Im Aaron and Im an atheist looking for answers. my starting questions is why are you christian even tho there is no good evidence for the existence of God let alone the christian God. How do you know your religion is right? and how can you believe if the bible is full of errors and contradictions?
I have evidence from other
atheist, who were Ancient Greek writers and philosophers, they wrote about the real person of Yeshua (you know Him as Jesus). They prove this man called JESUS was real BEFORE the Bible did.
Here they are and I'll clarify their intent:
LUCIAN writes about Jesus being real person and people are now his followers. So he proved that Jesus is a real human being and as God.
Evidence from Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:
The Christians ... worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.[27]
Lucian of Samosata (A.D. 125 – after A.D. 180) wrote that early Christians worshiped Jesus and lived according to his teaching.
-- LUCIAN
Lucian, the Greek satirist, wrote this rather scathing attack in
The Death of Peregrine circa AD 170:
The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day - the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account... You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed upon them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.
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- "The man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world. . . . Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshiping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws"
6. Lucian of Samosata
Lucian of Samosata (115—200 AD) was a celebrated Greek satirist and traveling speaker. His book, The Death of Peregrinus (Περì τς Περεγρíνoυ Tελεύτης), (165 AD), is about a famed pagan who converted to Christianity. Lucian wrote,
This period [Peregrinus] associated himself with the priests and scribes of the Christians in Palestine, and learned their astonishing wisdom. Of course, in a short time he made them look like children; he was their prophet, leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He explained and commented on some of their sacred writings, and even wrote some himself. They looked up to him as a god, made him their lawgiver, and chose him as the official patron of their group, or at least the vice-patron. He was second only to that one whom they still worship today, the man in Palestine who was crucified because he brought this new form of initiation into the world [έκενoν ὅν ἔτ σέβoυσ, τòv ἄνθρωπoν τòν έν τ Παλαστíν άνασκoλoπσθέντα, ὅτ κανὴν ταύτην τελετὴν ές τòν βíoν].
Thallos writes about the day Jesus died/was killed on cross that suddenly the skies grew black just like the Old Testament Torah prophesied about.
1. Thallos
Thallos, an author from antiquity gives the earliest possible reference for Jesus, from approximately 55 AD. He’s quoted in his lost three-part history of the Mediterranean, mentioning an eclipse around the date of the crucifixion which some claim could be the darkness that supposedly fell the day Jesus died (
Matthew 27:45):
When Julius Africanus writes about the darkness at the death of Jesus, he added: “In the third (book) of his histories, Thallos calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun, which seems to me to be wrong (Toῦτo τò σκóτoς ἔκλειΨιν τoῦ ἡλiou Θαλλoς ἀπoκoλεῖ ἐν τρiτητῶν ῶτoρῶν, ὡς ἐμoῖ δokεῖ ἀλoγώς).”
"Circa AD 52, Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to his own time. This work itself has been lost and only fragments of it exist in the citations of others. One such scholar who knew and spoke of it was Julius Africanus, who wrote about AD 221. In speaking of
Jesus’
crucifixion and the darkness that covered the land during this event, Africanus found a reference in the writings of Thallus that dealt with this cosmic report. Africanus asserts: 'On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.'"
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7. Thallus (c. A.D. 52) was a Samaritan-born historian. Julius Africanus (c. A.D. 221) wrote:
"Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness [at the time of the crucifixion] as an eclipse of the sun-unreasonably, as it seems to me."
This was unreasonable, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was the time of the paschal full moon when Christ died.
Celsus tried to prove the miracles done by Jesus was done like a magician trick:
Philosopher Celsus (2nd century)
The 2nd-century Greek philosopher Celsus, while arguing against Christianity, also accepted that Jesus existed. Here he
writes that Jesus performed his miracles through sorcery:
O light and truth! He distinctly declares, with his own voice, as ye yourselves have recorded, that there will come to you even others, employing miracles of a similar kind, who are wicked men, and sorcerers; and Satan. So that Jesus himself does not deny that these works at least are not at all divine, but are the acts of wicked men; and being compelled by the force of truth, he at the same time not only laid open the doings of others, but convicted himself of the same acts. Is it not, then, a miserable inference, to conclude from the same works that the one is God and the other sorcerers? Why ought the others, because of these acts, to be accounted wicked rather than this man, seeing they have him as their witness against himself? For he has himself acknowledged that these are not the works of a divine nature, but the inventions of certain deceivers, and of thoroughly wicked men.
There's many more I could add. I chose these because they are all Greek, all non believers of what the person Jesus was proclaiming, and their writings would be more swayed to their opinion because they had their gods and goddesses. To them, Jesus was a joke and their writings are making fun of Jesus.
But what they did by writing jokes about this
real person of Jesus, was they proved this Jesus person in the Bible was a real human being/God (or they claim that's what was said of Jesus).
These Ancient Writers proved there was an actual man named Jesus (Yeshua). And that people worship Him like He is a God.
These Ancient Writers were atheist in their views toward this Jesus character. But they proved Him to be a real person away from what we can read in the Bible.
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