Did Jesus exist?

[unknown soldier]

Did Jesus exist as a real person, or is he a fictional character created by the early Christian sect? If Jesus did exist, then how much was he like the Jesus of the New Testament? Was the "real" Jesus so different from the Biblical Jesus that the Biblical Jesus is essentially a myth like Osiris or Thor?

My position on the issue of the historicity of Jesus is that although I wouldn't say he was not historical, I'm not convinced by the evidence that he existed either. As I see it, the biggest problem for historical-Jesus studies isn't so much that Jesus didn't exist but that good reasons to think he existed don't exist. In other words, historical-Jesus proponents have not met the burden of proof.

[Clownboat]

This proves nothing, but to compare the evidence from Pilate to Jesus is not apt unless you can show that the Pilate Stone is religious promotional material.

Proves nothing? If the Pilate Stone is not proof of Pilate's existence then what on earth is? Are you not convinced Pilate existed either?

Proof is for math and whiskey. The Pilate stone 'proves' nothing. That is all I'm saying. It very much suggest the existence of Pilate. IMO, enough to where I believe the man existed.

To check for consistency... is the Pilate Stone just as credible as claims from the Quran?

The Pilate Stone coupled with the written sources attesting to his existence is a convergence of evidence. If you are asking if I believe Mohammed was a real person, I do.

You failed to answer a yes/no question. This is because the Pilate stone is more credible than religious promotional material. You know this, so dodged it. You have made my point.

To compare the evidence from Pilate to Jesus is not apt unless you can show that the Pilate Stone is religious promotional material.
Can you show that it is religious promotional material? It has now been established that religious promotional material is not as trustworthy as actual archaeological material.

[Mithrae]

You failed to answer a yes/no question. This is because the Pilate stone is more credible than religious promotional material. You know this, so dodged it. You have made my point.

To compare the evidence from Pilate to Jesus is not apt unless you can show that the Pilate Stone is religious promotional material.
Can you show that it is religious promotional material? It has now been established that religious promotional material is not as trustworthy as actual archaeological material.

Is it reasonable to create a special category in the case of religious promotional material? A biography of a king or general may often be promotional material either for or against the person and what they stood for, statues and monuments are obviously almost always promotional in nature and so on. It seems to me a reasonable approach would be attempting to identify the likely agendas and biases of whatever source material/evidence is being considered, and view with particular scepticism the reports or implications which seem to strongly reflect those agendas. Suggesting that there is something uniquely problematic when those agendas are religious in nature looks like it could be a case of special pleading.

The flip side of this would be that information which seems likely to be contrary to the expected biases/agenda of the source material may be particularly reliable: For example in the case of Jesus we can see an apparent progression from Mark through Matthew/Luke to John wherein Jesus' "baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" becomes more ritualized and in the fourth gospel Jesus' baptism is done away with altogether even though the association with John remains. Clearly his baptism was something which didn't sit well with the biases of the later authors - the fourth gospel even goes so far as to assert that Jesus didn't even baptize anyone else - and yet it seems that baptism was nevertheless deeply ingrained as one of the two main rituals of the movement. By far the most plausible conclusion seems to be that Jesus really was baptized by John the Baptist.

[Clownboat]

You failed to answer a yes/no question. This is because the Pilate stone is more credible than religious promotional material. You know this, so dodged it. You have made my point.

To compare the evidence from Pilate to Jesus is not apt unless you can show that the Pilate Stone is religious promotional material.
Can you show that it is religious promotional material? It has now been established that religious promotional material is not as trustworthy as actual archaeological material.

Is it reasonable to create a special category in the case of religious promotional material?

Material written to promote a religion should be viewed much like a film producer reviewing their own movie. This is not needed though (so it's not really 'reasonable' to answer your question) as it would be silly if your source for the quality of the movie came from the producer of the movie itself. People inherently know better IMO.

Religions are an exceptions for some reason and therefore it becomes reasonable in this instance.

If the best fountain pop gets invented tomorrow, should I trust that it is great because the inventors of the drink tell me so? Personally, I would look elsewhere. Your milage may vary...

[unknown soldier]

Let me help you there. A really good argument for a historical Jesus is to recognize that the Romans who occupied Israel in the first century crucified many young Jewish rebels. A large number of these rebels preached an impending apocalypse, and a lot of them could have been named, "Jesus," a popular Jewish name at that time. One of these "Jesuses" caught on and became the figurehead of Christianity.

