Did Jesus exist?

[Rasofy]

This is quite polemic. Some people believe Jesus was a divine being, some believe he is a fraud, but, ime, very few people question his existence. I have been through all these phases and today I sincerely believe the Church created him. What do you think?

Jesus. 1.1. No Primary Source (First-Person) Accounts of Jesus Exist

No historians of the time mention Jesus. Suetonius (65-135) does not. Pliny the Younger only mentions Christians (Paulists) with no comment of Jesus himself. Tacitus mentions a Jesus, but it is likely that after a century of Christian preaching Tacitus was just reacting to these rumours, or probably talking about one of the many other Messiah's of the time. Josephus, a methodical, accurate and dedicated historian of the time mentions John the Baptist, Herod, Pilate and many aspects of Jewish life but does not mention Jesus. (The Testimonium Flavianum has been shown to be a third century Christian fraud). He once mentions a Jesus, but gives no information other than that he is a brother of a James. Jesus was not an unusual name, either. Justus, another Jewish historian who lived in Tiberias (near Kapernaum, a place Jesus frequented) did not mention Jesus nor any of his miracles. It is only in the evidence of later writers, writing about earlier times, that we find a Jesus. What is more surprising (Jesus could simply have been unknown to local historians) is that academics note that the gospels themselves do not allude to first-hand historical sources, either!

“The four Gospels that eventually made it into the New Testament, for example, are all anonymous, written in the third person about Jesus and his companions. None of them contains a first-person narrative ("One day, when Jesus and I went into Capernaum..."), or claims to be written by an eyewitness or companion of an eyewitness. Why then do we call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Because sometime in the second century, when proto-orthodox Christians recognized the need for apostolic authorities, they attributed these books to apostles (Matthew and John) and close companions of apostles (Mark, the secretary of Peter; and Luke, the travelling companion of Paul). Most scholars today have abandoned these identifications, and recognize that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek-speaking (and writing) Christians during the second half of the first century.”

Source: http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_nojesus.html

 

[Mad Hatter]

So what? What reason would any ancient historian have to mention a certain 'Jesus' during his lifetime? He was at that time a totally unimportant religious crazy like a ton of others in that part of the world. Nobody during that time could have expected that Christianity would at one point come out on top.
I'm fairly convinced that there was a historical Jesus. I can remember that Tacitus mentions him, then there's the testamentum Flavianum etc. Now whether he was the 'son of God' - that's a completely diferent kettle of fish. But the one is thinking something is probable, the other is belief. I think it's quite probable that a man called Jesus lived at that time even though I'm certainly not a Christian.

 

[skylights]

^ yep, ditto.

my personal best guess is that he was a minor jewish religious reformer who did not have the intention of creating a whole new religion, but rather to return judaism to what he believed it "should" be, and that christianity as a major belief system was largely inspired by the sociopolitical culture of the time and a long tradition of death-rebirth religions, including mithraism. i think it's easy to question a lot of the things that have been claimed about jesus, but out of sheer logic i think it's more likely that he did exist than he did not. why completely invent someone out of thin air when you can just tweak history? the former seems a little too "conspiracy theory" for my personal tastes.

and yeah, that website isn't exactly a great looking source. it's got a distinctly geocities look to it.

i think this is interesting, and provides a range of viewpoints:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

 

[Rasofy]

So what? What reason would any ancient historian have to mention a certain 'Jesus' during his lifetime? He was at that time a totally unimportant religious crazy like a ton of others in that part of the world. Nobody during that time could have expected that Christianity would at one point come out on top. .

i think it's easy to question a lot of the things that have been claimed about jesus, but out of sheer logic i think it's more likely that he did exist than he did not. why completely invent someone out of thin air when you can just tweak history? the former seems a little too "conspiracy theory" for my personal tastes.

Very intersting points. Well, imo, the single fact that nobody mind mentioning him left plenty of space for people to twist the facts and create ''the man that was crucified for the humanity''. I agree that it would harder to invent a person and I accept that maybe there was a cool religious guy named Jesus back then, altough I doubt that he was even crucified, not to mention his miracles.

 

[Haven]

So what if there was a guy named Jesus? There are lots of guys named Jesus.

What if there was a guy named Zeus, and suddenly people started making up stories about him and how he had control over lightning? Every myth probably has an element of truth to it, but that's not enough to say "Jesus existed" or "Zeus existed". Jesus, as he is portrayed in the Bible, did not exist, or has been exaggerated to the point of mythical status, so it's pointless to say if he was real or not. Okay, maybe he's 5% real, 95% mythical.

 

[Ginkgo]

Jesus was just another number on Pilot's list. It's doubtful that Pilot would have even displaced the decision onto a crowd of Jews like the scripture suggests, as that would have compromised his authority.

Apparently, Yeshua was a fairly common name at the time. So... yeah.

 

[Ginkgo]

Yes, his real name was Yeshua, if he existed.

 

[InTheFlesh]

Why does it matter?

 

[Rasofy]

I didn't expect you to be glad people were challenging your beliefs. I also made sure the topic wasn't being repeated.

Why does it matter?

Doesn't really affect my life but I believe there's no knowledge that is not power.

 

[Beargryllz]

Why does it matter?

Why does anything matter?

 

[Sanctus Iacobus]

why does anyone wish he didn't?

 

[InTheFlesh]

Why does anything matter?

Because individuals assign value, sometimes arbitrarily, based off either objective or subjective criterion.
Silly nihilism

I wanted to know his reason for asking.

 

[Totenkindly]

Jesus was just another number on Pilot's list. It's doubtful that Pilot would have even displaced the decision onto a crowd of Jews like the scripture suggests, as that would have compromised his authority.

