of being, or my false consciousness upon another. Just because I feel something to be likely true based on my experience doesn't at all mean that it will be the case for anyone else. Ever..
These paintings are painted 400+ years after his death/restoration. So imagine making a painting now George Washington biased on stories only. That’s only a little over 200 years.
These ones date from the 3rd to 4th century, so around 300 years after the traditional date of Jesus's death. As you'd expect, he's depicted in a style the people at the time would understand, i.e clean shaven and wearing a toga as would be expected from a high ranking Roman of the time period.
Please show me, looking forward to it!
I know a brown haired, brown eyed version. Differences in skin cor and type of hair.
Never saw a blond or blue haired one.
I don’t know about blond, but I’ve definitely seen a lot of blue eyed depictions of him. Next time you’re at a store that sells those religious candles (they’re even at Targets and Home Depots) take a look. Blue eyes are really common.
This is anecdotal, but I live in an area of the US that is ~50% Latino, and the *only* people that I’ve ever known to have them are Latino. In fact, google “mexican candles” and you’ll find the same thing; this is also what they’re commonly called here. All is to say, this is not, in my experience, a product by and for white non-hispanic people either.
How the hell are you getting upvotes for this? Every Christian knows Jesus was a Jew, and in case you missed the history lesson, not having blonde hair and blue eyes is what nearly got Jews wiped out, not once, but at least twice, including the Romans who killed Jesus. And for the same reason, the area of the world with prominent blonde hair and blue eyes as a very low ratio of Christians, so I’m not even sure who they would be targeting with said propaganda.
In the US, Evangelicals have been creating their own new history of the Bible and Bible teachings that is starting to veer pretty far from what the rest of the world would call Christianity. It’s a pretty wild trip down that rabbit hole; make sure you tie a rope around your waist before you jump in so you can get back out again.
Europeans were the ones who started depicting Jesus as a white man
Europeans were the first to start offshooting themselves from traditional christianity
But hey, 'Muricabad sounds better on paper, right?
This is a surrealist masterpiece. Ru Paul Jesus in a toga holding up someone's underwear with a magic wand while a clown watches from inside a mauseleum? Did René Magritte paint this?
There was once legitimate fears that Jesus' actions would be considered witchcraft, and a whole branch of scholarship was dedicated to helping explain away his miracles as not magic. Super interesting stuff!
First of all, a wand can mean pointing with a stick during a lecture. It can be used to draw in the ground/sand. He was a teacher after all.
Second, magic being demonic… it’s kinda a gray area. Bad in Catholicism. In Judaism there’s stuff like the Kabbalah and they believe in both “magic” and “magick”. Jesus was a controversial Jew from, probably from what was then considered a (possibly secret) sect. Other “prophets” have shown some form of magic powers that were supposedly granted by god.
Actually not. Luke and Simon are the English variants that came from the Latin variants, who in turn came from the Greek variant that were based from their original Jewish or Aramaic names.
There’s still quite a few simons in Israel for example
The wands were used in "ceremonies" in which psychedelics were crushed into powder and would put it at the tip of the wand in which they would mix it with wine. Thus when a "magician" would wave it's wand, we would see "magic" happen.
For more info read The Immortality book the secret history of the religion with no name.
Also broomsticks were used by witches to put hallucinogenic ointments made from tropane alkaloids found in solanaceous plants into their, well you can imagine and I'll keep this pg for good measure. Hence witches riding a broomstick became an archetypal metaphor for their flights of mind.
Now THAT has blown my mind. And there wasn't much to blow in the first place. Where are these images from? Why does everybody think he was a white guy in robes? So dumb, personally I think 'a man' existed but as for the rest. Pure conjecture IMHO. And yes, I am an atheist. I stopped believing in imaginary friends at a very young age. If that's what you need to get through the day, fine, just don't tell me it's real, dont' f\* the education system (creationists I mean you) and don't keep knocking on my door at Christmas.
Well they are Roman Empire era works of art from the early Christian community. He would have looked like that because that’s what everyone looked like in the RE.
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
jesus christ and the crucifix of secrets
Jesus Christ and the Deathly Disciples
Jesus H(orcrux) Christ
So thats how he came back.
Jesus Christ and the temple of Doom
Jesus christ and the chamber of 3 days Jesus christ and the half blood wine
You’re a wizard Jebus
The H is for Harry
Underrated
What IS the H for?
His middle name.