See that, Mith? That wasn't hard at all. I came up with a concise and logically valid argument for Jesus based firmly on historical evidence. Why has this argument not caught on? I think the answer is that it does not rely on the Bible.

Not only is that pure speculation and guesswork, but it raises far more questions and problems than it solves, requiring yet more guesswork to 'answer' and make any kind of coherent picture. Guesswork has its place, but calling it a "really good argument based firmly on historical evidence" just suggests a very tenuous grasp of what evidence actually is. Why have you tried to persuade yourself that it's a really good argument? Presumably because, for reasons best known to yourself, you want to avoid at any cost everything the people actually involved in that movement wrote.

Well, Mith, you berate me for "pure speculation and guesswork" only to proceed directly to speculate about my motives guessing that I have some motivation to deny those poor first-century Christians writers any credit for letting us all know for sure that Jesus was a historical person. So I see that a historical Jesus isn't enough; we need him presented to us by Paul and the gospel writers.

Anyway, to answer your question, you only need to read what I've already posted. The argument I posted for a historical Jesus is concise, logically valid, and based on historical evidence. First-century Israel was a hot-bed for Jewish resentment and rebellion against the Roman occupation, and this anger boiled over in 70 AD when the Jews revolted against the Romans. No doubt the basis for this Jewish Rebellion didn't happen overnight, and it's a sure bet around 30 AD there were already a significant number of Jewish rebels getting into trouble with the Romans by being crucified. We know that a lot of Jewish religious sects preaching an apocalypse were forming at this time, and but one of them was the Christian sect. I don't think it is mere coincidence that there was a Jesus in that sect who preached an apocalypse! Jesus was a common name at that time, and we need not be surprised that one of those rebels, Christian or otherwise, was named Jesus and was crucified.

So what am I getting wrong here? I know I'm leaving the New Testament out, but as Laplace so wisely said: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

"The Bible" is not a source for historical information on Jesus but Paul, Mark, Q/Matthew/Luke and John are (along with Josephus, Tacitus and the Talmud of course); whether you don't understand that distinction or have chosen to ignore it for polemical reasons, it's a fairly obvious limitation in critical thinking on the subject.

Well, forgive me for being stupid, but even a broken clock is right twice a day! It's best to attack "the time" rather than "the clock."

Anyway, if you want a "New-Testament Jesus," then of course you need the New Testament. I'm not a Christian, so I don't necessarily need the New Testament to realize that there may have been a "historical Jesus" especially when I have other good evidence that lets me get the job done.

For example your speculation that the Christian movement was founded or inspired by a "rebel" is not only unsupported by any of these early sources but quite strongly contradicted by many of them. Conversely most of those sources including Josephus directly or indirectly suggest that religious teaching offensive to the social elites was a distinguishing feature of that movement; so much so that given the merest chance a few decades later, James the brother of Jesus and some others were illegally killed without a governor's sanction by Ananus the brother-in-law of Caiaphas, leading to his removal as high priest (Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1).

Like I noted above, Jewish rebels named Jesus may have belonged to other sects. The adoption of one of these Jesuses as a figurehead for the Christian sect may have come after the execution of that Jesus. In that case Jesus never really belonged to the Christian sect during his lifetime. After this "adoption" of Jesus into the Christian sect, some Christians clashed with members of the other sects over doctrine. This scenario explains anything written by Josephus regarding "offensive religious teaching" on the part of the Christians. Jesus was a rebel adopted as a figurehead by Christians who attributed doctrines to him that were considered offensive by competing Jewish sects.

Besides, I see no contradiction at all between a rebel Jesus and a Jesus who presumably offended people with his religious doctrine. Rebels are often offensive!

Again, it all makes sense and fits what we know about first-century Israel. It grants us a historical Jesus without--please forgive me--the New Testament.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #54]

Jesus was a common name at that time, and we need not be surprised that one of those rebels, Christian or otherwise, was named Jesus and was crucified.

You are absolutely correct! There were a number of folks who were rebels at that time, and were out to lead rebellions, and they were all done away with one way or the other, never to be heard from again, and most folks have no idea who these people would be, because they never amounted to anything else. Not only were these rebels put away with, those who followed these men were either done away with, or they ceased their efforts at rebellion, more than likely fearing that what happened to their leader, would happen to them as well. So then, you are correct that it would "be no surprise that one of these folks would be named Jesus, and was crucified", and I do not think any one is surprised by this in the least.

