Something like this could be considered historical evidence, but not necessarily. For example, I could write a fictional tale about a friend of mine and someone could discover it a thousand years from now. But this would not make it evidence to any real truth, would it? This is one of the problems with history and historical documents. Many of them are very doctored up with tales. Kings would often have embarrassing made to look less embarrassing or to look quite the opposite in any historical writings that took place in their life time, etc.

There is also the problem of validating if indeed the writer of a document was really a person that actually knew the individual they wrote about. It was often very popular in ancient times to write stories about well known people (fictitious or otherwise) and to even publish a work in a famous person's name. An example of this is the book of Enoch. The book claims to have been written by Enoch, the famous individual from the book of Genesis, but it is many hundreds of years newer than Enoch would have been.

This sort of thing causes problems for Bible scholars as well. For example, the various books of the Bible are attributed to specific authors. The Gospels, for example, are said to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, it is a matter of debate (even among Christian scholars) as to who actually wrote them and even WHEN they were written. So was Matthew written by the disciple of Jesus who knew him or by someone else? And even if many consider it to be written by Matthew, how would we know if it wasn't written by someone writing in his name?

The same problems are there for the Qur'an as well. Who wrote what? And how do we know for certain that such-and-such is really the author?

Contemporary writings do factor into history, for sure. However, they can be problematic and, as such, are not completely reliable. Even if they contain truth, this does not mean that everything they say is truth. For example, people derive historical concepts from books like the Iliad, but don't believe in the monsters therein.

If there's one thing research often shows, it's how unreliable even the more credible of history books are.

You should really ask yourself why in your opinion the bible somehow must be historical. I personally don't see why people want the bible to be historical, when in reality it doesn't matter if those stories are real or fake when it comes to the things you could possibly learn from in the bible.



It gets better, often people interpret texts in such a way that they believe it somehow supports a certain truth. It doesn't work like that when it comes to truth finding, you've either got to go with a literal interpretation or expose of the idea it might be historical. Looking at how unspecific the bible often is, it's a bit funny to look at it as historical.

Cheers

PHeMox,

Remember, Dooley does not believe the Bible to be historical. He does believe this concerning the Qur'an, though.

Ah, yes, I had missed that.

Cheers

Exodus 4:16 "King James Version" for those who insist upon it. They all say he same thing!
And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

When verses in the bible refer to Jesus being God, it is in a similar way that Moses was God to Aaron and the israelite people in general. Indeed, Moses was an foretype of jesus, a prophetic reference.
This can be seen from the texts alread mentioned where Jesus denies being God, even when directly challenged.

Interesting also is
1Corrinthians 15:24-28 Again, the "King James version" but they all say the same thing.
024: Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
025: For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
026: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
027: For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
028: And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Verse 28: When the time that Jesus is as God for us (humans), comes to an end, then Jesus will subject himself to God in order for God to take his rightful place as God to all, including us.

The bible clearly teaches that Jesus is not God but is standing in the place of God untill the damage caused by Adam and Eve, who brought sin and death upon us all, is completely undone.

Wow, that's quite a stretch. In the Lord of the Rings book there are also very much human like events being told... still doesn't mean Frodo is real.



This is merely evidence of how the stories surrounding the character were very popular, when it comes to people that could have known Jesus, there are NO historical references at all though, so this is hardly proof at all. Let alone the fact that Jesus obtained all kinds of additional properties in texts many centuries later. Remember the whole who was Jesus debate? From race, hair color/style, appearance, sex, relationships, all the way down to his alleged supernatural powers... texts don't agree, let alone people all over the world. There's really not much known at all....

There are some historical references that could have been about Jesus, but they are far from obvious, nor do they say anything useful/relevant.

my (last?) post in this thread:

The statement: God IS everything means that God made everything of himself. I don't mean that you should look at your Ipod and go "hello God". God created all. Period. Call it the Big Bang or whatever, In the beginning, before the point mentioned in the bible where "the earth was void and without form" God created everything. Space, planets, stars, etc. When God created everything here he had angels. One angel, Lucifer, decided to take on God, therefore being kicked out of heaven and forced into hell. Now God made all, he did not make the people evil, he just made the people. The people choose what they want to do, God doesn't make every decision for you and he won't lead you by the hand through life. We have choices, so all those racists and self-justifying murderers are still creations of God, they are just choosing a very wrong way of living. Call me crazy or whatever, but God didn't MAKE those people to be that way, he didn't force them to be jerks. God made free will for everyone to be able to choose what they want to do. If God at any time took at least one bit of free will we'd have no more free will and God would become a dictator, but instead he chooses to let us live the way we WILL. God is not a dictator, and will never become one. The fact the people can choose not to believe in a god of any form is proof of that.

These are the Seven Truths:

Jesus was God.
Jesus is God.
Jesus will be God.
Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus existed.
Jesus exists.
Jesus will exist.

Sounds complicated. For someone to be his own son, he needs to do awful things, knocking up his own mother and even then its difficult...

Nowhere in the bible is a claim of Jesus to be a god. This was invented much later by the church. It is very doubtful that Jesus even claimed to be the son of a god. The gospels were written about 100 AD and none of their authors knew Jesus personally, so all they wrote was hearsay.

Or, as Douglas Adams said, all it takes is an accident involving a warm lunch, a condom and a time machine.