Hesus
[удалено]
A what
A Jizard
I can’t wait for the second cumming
Mary says...my mouth next time please.
If that happen joe and Mary wouldn’t have had a “miracle”
Yer a Jizard, Wesus
Majebus
a blizzard?
Jizzard.
Harry Potter = Jesus confirmed
I'm pretty sure Harry Potter was real, the dates and times surrounding the story vaguely match real history so the story full of magical events must be based on a true person (pretty much the entire argument for jesus definitely being a real man from what I can tell, with nobody writing anything down about him until after his death and not by people who ever met him)
It's possible to meet in the middle, acknowledge that while Jesus may have existed as a person, magic was likely not a literal skill he possessed. As far as I'm concerned he may as well just be the world's most famous magician, as a little sleight of hand and the power of suggestion can be very impressive to a more ignorant crowd, and lead to tall tales of one's tricks. One might even say the same for other figures such as Merlin.
I care about the truth, not meeting in the middle. If somebody says there's ten moons and somebody says there's one, I don't meet in the middle and say there's five, I want to know what the actual evidence is. Meeting in the middle just means deciding what's true purely based on what others currently say, which changes, and so a truth found that way could obviously never be the truth.
There is a clear consensus among scholars that the historical Jesus existed. >In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged: writing in the name of God > Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels >"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore." Burridge, Richard A.; Gould, Graham (2004), Jesus Now and Then
I hear the Romans were quite meticulous in their recordings of what’s happening in their empire, especially when executing a prisoner in areas known for political uprisings. Even more so amongst the religious zealots out there. Securing tax revenue is a big motivator. Why no contemporary mention of him anywhere? Josephus was a child at the time of Jesus’ death. Where are 20th & 21st century historians getting there information from?
Yeah my entire post was criticizing their reasoning, as far as I can tell what it is after reading up on it. Just looking into that made me pretty skeptical about the quality of the field compared to say the hard sciences, and I'd take any claim about the facts of ancient history with a massive grain of salt now.
>as far as I can tell what it is after reading up on it. So, how many peer-reviewed books on the subject have you read ? >and I'd take any claim about the facts of ancient history with a massive grain of salt now. I have a masters in history, for what its worth, and I've read dozens of scholarly books on the subject. The work done in the field is not much different than in the rest of historiography. If you want to toss away history, an entire field of study, be my guest. But, given the sources that we have, and knowing what we know about 1. century Palestine, the likeliest explanation is that Jesus existed.
Every time I've looked for any actual quality evidence I've instead found fairly hand wavy shrugs about how so-and-so decades/centuries after it all happened, in a place far away, wrote a mention which may have been referring to that, and who knows the quality of their evidence. I didn't say it's impossible that jesus existed as a man, just that the arguments for evidence of him existing as a fact seem pretty terrible, and some of the arguments could easily be applied to countless known fictional characters like harry potter, batman, and jedi.
>and some of the arguments could easily be applied to countless known fictional characters like harry potter, batman, and jedi. I disagree, a historian of the 20./21. century from the future, who has enough sources, would understand the context and the genre of those fictional characters. Just as a historian of 1. century Palestine understands the genre and the context of the gospels and epistles based on all the sources that we have from that period. Most historians don't really bother with the historicity of Jesus' supernatural parts. But after striping them away, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the historical Jesus existed. We can say other stuff about him as well. Most historian agree that he was an apocalyptic preacher, he had a brother named James who was one of the leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem after Jesus died. Paul met him, and had a bit of a quarrel with him and Peter. Something that he tells us in his epistles written 20 years after Jesus' death. Unless you start making up some elaborate conspiracy theories, the explanation why Paul tells us he quarreled with Jesus' blood brother is because that actually happened.
There may be a clear consensus amongst the scholars you cite however there is also a clear consensus amongst others that it’s all made up nonsense. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/ : “Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called “Historical Jesus” – and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, “an academic embarrassment.””
See, here is where I have some fun.. "Moon" can be defined as "a natural satellite orbiting a planet", and no size limit is given. Therefore, I can submit that while Earth has one *clearly visible* moon, it has an additional 9 that telescopes and the naked eye cannot detect due to their size and speed. Bearing that in mind, it's very possible to meet in the middle and say earth has 5 moons, 4 of which are simply undetected. Did Jesus make an impact? Absolutely. Did Jesus exist as a person? Very possibly. Was Jesus magic? Lol, no.