What I think is a little surprising to most folks is not that there was another person crucified by the Romans, but rather the idea that his followers, who were ordinary men, who have just seen their leader crucified before their very eyes, not only do not disperse, as did all the followers of all these other rebels, but these followers, somehow go on to proclaim this same Jesus who was crucified, had rose from the dead, and would be the Messiah, and accused the religious authorities at the time, of crucifying their Messiah, which could not have been a popular message at the time, and somehow this message, being proclaimed by these ordinary men, not only survives, but also becomes the most well known story the world has ever known. Now, I don't care who you are, or how you slice it here, that is a fantastic tale! In other words, it is not that this sort of story would simply be, surprising, it would be extraordinary!

Not only would this be an extraordinary tale, it would also be extraordinary to believe that there may have been those much later, well after the alleged events, who were somehow able to not only create such a story, but also be able to create all the real historical facts, and evidence that would be in support of such a story, which would go on to cause this story to be the most well known story the world has ever known.

The whole point is, it does not seem to matter how you look at these things, because either way you go, you end up with the most fantastic tale.

[unknown soldier]

The whole point is, it does not seem to matter how you look at these things, because either way you go, you end up with the most fantastic tale.

According to Notre Dame professor of theology Candida Moss in her book, The Myth of Persecution (page 36+), the "fantastic tale" of Jesus goes back at least as far as Socrates. The story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause was widely known in much of the Roman Empire in the first century, and so this legend was not unknown to the first Christians. Moss writes that the story of the death of Socrates probably is the inspiration for the story of Jesus' execution.

[Realworldjack]

The whole point is, it does not seem to matter how you look at these things, because either way you go, you end up with the most fantastic tale.

According to Notre Dame professor of theology Candida Moss in her book, The Myth of Persecution (page 36+), the "fantastic tale" of Jesus goes back at least as far as Socrates. The story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause was widely known in much of the Roman Empire in the first century, and so this legend was not unknown to the first Christians. Moss writes that the story of the death of Socrates probably is the inspiration for the story of Jesus' execution.

How in the world did we go from the fact, that there were indeed actual real historical Jewish figures who set out to rebel against the Romans, who put these revolts aside, by destroying the leader, with their followers either being destroyed as well, or simply fading away into history, as opposed to Jesus being crucified and his followers who were ordinary common fishermen, who somehow continued to preach that this Jesus was the Messiah, right under the nose of those who would have had every reason to oppose such a message, and somehow this message becomes the most well known message the world has ever known, how did we go from all of the former to, "the story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause"? No one could seriously believe that, "the story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause" gives us the answer as to how these ordinary men could have possibly come up with this fantastic tale, which continues to consume the lives of millions of folks to this day, which would include you, as you continue to spend hours, and hours, day after day, talking about this same message.

I think I can tell you how we got here. We got here because there are those who cannot seem to think for themselves, and therefore they must rely upon the word of others, and therefore, instead of them making an actual argument themselves, they are forced to use the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of others. They do this, all the while giving others the advice that they should avoid making appeals to authority. GOOD GRIEF!

The thing is though, if one is under the impression they are getting an unbiased opinion from Candida Moss, they are sadly mistaken, because Moss tells you herself she has an agenda, and that agenda is politically motivated. If you do not believe this to be true, then all you need to do is to listen to her yourself.



Notice, at about the 50 second mark, Moss says, "in ADDITION to getting the history right, the goal of my book is to"........... My friend, what she says next, is what is called an agenda. The question is, what would be the problem with simply wanting to get the history right?

At any rate, it does nothing for one's argument to appeal to folks such as Moss, because I can find those who would disagree, because all they are really doing is to share with you their opinions. But hey! It is not shocking to me in the least that there are those who simply take the word of others, because , it would be many of these same folks who freely admit to being convinced Christianity was true, simply on the word of others. The mind can change, but the thinking remains the same, it would seem.

[unknown soldier]

How in the world did we go from the fact, that there were indeed actual real historical Jewish figures who set out to rebel against the Romans, who put these revolts aside, by destroying the leader, with their followers either being destroyed as well, or simply fading away into history, as opposed to Jesus being crucified and his followers who were ordinary common fishermen, who somehow continued to preach that this Jesus was the Messiah, right under the nose of those who would have had every reason to oppose such a message, and somehow this message becomes the most well known message the world has ever known, how did we go from all of the former to, "the story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause"?

