Jesus Never Existed

[FallentoReason]

The Gospels portray him as someone that was often walking around in public performing miracles. One would think that contemporary historians would take note of what was going on and comment on Jesus in their work. There's not a single contemporary historian mentioning Jesus though.

The closest it gets is a few paragraphs from the Testimonium Flavinium by Josephus which reads:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus]

It is rather strange that Josephus, an observant Jew, would write things such as 'He was the Christ'. Because of this, historians suspect that a Christian got a hold of his work a few centuries later and added in these lines.

I don't think Jesus ever existed. I can only find him in the NT which is rather strange considering he was the Son of God walking amongst men. I would have thought that he was worth mentioning.

Does anyone have any evidence for his existence?[/quote]

[Jayhawker Soule]

Tacitus is relaying the information that is being spread by the early Christians.

Either you are simply babbling or you are claiming that Tacitus is merely transmitting Christian folklore. If the latter, this is little more than pretense on your point: you do not know it, you have no way of knowing it, and to pretend to know it is intellectually irresponsible.

I explicitly said the latter.. it was pretty clear I thought. I also explicitly said it's my personal belief that he just echoed the gossip that he was hearing from the early Christians. The tone sounds as if he's had conversations with some of them and he didn't believe a word of it e.g. when he refers to their beliefs as a 'most mischievous superstition'.

Of course it's your 'personal belief.' At issue is whether or not it's an informed and, thereby, credible belief.

1) For anything remotely Christian of the time to only get one genuine mention by a Jewish historian seems rather strange to me. I'm inclined to believe it is genuine I suppose but I don't know what to make of it, because as I said, a prime candidate such as Josephus would have been an excellent person to get information about the early Christians but nothing of the sort is what we've found.

Also not found in all of the anti-Christian polemics from both Pagan or Jewish sources is any hint of a mythicist position. You seem wedded to an argument from absence only when it serves you.

2) I'm not familiar with what you're asking here. Could you please enlighten me on the verses?

You are aware no doubt that much of Paul and Acts deals directly or indirectly with Paul's relationship to and polemics with the Jerusalem sect. (If not, you do not have a knowledge base sufficient to warrant any opinion whatsoever.) Do you claim that this Jerusalem sect is a Pauline/Lucan fiction and that the so-called Judaizers plaguing Paul's mission was nothing more than an early Christian fabrication?

On a side note, the author of "Luke" is thought to be Lucius of Cyrene. Paul was using a rare Greek name which is thought to be short for Lucius.

http://paulandco-workers.blogspot.com.a ... -acts.html

I certainly hope that is not an example of what you consider to be scholarship, otherwise discussions with you are likely to be pretty much worthless.

3) I'm missing half the story apparently, so I can't give you an answer based on the parameters you set.

No doubt.

[Mithrae]

Ultimately, what we've got regarding Jesus is some information from a contemporary Jew (Paul), information on his brother's death from Josephus (who lived in Jerusalem at the time) and gospel stories which, while embellished, may include information from a disciple's interpreter (Mark) and even one of Jesus' own disciples (John) and overlap enough with each other and with Paul to suggest several elements of historical truth. Just how much is true and how much is not is very much a grey area of course; but I have yet to see any coherent and convincing theory to say that Jesus didn't exist at all!

'John' from the beginning speaks in 3rd person, so I don't see how it's reasonable to think he wrote his own Gospel either.

I'm at work so I've got to be quite brief, but despite writing in 3rd person the author of John and 1 John identifies himself as a witness of Jesus' life and death (John 1:14, 19:35, 1 John 1:1-3). Interesting also that in the synoptics Jesus' three main disciples are Peter, John and James - James died fairly early on (Acts 11 or so), but both Paul (Galatians 2) and Luke (early chapters of Acts) confirm the ongoing prominence of Peter and John. So it's curious that of the three, only Peter is named in the fourth gospel; John called himself the 'beloved disciple' and avoided mentioning his dead brother. The appendix to the gospel (21:24 from memory) also confirms that the author was a disciple.

