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Ch. 15: Did Jesus Exist?

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:09 pm
by Chris OConnor
Ch. 15: Did Jesus Exist?

Please use this thread to discuss this chapter. :roll:

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 11:05 am
by realiz
I found this chapter to be one of the most interesting in the book probably because even though I have never believed in the Bible as a literal account, I did believe for many years that there was little doubt that Jesus did exist historically even if all that was attributed to him was exaggerated.

Barker concludes this chapter with:


Taking all this into account, it is rational to conclude that the New Testament Jesus is a myth.
What confuses me here, is why the next chapter, Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?, was written. Now again we have pages and pages of quotes proving the resurrection story has holes, discrepencies, and cannot be proven historically. Well, if Jesus is a myth, which Barker has just concluded in the previous chapter, why try to disprove a myth? Does a myth have to be told the same way every time? Isn't a myth just told as a way of explaining the unexplainable or putting hopes and dreams into words? Maybe seeing it as a myth can actually let us see some 'truth' or 'message' in the whole new testament rather than showing us that there is no god because, reasonably, if a god existed he would have dictated a literal bible that we could all follow.