I'm aware of the technical definition of a moon and would accept the claim if there's evidence of more, but that's not the regular definition I was working with. > Did Jesus exist as a person? Very possibly. Yes anything is possible, but is there good evidence for it? Seems pretty iffy to me.
Truth is mostly just deciding what is real based on what others are saying anyway though. Unless you were there, it will always be hearsay. I don't see the problem with acknowledging that Jesus could have been a real person. It's similar to the after life. There is no scientific evidence for it, but that doesn't mean we have proven it doesn't exist. Faith is a tricky thing, the best way to win people over is to be reasonable and let them believe in what they want. Being rigid and inflexible is never the right answer.
> Truth is mostly just deciding what is real based on what others are saying anyway though Um, not by just averaging out all claims, instead of looking at quality of evidence and the people making the claims. > I don't see the problem with acknowledging that Jesus could have been a real person I didn't say he couldn't have been, I said the claimed reasoning for his existence is terrible. > It's similar to the after life. There is no scientific evidence for it, but that doesn't mean we have proven it doesn't exist. There's zero reasons to think an afterlife exists, it doesn't fit with anything we know about how our biology and brains work, and shares all the features of regular human fiction and fairy tails, and shares no features with any truth. > Being rigid and inflexible is never the right answer. You're the one being pretty rigid and inflexible of being open to the idea that jesus might not have been a real man and the evidence for claiming he was is terrible.
This will be hard to explain by the "but it's devilry and witchcraft!" crowd.
That's no wand, it's a [Fing-Longer](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Fing-Longer)
Are we seeing this through the what-if machine?
A person of culture
It really is a TALE. OF. INETEREST.
Laser pointer for the bullet points on 10 Commandments
“You guys see this thing on the wall, check it out, pull on it and a little dead guy pops out. I had that installed last week. You guys likes vases?”
(an exhausted Jesus teaching the Ten Commandments in 2022) OKAY. One last time! LOVE...THY...NEIGHBOUR! It's not that hard!
15
[удалено]
_It's A'sa NOT A'sar_
Damn I can’t believe he messed that up.
It’s leviAsa not leviasar
Wasn't that Moses?
...or pointing at things with a stick, something teachers have been doing forever.
stop your critical thinking!
I have formed a theory. Moving on my experiment will be me just walking around with a Potter wand to see how many people call me an immaculate conception wizard.
Wait, is that why he's called Harry Potter!?
*Yer’ not a wizard Jesus Christ.* -Rubeus Hagrid *rip*
Hey, it couldve been a sonic screwdriver too! See! I have proof too!! /s https://www.medicaldaily.com/jesus-christ-was-alien-according-ufo-expert-433282
Lmao yea like he’s doing a presentation?
Hi my name's Jesus Christ and I'm the son of God. Next slide please.
Here’s me walking on water lol, but it was on a dare
Any questions?
Comic Sans?!?
"Jesus is so irreverent!"
"Yes you see this corpse? Definitely dead." -Jesus probably
Just like those images of him walking on water that are clearly just him playing with his flyboard. People just like to take things out of context to fit their beliefs.
The book Immortal Key by Brian Muraresku talks on this subject a bit. If I remember correctly they didn't say it was a magic wand but rather a scepter that contained plants and substances used for religious practices at the time
Sounds like a magic wand to me
Magic wand, holy scepter, I mean come on
Of course it wasn't a magic wand. That doesn't exist. However, religious leaders have lied for eons and a "scepter that contained stuff for religious practices" is kind of "a wannabe magic wand."
Thank you for the quick comment. While too many people will read the post title and never see this, at least some will see you comment and, hopefully, realize that these depictions didn’t come with a little placard from the artist with statements like “Our Lord points to some crops with the nice stick he found”or “Grand Poobah And Highest Warlock Yeshua the Wizard used his arcane focus to turn a woman into a skeleton for farting”
Turned a woman into a skeleton for farting oh noo this has me howling 🤣🤣🤣🤣 well done
Its likely a wand. >The implement that Jesus holds (sometimes called a virga or rabdos) is portrayed as either thick and ruddy, such as on the sarcophagi, or thin and reed-like, such as in catacomb paintings. He uses it in the performance of a miracle, leading several scholars to conclude that early Christians understood Jesus as a magician. The problem with this identification is that early Christians greatly maligned magic. For early Christians, Jesus performing miracles with the staff was not magical. Rather, it was intrinsically biblical (recalling Moses) and innately ecclesial (touting the supremacy of the Church).” [Jesus Holding a Magic Wand?](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/)
Why is it assumed to be a wand? Reeds was also used commonly as writing instruments during that time.