The sun is born of a virgin, which is the moon and also the constellation Virgo. The sun passes through the 12 signs of the zodiac. The sun was also said to die for 3 days on the winter solstice (December 22nd) and rise on the 25th.

It seems that every religion leading up to Christianity and including Christianity (according to this) was well aware of their god's existence; the SUN. Everything seems to fall into place, especially all the key numbers that occur over and over again (e.g. the 12 works of Hercules).

I found this thread which shows some interesting parallels between all these Sons of Gods and where they're getting their stories from. I don't know how much of those are true, but it all adds up too much to just be a coincidence.

This is what I was getting at in the paragraph above the one you quoted: Most of these parallels simply don't bear up to scrutiny, as far as I've seen at least. For example many cultures did celebrate winter solstice festivals, but I've seen few referenced sources pinning them down to December 25th. The Roman festival of Saturnalia lasted a week from December 14th-21st or so, so why wasn't that the Christians' date for Christmas (which isn't about Jesus' resurrection in any case). The festival of Dies Natalis Sol Invictus (birth of invincible sun) was on December 25th, but from what I've read that festival wasn't celebrated until the 2nd century CE. Christians apparently started celebrating Christmas at roughly the same time - but it's very possible that the December 25th date was simply brought over into the Roman calendar from the date of Hunnukah on the 25th of Kislev (November/December). It's very easy to see how Christians might re-appropriate a celebration of the rededication of the temple in honour of their 'new temple,' Jesus.

Jesus' 12 disciples were very obviously drawn from the 12 tribes of Israel rather than the zodiac (which is explicitly mentioned in the gospels), so that's a pretty good warning sign that such sites are stretching to the utmost to reach their chosen conclusion, rather than pursuing objective research. If I were you I'd not believe any similar claims unless you can verify it from some reliable source (like Wikipedia ).

[historia]

What are you talking about? Throughout Paul's letters he regularly refers to all Christians as brethren in Christ. But James -- and only James -- is referred to as the brother of Jesus. This is not the "Catholic version" of anything.

Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 :

Is not this carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judes and Simon?

It's safe to say the term was loosely getting thrown around all over the place.

I should have stated that better, sorry. My point was that Paul distinguishes James from other Christians as being the literal brother of Jesus -- not that James was the only brother of Jesus.

Mary, James and his brothers are known to Paul and the other early Christians as Jesus' family. How is that "loosely getting thrown around"?

The Catholic site you quoted is eager to show that the term 'brother' in Greek can have a wider meaning of 'cousin' or other close kinsmen (to protect the Catholic doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity). But that doesn't fundamentally change the issue. If Jesus didn't exist, he would not have had a mother or kinsmen of any kind.

I agree that they would be eager, but they gave examples of how the SAME Greek word was used in different contexts.

Yes, right. The term "brother" has a similar range of meanings in English, too.

In context, when Paul talks about all Christians as "brothers" in Christ, he means that Christians share a common allegiance, character, and purpose. In context, when Paul talks about James and the "Lord's brothers," he clearly means it in a literal sense.

Clearly? How so? Just because you can invent a motive doesn't mean you can now operate as if that motive is true. You've given us no good reason to believe this at all.

I agree, but by the same token you haven't shown me why this couldn't be the case.

The point of any historical inquiry is not to dream up what could have happened, but rather to critically analyze the available sources and reason toward the most probable or likely explanation.

Your hypothesis requires us to believe a grand number of suppositions for which we have no direct evidence -- a "rumor" somehow spread into a religious movement, and within the course of a few years people began to claim to be related to a mythical person.

The other hypothesis is simply that James was the brother of Jesus.

Which is more probable?

Wrong, I didn't say James made the claim. It was the communities from where the Gospels came from that claimed this.

But Paul meets James, and tell us of that meeting in Galatians. It's Paul who tells us that he's the brother of Jesus, not some vague "communities."

So James himself must have made this claim. Or Paul was just confused? Or maybe he was duped by these later communities into thinking this James he met was the brother of Jesus?