That has got to be the longest question I've ever been asked! Good writing style is best accomplished via short sentences and general brevity.

My short and to the point answer is that I'm simply responding to your statement that the story of Jesus is amazing. While it may or may not be amazing, Moss tells is that it is not unique nor is it unprecedented. So as far as I'm concerned, Christianity is nothing more than tales taught by imaginative people, and when those people weren't imaginative, they were not above plagiarizing.

No one could seriously believe that, "the story of Socrates drinking the hemlock dying for a noble cause" gives us the answer as to how these ordinary men could have possibly come up with this fantastic tale, which continues to consume the lives of millions of folks to this day, which would include you, as you continue to spend hours, and hours, day after day, talking about this same message.

So Christ existed because you cannot figure out how people could have made him up.

I think I can tell you how we got here. We got here because there are those who cannot seem to think for themselves, and therefore they must rely upon the word of others, and therefore, instead of them making an actual argument themselves, they are forced to use the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of others. They do this, all the while giving others the advice that they should avoid making appeals to authority. GOOD GRIEF!

When you start trolling, I stop my reply to you.

[Mithrae]

Not only is that pure speculation and guesswork, but it raises far more questions and problems than it solves, requiring yet more guesswork to 'answer' and make any kind of coherent picture. Guesswork has its place, but calling it a "really good argument based firmly on historical evidence" just suggests a very tenuous grasp of what evidence actually is. Why have you tried to persuade yourself that it's a really good argument? Presumably because, for reasons best known to yourself, you want to avoid at any cost everything the people actually involved in that movement wrote.

Well, Mith, you berate me for "pure speculation and guesswork" only to proceed directly to speculate about my motives guessing that I have some motivation to deny those poor first-century Christians writers any credit for letting us all know for sure that Jesus was a historical person. So I see that a historical Jesus isn't enough; we need him presented to us by Paul and the gospel writers.

Anyway, to answer your question, you only need to read what I've already posted. The argument I posted for a historical Jesus is concise, logically valid, and based on historical evidence. First-century Israel was a hot-bed for Jewish resentment and rebellion against the Roman occupation, and this anger boiled over in 70 AD when the Jews revolted against the Romans. No doubt the basis for this Jewish Rebellion didn't happen overnight, and it's a sure bet around 30 AD there were already a significant number of Jewish rebels getting into trouble with the Romans by being crucified. We know that a lot of Jewish religious sects preaching an apocalypse were forming at this time, and but one of them was the Christian sect. I don't think it is mere coincidence that there was a Jesus in that sect who preached an apocalypse! Jesus was a common name at that time, and we need not be surprised that one of those rebels, Christian or otherwise, was named Jesus and was crucified.

So what am I getting wrong here? I know I'm leaving the New Testament out, but as Laplace so wisely said: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

The writings of early members of the Christian movement are arguably the best evidence - and besides the disputed Testimonium Flavianum and uncertain provenance of a later comment by Tacitus, the only direct evidence - for how that movement began. I understand that you're trying to be witty, but all you're actually saying is that you think you have no need of evidence to form your ideas about history. I'm not guessing or speculating about this, it clearly and explicitly is the approach which you have taken!

This touches on one of the questions suggested by the OP, which was the main reason for my earlier response though I never got around to mentioning it: When we talk about a "historical Jesus," how similar must he be to the early historical reports and how confident must we be in those similarities in order for us to be talking about Jesus in a meaningful sense? A description which could apply to any number of people and hence doesn't really apply to any individual is essentially meaningless. When we're talking about the origins of the Christian sect, you simply have not provided "A really good argument for a historical Jesus" as you claimed; you've provided a reasonable guess that since there were many Yeshuas around at the time, there might have been who was a "rebel" proclaiming an apocalypse, but there's absolutely nothing connecting that speculation to the Christian movement.