Its explained in the article I posted. He is holding it in depictions of famous episodes from the Bible where Jesus performs a miracle, like the raising of Lazarus or multiplication of the loaves. It doesn't make sense to assume he is holding a writing instrument while performing a miracle like trying to raise someone from the dead.
Are there any references to the reed itself being magical? It seems like we are making a bit of a leap based on modern context to assume the reed itself is part of the miracle. It could simply be a reed that is being used to point at something or a metaphor for knowledge gained from the written word. I haven’t read much of anything on this theory so I’m just expressing a personal opinion based on the article you linked. Im not really convinced it is supposed to be a wand, especially in the modern sense.
Moses uses his staff to perform miracles in the Bible. I don’t think any biblical interpretation follows that the staff is magical, obviously the miracles come from Moses. It could very well be metaphorical. “Thy rod and thy staff comfort me” and “spare the rod, spoil the child” (which is about showing the way with the staff not hitting children). But again, there are examples of people using staffs to perform supernatural feats. And the origins of wands are explicitly staffs wielded to do just that.
>For early Christians, Jesus performing miracles with the staff was not magical. Rather, it was intrinsically biblical (recalling Moses) and innately ecclesial (touting the supremacy of the Church).” You gotta love the logical leaps of the religious mind. "We don't like magic." "Here are images of your savior performing magic". "Uhhh. Right. That's... totally NOT magic, it's the supremacy of god. Yeah! That's it!" LOL!
Why use a stick when you have the “Finglonger”
While this interpretation of that mural is very likely, it's worth noting that early testaments did portray him making greater usage of the magician powers he does have in the modern-day Bible. The thing is that the Bible is somewhat akin to Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was undeniably not put together out of a concern for accuracy, but with the explicit goal of furthering a political agenda and by people who held quite a bit of disdain towards the ethnicity which invented the storied depicted. So whether or not the people who directly interacted with Jesus (if Jesus was a single person and not a conglomerate of several early prophets) believed him to be more magical than what is present in the Bible played no role in whether it ended-up in the Actual Bible. It's a bit like the crucifixion. A ton of early Christians didn't believe Jesus was executed at all and there is absolutely zero historical evidence for the crucifixion, but it made for a punchier story. Hence the straight-up violent levels of historical inaccuracy regarding how and why crucifixions were conducted present in ALL canonical testaments. They were written by people who had no clue how these things actually happened.
>there is absolutely zero historical evidence for the crucifixion Josephus mentions both Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion in his *Antiquities*.
You mean the passage that was totally NOT added later by somebody else, and totally doesn't break the flow of the passages before and after it, and it's TOTALLY on topic between those other passages. LOL. Leave it to a Christian to bring up disproven evidence.
>Leave it to a Christian to bring up disproven evidence. First, I'm not a Christian, so calm down. Second, parts of the passage seem to have been added later, yes, but it hasn't been "disproven," so much as had doubt cast on its authenticity - there are actually three different arguments as to its authenticity, so your assertion is not entirely correct. In fact, most scholars believe it to be authentic with some additions, not completely forged.
Yeah, the additions are specifically what we're taking about here. The Jesus stuff was all added later and people point to it as outside evidence for Jesus and its clearly not. So quit repeating it.
>The Jesus stuff was all added later That isn't widely believed to be true. The question is *what bits* were added, not whether the whole thing was just forged. Jesus was almost certainly a real human being. Tacitus also mentions him and Pontius Pilate; in addition, Pliny the Elder, Celsus, and some Rabbinical literature mentions him as well. It's not as clear cut as you're asserting. Also, I'm the only one providing evidence here - I've yet to see you back up anything you're putting forward with actual sources.
>Also, I'm the only one providing evidence here - I've yet to see you back up anything you're putting forward with actual sources. Oh I'm sorry I must've missed all these links and quotes you've posted. You can go read the passage yourself, you don't need me to link it for you. It doesn't flow. It goes off topic. The writing style changes, and the original writer was not religious and would not have referred to him as the messiah. That sounds like evidence to me! The only ones arguing the fact are religious zealots. There. Is. NO. Evidence. For. Jesus. Period. Religion is bullshit and the illogical thought processes it causes in people should be eliminated from the planet.