We can keep dreaming up grander and grander suppositions to explain this all away. Or we can just say, you know what, the more likely explanation for all of this is simply that James was the brother of Jesus.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm

You can always find garbage theories on random websites written by non experts.

[historia]

You haven't refuted my perfect example at all, which is Hercules. I have shown you over and over how Hercules is no different but for no apparent reason he can be dismissed on a whim.

I haven't done much research on Hercules.

There may, in fact, have been an original, historical person who stands (now however distantly) behind the stories. At the same time, those stories developed over a long period of time, are largely set in a distant, ahistorical past, and so in that way look like mythology.

The sources we have for Jesus, on the other hand, appear shortly after his life, refer to people, events, and movements that we know from other sources are contemporary to that time. And in that way don't look like mythology.

I never said Josephus can be trusted. On the contrary, it's already been shown that his work that we're discussing has been tampered with by Christians. If it wasn't for this, then yes I would have trusted him because we have someone else's view on Jesus.

My point is that on the other historical events Josephus writes about (not Jesus, but Jewish history generally), he is largely getting his information from second-hand sources. This is true of Tacitus and Suetonius and most of the ancient "historians" whose texts we now posses.

You seem to imagine that because they are "historians" they can be trusted (albeit when not tampered with), whereas Luke and the gospel writers are simply passing along "rumors" and "hearsay."

Your acceptance of Josephus and Tacitus and your rejection of the gospels on this point, then, is mere bias. This is special pleading.

I can't help but see this as being the same to reconstructing the life of Spiderman based on the single source we have which are the original comics.

There are whole swaths of Roman history that we only know from Roman historians. Is it one-sided? Of course. Does that mean it's no better than a comic book? Come on, you know that's silly.

Muhammad's witnesses had no problems whatsoever with this.

Yeah, people in different times and contexts write things down for different reasons. This tells us nothing about Jesus' existence.

Here's a different example: We have three major sources for the life of the Roman Emperor Nero -- Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio -- which were all written around 50-150 years after his reign.

He gets a couple of scant mentions from other writers, and there are coins and inscriptions for him, of course, as we would expect for the leader of the most powerful empire in the history of the world! But otherwise it's just those three sources, written decades and even a century after his life.

Wouldn't Nero have been surrounded by scores of powerful, educated, and literate people? Why didn't any of them bother to write down what happened?

This is strange and mysterious, no? Or maybe this is just what ancient historical sources look like. And the only mystery about it is that you're unfamiliar with that fact.

[Goat]

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm

You can always find garbage theories on random websites written by non experts.

Hand waving arguments away? The Journal of Higher Criticism published Earl Doherty's theory.. What do biblical scholars say about his writings

From wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Doherty

Among authors sympathetic to the view that Jesus never existed, Doherty's work has received mixed reactions. The Jesus Puzzle has received favorable reviews from skeptics Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier.[11] Frank R. Zindler, former editor of American Atheist, in a review of The Jesus Puzzle described it as "the most compelling argument against the historical Jesus published in my life-time".[12] George Albert Wells, who now argues a more moderate form of the Christ myth and who rejects Doherty's view that the mythical Jesus of Paul did not also descend to Earth,[13] has nonetheless described The Jesus Puzzle as an "important book".[14] R. Joseph Hoffmann considers that there are "reasons for scholars to hold" the view that Jesus never existed, but considers Doherty "A 'disciple' of Wells" who "has rehashed many of the formers views in The Jesus Puzzle (Age of Reason Publications, 2005) which is qualitatively and academically far inferior to anything so far written on the subject".[15] Doherty has responded that his work owes very little to Wells.[16]

Writers who do not necessarily support the hypothesis that Jesus did not exist have found merit in some of Doherty's arguments. Hector Avalos has written that The Jesus Puzzle outlines a plausible theory for a completely mythical Jesus."[17]

Seems he knows more than you credit him for. It's not the people who agree with him that make him more credible .. but the reactions of many who disagree with him.

[historia]

Hand waving arguments away?