Apparently, Yeshua was a fairly common name at the time. So... yeah.

Glad you got Jesus' name right.

(Of course, then there's the vomitous misspelling of "[Pontius] Pilate" that concerns me...)

 

[Savage Idealist]

Without concrete evidence, the actuallity of the existence of Jesus Christ cannot be fully known, as we can only derive proof of his existence from the testimony of men during that time, who may have recorded false data as real. But even if the actual existence of Jesus Christ is unknown to us, what will it matter? Jesus Christ is but an image, a symbol, a figure, that has greatly infulenced the whole world we know it, and will continue to influence many with his supposed guidance and values. In that respect, Jesus Christ did exist.

 

[Totenkindly]

Thread reopened with almost half of its posts removed (due to being blatant derails).

This is in the Philosophy/Religion section; please keep it on track, thanks.

 

[Lark]

Yes.

 

[Anew Leaf]

*coughs politely*

If anyone wants to read an interesting book on this subject, I recommend this one: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Legend-...41/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1309112701&sr=8-13

It's written by the (ENTP yay) pastor of the church I enjoy listening to on podcast.

 

[amazingdatagirl]

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as synoptic Gospels. Their text is structured very much like a modern biography - events are recounted in chronological order. Since these three documents roughly parallel each other, biblical scholars believe that they are based on the same source material. The Gospel of John is not chronological and includes events that are not recorded in the others.

It is not entirely accurate to assert that none of the Gospels are written in the first person. The author of John's Gospel repeatedly uses the term "the disciple that Jesus loved" when referring to himself. It is a little silly to expect ancient manuscripts to adhere to modern literary conventions. Do you apply the same standards in discrediting other historical documents?

I've always thought that textual criticism is of limited value in answering the question did Jesus exist. Even if the Gospels are complete fabrications, it does not discount the possibility that a first century rabbi named Jesus founded the messianic cult that evolved into modern day Christianity.

 

[Totenkindly]

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as synoptic Gospels. Their text is structured very much like a modern biography - events are recounted in chronological order. Since these three documents roughly parallel each other, biblical scholars believe that they are based on the same source material. The Gospel of John is not chronological and includes events that are not recorded in the others.

Yup, that seems to be a consensus opinion. Probably Mark was used as a core document for Matthew and Luke. This doesn't describe either way the veracity of the accounts in Matthew and Luke.

To me, it's similar to a news article taking a shorter AP article as its source and fleshing it out with more detail; just because the longer article uses the AP article as a source does not mean the long article is false, it's just adding additional info that the AP article did not have.

It is not entirely accurate to assert that none of the Gospels are written in the first person. The author of John's Gospel repeatedly uses the term "the disciple that Jesus loved" when referring to himself. It is a little silly to expect ancient manuscripts to adhere to modern literary conventions. Do you apply the same standards in discrediting other historical documents?

Which doesn't prove anything. I can use the same phrasing in a fictional story I'm writing; I can also use the same phrasing in a factual story I'm writing. That's the main issue here. I think we can track the documents back to about 100-200 CE. So imagine a document passed orally and then patched together by hand in the 1810-1910. How close to historical events can we believe it is? The benefit of the latter example is that we have a lot of recorded history compared to what we have from 2000 years ago, to compare the narrative to; it's not much different than reading Charles Dickens and then saying, "Yes, his setting is plausible." We don't have nearly as much comparable material from 2000 years back.

We also have seen how pervasive urban legends are in even today's modern culture. We still have people arguing even on this forum 2-3 months ago about whether Obama was a US citizen rather than born in Kenya, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary. See the issues now in trusting a personal-style narrative that was pieced together from various bits of people's recollections of a particular chain of events? Misinformation abounds, that's why we have sites like Snopes.com that research all these stories and try to at least anchor them in fact if any exist. So many of these stories are either fraudulent or heavily embellished.

Most documents do not make the same level of claims that the Gospels do, which is one significant difference. Think about a court of law and the judge giving an attorney a particular amount of leeway to make her case; well, the claims being made here are so significant that they are going to be scrutinized far more heavily.

I've always thought that textual criticism is of limited value in answering the question did Jesus exist. Even if the Gospels are complete fabrications, it does not discount the possibility that a first century rabbi named Jesus founded the messianic cult that evolved into modern day Christianity.

While that is true, what you've said is FAR more subjective a conclusion ("Well, it might have happened ANYWAY even if the Gospels are wrong!") than to use actual textual criticism to make what amounts to at least a presentable circumstantial case. Really... if the Gospels can't be trusted, we have NOTHING resembling Jesus as expressed in modern-day Christianity that we can describe him from -- it's completely built on air.

 

[Southern Kross]

I'm an agonostic atheist and believe Jesus existed. I think of him as a religious leader and great philosopher but not divine. I think the speed with which early Christianity was adopted (so shortly after the proposed time of Jesus's death) and the number and specificity of writings about him are enough to persuade me he isn't pure invention. Anyway, I don't know why a Jewish historian would write about a man who espoused beliefs that challenged his faith - ancient historians tended to write about what drew their interest and confirmed their own views.

It is true that there is no clear evidence that verifies his existence but I expect that eventually there will be some discovery. After all, Pilate was considered fictional until they found the stone in Caeserea with his name inscribed upon it. And Troy was just a myth until Schliemann discovered it using details laid out in the Illiad. Like the New Testament, much of the Illiad is invention (obviously the inclusion of divine elements, for instance), it was written hundreds of years after the events it laid out and many of the specifics can't be verified but the fact there is some truth in it makes one inclined to believe in the possibility that more details may be accurate.