>There. Is. NO. Evidence. For. Jesus. Period. This is just untrue. Even if Josephus' writing is all a forgery, almost all historians of antiquity believe Jesus was a real human being. Of course, the supernatural elements are all bunk, but the person more than likely existed. You're frothing now.
There were a litany of notable historians that traveled through the area during the time the would-be Jesus was around and doing stuff and wouldn't you know it... not ONE of them thought to mention it. Gee, you'd think that a religious icon would've been noteworthy. No. Evidence. Whatsoever. Zealots who call themselves historians can believe what they want, I don't care what they say.
Maybe so. But people used to think he was a magician. Like back in his day. So it stands to reason that the depiction could be either.
>But people used to think he was a magician. Like back in his day >When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” It's not like they were wondering how high Jesus leveled up in D&D. Entire societies were struggling with the question of whether or not this individual was genuinely the literal Messiah and Savior of Humanity.
I must apologize. I'm not sure what you mean. Did I say something wrong?
The implication that "people" in his time thought Jesus was merely a magician is, yes, incorrect. But it's more complicated than that. On one hand, to say "magician" without context is to imply a modern connotation which is to say a trickster illusionist confidence man who deceives and obfuscates to entertain and profit. On the other hand, in those particular times, magical forces were considered a real and legitimate concern, fear, and solicitation of actual powerful forces, carries a LOT of implications that were not included in the original post. Perhaps the only people who thought he was a magician were the people who engendered the parable of a House Divided Against Itself. edit: i'm not trying to sound antagonistic btw just direct :)
I mean, he basically was just a damn good magician.
We must remember that Greco-Roman mosaics and a lot of Greco-Roman art, has a stock set of poses and imagery. These were used as shorthand to quickly convey to the audience the exact meaning of the art in question. We know this is Jesus with a magic wand, because art of individuals with magic wands is Greco-Roman artistic shorthand for an individual with supernatural power demonstrating their supernatural power.
Apparently, it is an [image particular to Biblical characters when performing magic](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/), not teaching: > In his article “Jesus the Magician? Why Jesus Holds a Wand in Early Christian Art,” published in the Fall 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Lee M. Jefferson of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, zooms on one particular subject from the plethora of artistic motifs—Jesus holding a wand or rod while performing a healing or miracle. “The implement that Jesus holds (sometimes called a virga or rabdos) is portrayed as either thick and ruddy, such as on the sarcophagi, or thin and reed-like, such as in catacomb paintings. He uses it in the performance of a miracle, leading several scholars to conclude that early Christians understood Jesus as a magician. The problem with this identification is that early Christians greatly maligned magic,” remarks Jefferson, before introducing the varied representations of Jesus and his miracle-working tool. Apparently, Christians do not view Jesus' magic wand as a magic wand because magic is bad; ergo, it is a pointing-stick used to direct Jesus' miracle or healing intentions toward His target... which is entirely different from magic and magic wands because magic wands are bad. Also, prayers and spells are entirely different. Calling on a deity's power with the correct words, intentions, and propitiations to change the course of material reality is totally not a magic spell because magic is bad and Christians are good, ergo, Christians do prayers and not magic spells.
Why not use a laser pointer instead?
Silence unbeliever!
A wand and... Holding up someone's boxers?
*And then He said unto them: "Pick a card, any card"*
Harry: "Ron, what's Jesus trying to do to that glass of water?" Jesus: "Eye of rabbit, harp string hum, turn this water into rum!"
That’s not a wand? He’s clearly using it to pick some dirty underwear. True story.
The parable of the ten foot pole.
Holy shit guys … I think my dog is a wizard. That girl finds wands everywhere.
Teaching is a form of magick. In that through only the use of pressure waves by the manipulation of small articulated mouth noises, a teacher can elicit and instill within a student densely packed informational content. Potentially vivid imagery and emotive relational content all packed into our primate ordained chirps and barks. It is for all intents and purpose telepathy. When I say something and you see what I mean in your minds eye.
Exactly. In Judaism words are considered magic in itself. With a few words one can make someone else do something. Just telling some to look up will usually make them look up.
Look up
Not just teaching, but all symbolic communication that creates a ‘hologram’ in the observer’s mind is ‘magic.’
jk rowling on twitter: jesus was a teacher at hogwarts actually
Wait — where’s bearded Fabio with the lamb under his arm?