Or, more to the point, I'm trying to goad FallentoReason into reading some actual scholarly writings on this topic. There's quite a few good books on the historical Jesus -- too many to waste your time on silly atheist websites.

What do biblical scholars say about his writings

Let's ask one:

[T]here is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.

Seems he knows more than you credit him for.

You can always find scholars at the margins holding radical theories. Creationists love trotting out the handful of biologists who disagree with Evolution, too. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

[Goat]

Hand waving arguments away?

Or, more to the point, I'm trying to goad FallentoReason into reading some actual scholarly writings on this topic. There's quite a few good books on the historical Jesus -- too many to waste your time on silly atheist websites.

And, you know what.. when it comes to those books, they all make very important assumption that I can't assume to be true.. and that is the gospels have truth in them. They are making assumptions based on trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the Gospels, and I don't see enough evidence IN the gospels to say there is any truth in it.

How about suggesting one of these 'Good Books', and let's dissect the evidence it presents. I would love to see what you consider 'good book' on the subject. I know for one thing, there are certain authors that have been suggested that just make me roll my eyes at this point.

What do biblical scholars say about his writings

Let's ask one:

[T]here is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.

Seems he knows more than you credit him for.

You can always find scholars at the margins holding radical theories. Creationists love trotting out the handful of biologists who disagree with Evolution, too. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Shrug.. you are missing the point. The point is that even people who disagree with him accept that the presentation of his evidence is plausible. When it comes to creationists trotting out the handful of biologist who disagree with evolution, they tend to do some heavy misrepresentation .. or the person who is the biologist doesn't work in the field.

How about , let's do something that should be done.. how about looking at the evidence presented, and look at the arguments both for and against. Included in this, let's look at the early references to documents.. and the consistency. .. and look at what is said IN CONTEXT.

Calling things 'silly atheist web sites' certainly is NOT making your case.. and vague references to 'good books' doesn't do anything. For all I know, your 'good books' are written by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell, neither of which wrote 'Good books'.

[ThatGirlAgain]

This is what I was getting at in the paragraph above the one you quoted: Most of these parallels simply don't bear up to scrutiny, as far as I've seen at least. For example many cultures did celebrate winter solstice festivals, but I've seen few referenced sources pinning them down to December 25th. The Roman festival of Saturnalia lasted a week from December 14th-21st or so, so why wasn't that the Christians' date for Christmas (which isn't about Jesus' resurrection in any case). The festival of Dies Natalis Sol Invictus (birth of invincible sun) was on December 25th, but from what I've read that festival wasn't celebrated until the 2nd century CE. Christians apparently started celebrating Christmas at roughly the same time - but it's very possible that the December 25th date was simply brought over into the Roman calendar from the date of Hunnukah on the 25th of Kislev (November/December). It's very easy to see how Christians might re-appropriate a celebration of the rededication of the temple in honour of their 'new temple,' Jesus.

Jesus' 12 disciples were very obviously drawn from the 12 tribes of Israel rather than the zodiac (which is explicitly mentioned in the gospels), so that's a pretty good warning sign that such sites are stretching to the utmost to reach their chosen conclusion, rather than pursuing objective research. If I were you I'd not believe any similar claims unless you can verify it from some reliable source (like Wikipedia ).

The association of the December 25 date with the Sun is due to Julius Caesar. When he came to power he replaced the chaotic Roman calendar with one he adapted from the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes. The Winter Solstice, originally the last day of December, was found to be on December 24, likely due to the slight inaccuracy of the leap year rule over long periods. Note that January 1 was the day after the Solstice, that is, the first day longer than its predecessor when the Sun starts to win the battle against darkness. After the recalculation of the Solstice this Sun Return day was therefore December 25. Religions and mythologies that involve Sun Return would therefore naturally be represented as venerating December 25 regardless of what their own calendars looked like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_sol ... gnificance
http://www.unrv.com/culture/julian-calendar.php
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... Alexandria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar

The number 12 is a traditional favorite because of its unique properties. It has divisors of 2, 3, 4 and 6 and easy major submultiples of 8, 9 and 10. By contrast, its neighbors (11 and 13) are prime and have no divisors. No need to invent plagiarism with respect to the number 12.