By contrast consider the probabilities of a person
- Who was baptized by John the Baptist (as outlined in post #52)
- Who had a brother named James (as we learn from Josephus, Paul, Mark and Luke/Acts)
- Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate (as we learn from Tacitus, Mark, Paul, John and arguably an 'original' version of the TF)
- Who founded a new sect in which he was known as Christ (as we learn from Josephus' passage on James, Paul, Mark, John and Tacitus)

The last of these is obviously the most specific, but even the first three are together distinctive enough that there was probably only one person in history who was baptized by John, crucified by Pilate and was survived by his brother James. A "rebel" named Yeshua doesn't identify anyone; by contrast any three of those four points above are enough to identify a single person. They also happen to be the conclusions most strongly proven by the historical evidence, I'm pretty sure: A few other good contenders would be that he taught against divorce, that he shared an important last meal with some friends, that he was not born in Bethlehem, and that he preached austerity/poverty as a consequence of love for one another, but I don't think any of those are quite as strongly defensible as the four above.

For example your speculation that the Christian movement was founded or inspired by a "rebel" is not only unsupported by any of these early sources but quite strongly contradicted by many of them. Conversely most of those sources including Josephus directly or indirectly suggest that religious teaching offensive to the social elites was a distinguishing feature of that movement; so much so that given the merest chance a few decades later, James the brother of Jesus and some others were illegally killed without a governor's sanction by Ananus the brother-in-law of Caiaphas, leading to his removal as high priest (Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1).

Like I noted above, Jewish rebels named Jesus may have belonged to other sects. The adoption of one of these Jesuses as a figurehead for the Christian sect may have come after the execution of that Jesus. In that case Jesus never really belonged to the Christian sect during his lifetime. After this "adoption" of Jesus into the Christian sect, some Christians clashed with members of the other sects over doctrine. This scenario explains anything written by Josephus regarding "offensive religious teaching" on the part of the Christians. Jesus was a rebel adopted as a figurehead by Christians who attributed doctrines to him that were considered offensive by competing Jewish sects.

Besides, I see no contradiction at all between a rebel Jesus and a Jesus who presumably offended people with his religious doctrine. Rebels are often offensive!

Again, it all makes sense and fits what we know about first-century Israel. It grants us a historical Jesus without--please forgive me--the New Testament.

Even ignoring the fact that you have constructed your story without any specific evidence whatsoever - a mere probabilistic guess, if we are being generous - it still makes very little sense on (at least) three counts: A) It's extremely incongruous for any Jews to claim a crucified rebel as Christ, B) adopting a militant person as their figurehead makes no sense for an emerging movement conspicuously dedicated to love and patience in the face of persecution and C) a movement inspired by anti-Roman Jewish zealotry would have little incentive and even less chance of making significant inroads into Gentile society in its earliest decades.

By contrast, Jesus is reported as preaching that to love your neighbour as yourself means that if there are any in need you should share your extra clothes, your food, the value of your house - pretty much everything but the clothes off your back - and that to love God means trusting him as a father to provide you with your daily bread and work for him rather than working for money; spreading the good news of a kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of men which zealots and Caesars alike were trying to build. It doesn't make my top four list of historical facts about him, but it's a clear, coherent message found consistently throughout the gospels and to some extent Paul's epistles... possibly inspired in part by Cynic philosophy. It's not militant, but it is a radical message which could very easily upset the wealthy social elites and particularly a priesthood wholly invested in the idea that pleasing God required ritual observances in their temple! It's not too hard to see how Jesus (and eventually James) could have got himself killed preaching this message but also that his crucifixion would not be the same kind of failure as it would be for a militant rebel and thus why his core, dedicated followers might still find a way to persuade themselves and eventually even some others that he was Christ. It also makes sense why the overlap and transition towards Gentile converts would be not only plausible but perhaps inevitable, since that message would be essentially compatible with Jewish Torah observance but in many ways drawing emphasis away from mere ritual rules and regulations. (Some Jewish Christians evidently did make it work in one way or another, such as the Ebionites, a name literally derived from 'the poor ones.')

Of course, in the end, historically and down to the present most Christians have preferred a mythic resurrected-saviour view of Jesus and pretty much ignore the historical likelihood and clear emphasis in the gospels of his preaching on love and poverty

[unknown soldier]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #59]

Mith, if you think I'm going to respond to your 907 words, then you are mistaken. It appears to be a common tact among the apologists on this board to post ebook-length replies in an apparent attempt to overwhelm their interlocutors with a wall of text. I just don't have the time nor the inclination to play that game. Due to a disability I'm a slow typist. So if you want me to respond to you, then you'll need to be much more concise. Please revise your post to make its length more manageable for me to read and respond to it. Just post your main points for me to scrutinize.

But if I may help you get started, it appears that you don't like my version of the historical Jesus because he does not match your version of the Biblical Jesus. Is that correct?