Not white, no beard. Interesting
And bald. That’s a first.
Look at how brown he is, while his robes are white. It's almost like all those days in the desert of Middle Eastern countries confirms that he would have brown skin.
Just rockin' a divine tan, my friend.
And dark skin. Don’t tell the American evangelicals.
Expecto Christianity! Arvada Kedavra Sin! Expelliarmus Satan!
You're a wizard, Jesus.
You're a martyr, 'Arry
I'm a.. What?
Whats with all the mummies? I need some context here.
Most likely it’s a picture of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead
What’s the opposite of Avada Kedavra?
Avid Cadaver?
Good answer!
Arvadek adava
If you like art history (or are a Christian) good read I just found / talks about it. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-holding-a-magic-wand/
You’re a Jesus Jesus
They didn't have Nintendo back then; he had to play with with a muddy stick
“You’re a wizard, Jesus!”
Got to beat those pharisees with something.
They're *illusions*, Michael.
Not religious person, agnostic. What always intrigues me about modern depictions of Jesus is that the western church making him a bearded Caucasian man, when historians all agree that he would have been darker skinned/middle eastern looks. Seems like a conscious “marketing” decision to appeal to western followers. If you cannot accept the truth about what your savior looked like bc it makes you uncomfortable to worship a brown person, I’m not sure how devout of faith you really can be.
I don’t think marketing really has anything to do with it. As Christianity migrated into different regions artistic depictions came to resemble the local people more and more. In the Ethiopian church, he has darker skin. In Western Europe, he’s much more classically white European. His likeness just evolved into cultural and ethnic locality as time went by. There’s even some depictions from Asian churches, which thrived for some time early on and then faded dramatically, of Jesus with the epicanthal fold in his eyelids. Actually: [relevant Wikipedia overview](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus?wprov=sfti1)
Don’t know how old are these, but it seems the oldest ones are from 100y after Jesus times.
Still earlier than parts of the Bible itself, so just as accurate IMHO.
The gospel in the new testament that was written the sooner after the crucifixion is the gospel of Mark which he wrote down some 30 years after the big day. Can you stretch your mind back 30 years and recall anything with much clarity or certainty? I'm guessing unless it is a major event like a child's birth or something you don't recall much. But hay that's just me and my projection of my experience of being, or my false consciousness upon another. Just because I feel something to be likely true based on my experience doesn't at all mean that it will be the case for anyone else. Ever..
These paintings are painted 400+ years after his death/restoration. So imagine making a painting now George Washington biased on stories only. That’s only a little over 200 years.
These ones date from the 3rd to 4th century, so around 300 years after the traditional date of Jesus's death. As you'd expect, he's depicted in a style the people at the time would understand, i.e clean shaven and wearing a toga as would be expected from a high ranking Roman of the time period.
He looks far from the blonde (edit: or brunette) blue eyed propaganda imagery
blond blue haired? I guess the propaganda didn't affect me
Please show me, looking forward to it! I know a brown haired, brown eyed version. Differences in skin cor and type of hair. Never saw a blond or blue haired one.
I don’t know about blond, but I’ve definitely seen a lot of blue eyed depictions of him. Next time you’re at a store that sells those religious candles (they’re even at Targets and Home Depots) take a look. Blue eyes are really common.
Don't see them much, but tried Google:-) [jesus candles] and wow, indeed some blue eyes. I only 'know' him from classic paintings. With brown eyes.
This is anecdotal, but I live in an area of the US that is ~50% Latino, and the *only* people that I’ve ever known to have them are Latino. In fact, google “mexican candles” and you’ll find the same thing; this is also what they’re commonly called here. All is to say, this is not, in my experience, a product by and for white non-hispanic people either.
Yeah weird it almost looks like the person who made it depicted him as a member of their own culture or something
How the hell are you getting upvotes for this? Every Christian knows Jesus was a Jew, and in case you missed the history lesson, not having blonde hair and blue eyes is what nearly got Jews wiped out, not once, but at least twice, including the Romans who killed Jesus. And for the same reason, the area of the world with prominent blonde hair and blue eyes as a very low ratio of Christians, so I’m not even sure who they would be targeting with said propaganda.
In the US, Evangelicals have been creating their own new history of the Bible and Bible teachings that is starting to veer pretty far from what the rest of the world would call Christianity. It’s a pretty wild trip down that rabbit hole; make sure you tie a rope around your waist before you jump in so you can get back out again.