[historia]

And, you know what.. when it comes to those books, they all make very important assumption that I can't assume to be true.. and that is the gospels have truth in them. They are making assumptions based on trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the Gospels, and I don't see enough evidence IN the gospels to say there is any truth in it.

I would say that scholars and historians are merely open to that possibility that the gospels (like any historical source) might contain historical information.

It seems to me that you have concluded a priori that the gospels cannot contain historical information, and so are the one making assumptions. Let's not use the t-word, it's too loaded.

I would love to see what you consider 'good book' on the subject. I know for one thing, there are certain authors that have been suggested that just make me roll my eyes at this point.

Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (1973), Jesus and the World of Judaism (1983), and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (1993) are classics.

E.P. Sanders is very important and influential: Jesus and Judaism (1985) and The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993) are his best works.

John P. Meier: A Marginal Jew, currently on its fourth volume, is quite good. The first volume, in particular, sets out some of the basic sources and issues.

I'm not a big fan of John Dominic Crossan, but he has been very influencial. The Historical Jesus (1991) is important, but dense. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994) is more accessible.

Are your eyes rolling yet?

Shrug.. you are missing the point. The point is that even people who disagree with him accept that the presentation of his evidence is plausible.

Says who? The one person cited in the Wikipedia article above? Ehrman said in his quote above that 99.99% of scholars find the mythicist position -- and Doherty with it -- unconvincing. The Creationist analogy is very apt here.

How about , let's do something that should be done.. how about looking at the evidence presented, and look at the arguments both for and against. Included in this, let's look at the early references to documents.. and the consistency. .. and look at what is said IN CONTEXT.

We could -- and started to in previous threads, if you recall.

The problem is that you and I are operating under very different ideas about how to answer this question, and even what the question under consideration is. From my point of view, you bring far too many assumptions and presuppositions to your analysis. And so, until we resolve the issues of methodology, there's little point examining the evidence . . . again.

[Goat]

And, you know what.. when it comes to those books, they all make very important assumption that I can't assume to be true.. and that is the gospels have truth in them. They are making assumptions based on trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the Gospels, and I don't see enough evidence IN the gospels to say there is any truth in it.

I would say that scholars and historians are merely open to that possibility that the gospels (like any historical source) might contain historical information.

It seems to me that you have concluded a priori that the gospels cannot contain historical information, and so are the one making assumptions. Let's not use the t-word, it's too loaded.

No, let's say that the Gospels are selling a product (Christianity), and therefore need external sources to be able to verify many of their claims. Those sources are.. hum.. less than independent.

I would love to see what you consider 'good book' on the subject. I know for one thing, there are certain authors that have been suggested that just make me roll my eyes at this point.

Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (1973), Jesus and the World of Judaism (1983), and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (1993) are classics.

I will accept that early Christianity had strong Jewish influences.. That has nothing to do with the evidence that Jesus existed as a human being at all. I will look at it. From the sounds of it, it's coming from a vastly different angle than the Lee Strobel and Josh McDowel hacks. If nothing else, it would be a good look at early Christianity from a Jewish viewpoint.

E.P. Sanders is very important and influential: Jesus and Judaism (1985) and The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993) are his best works.

This also looks interesting.. however, like I said, there is a differnece between looking at the society that gives rise to the stories, and showing there is evidence the actual person exists.

John P. Meier: A Marginal Jew, currently on its fourth volume, is quite good. The first volume, in particular, sets out some of the basic sources and issues.

I do not have high regard for J. P. Meier. Some of his arguments I have found to be very unconvincing.

I'm not a big fan of John Dominic Crossan, but he has been very influencial. The Historical Jesus (1991) is important, but dense. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994) is more accessible.

Are your eyes rolling yet?

Only a bit.... but , as I said, there is a difference looking at the society that gave rise to the area, and making assumptions about what could be verses evidence of. Those are not the horrible hacks at least. I'll put them on the list to look at.