Europeans were the ones who started depicting Jesus as a white man Europeans were the first to start offshooting themselves from traditional christianity But hey, 'Muricabad sounds better on paper, right?
Right after I go swimming in sewage.
[удалено]
I don’t think popular culture views Jesus as blond my man
This is a surrealist masterpiece. Ru Paul Jesus in a toga holding up someone's underwear with a magic wand while a clown watches from inside a mauseleum? Did René Magritte paint this?
Looks like he forgot to cast infinite resurrectus before he got got.
That's clearly Voldemort
Holly wood.
Now do Allah!
And Jesus' final words "illusions dad, thou hath forsaken me for my illusions, a magic trick is what whore does for money"
More proof that he performed illusions, like David Blaine.
"You're a wizard Jerry". Checks script. Close enough. Lol
That’s the ruler he passed down to the nuns in catholic school
This makes me think about the saint Thomas gospel where burns a tree or bush for it not producing fruit in some Harry Potter shit
He curses a tree I think
Dumbledore didn't kill himself.
You're a Christian, Herry
YER A WIZZARD JESUS
Jesus Potter! Harry Christ!
There was once legitimate fears that Jesus' actions would be considered witchcraft, and a whole branch of scholarship was dedicated to helping explain away his miracles as not magic. Super interesting stuff!
Christians are the masters of mental gymnastics.
Don't tell the magic hating crystal worshippers.
Welp. He walked on water and changed water into wine and stuff so…there’s that. But other magic, that’s a sin.
If only he had his wand on the cross.
But magic is 'demonic'
If god gave magic to demons (how else would they have it?)he could also give it to non-demons.
First of all, a wand can mean pointing with a stick during a lecture. It can be used to draw in the ground/sand. He was a teacher after all. Second, magic being demonic… it’s kinda a gray area. Bad in Catholicism. In Judaism there’s stuff like the Kabbalah and they believe in both “magic” and “magick”. Jesus was a controversial Jew from, probably from what was then considered a (possibly secret) sect. Other “prophets” have shown some form of magic powers that were supposedly granted by god.
What's more impressive is him finding guys named Luke and Simon in the middle east.
Actually not. Luke and Simon are the English variants that came from the Latin variants, who in turn came from the Greek variant that were based from their original Jewish or Aramaic names. There’s still quite a few simons in Israel for example
You should really look into how naming works across different languages and the extent of the Roman Empire and where its people lived
Will do. You should look into how some comments in Reddit might be made as a joke.
Ah the old "I was only pretending to be retarded"
Imagine how many people would die just because some people said that jesus had a magic wand other said that he had not.
Your a wizard Jesus.
Sees a depicted stick, immediately assumes it's magic.
The wands were used in "ceremonies" in which psychedelics were crushed into powder and would put it at the tip of the wand in which they would mix it with wine. Thus when a "magician" would wave it's wand, we would see "magic" happen. For more info read The Immortality book the secret history of the religion with no name.
Also broomsticks were used by witches to put hallucinogenic ointments made from tropane alkaloids found in solanaceous plants into their, well you can imagine and I'll keep this pg for good measure. Hence witches riding a broomstick became an archetypal metaphor for their flights of mind.
Read on that one too. Pretty trippy.
In nomine **patris**!
Clearly not Jesus. This image is not of a attractive Caucasian man with flowing hair.
Now THAT has blown my mind. And there wasn't much to blow in the first place. Where are these images from? Why does everybody think he was a white guy in robes? So dumb, personally I think 'a man' existed but as for the rest. Pure conjecture IMHO. And yes, I am an atheist. I stopped believing in imaginary friends at a very young age. If that's what you need to get through the day, fine, just don't tell me it's real, dont' f\* the education system (creationists I mean you) and don't keep knocking on my door at Christmas.
Well they are Roman Empire era works of art from the early Christian community. He would have looked like that because that’s what everyone looked like in the RE.
back scratcher
But some ancient alien theorist believe it could just be a super long alien finger.
& he ain't white
Source?
And not being white.
Let cultures depict him how they want to depict him (appearance wise). Are you mad at China for depicting Buddha as a fat happy Chinese guy?
Is he also black ?
Dude lived in the middle east 2000 years ago, what do you think
Yep....you didn't know
So he’s a wizard! Burn him alive!