Did Jesus exist?

[Elijah John]

From another thread:

and historical records and reality to prove he {Jesus} didn't exist.

For debate, please address any of the following.

Has it indeed been "proven" that Jesus did not exist?

Did Jesus exist as a real, historical human being?

And if not, would it have been necessary to invent him?, If so, why so?

Please make your case, for or against his existence.

And please, no subjective and sentimental "yes Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus" arguments.

[Jagella]

Both a Roman historian and a Jewish historian of the time mention Jesus in their writing. See Tacitus and Josephus.

Zeus was mentioned too. Should we then conclude that Zeus was a real person?

[Mithrae]

If there was no historical person behind the myth and it was all made up then just call him Jesus of Bethlehem.

Mythicists might argue that "Jesus of Nazareth" was invented as a man born in Bethlehem but who grew up in Nazareth because both towns have mystical significance. Bethlehem is portrayed by Matthew as the birthplace of the Messiah supposedly prophesied in Micah 5:2. Matthew 2:23 also refers to an obscure prophecy: "He shall be called a Nazarene." So that's why Jesus may have been associated with both Bethlehem and Nazareth.

That's the wrong way around; Matthew didn't invent Jesus' hometown to match the prophecy, he invented the 'prophecy' to match Jesus' hometown:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_2:23#Problems
  
  The origin of Jesus in a small town with no biblical history was a problem to many early Christian writers[citation needed]. Matthew deals with this [clarification needed] by arguing that Jesus’ origin in Nazareth is a fulfillment of prophecy. The difficulty with the brief quote "he will be called a Nazarene" is that it occurs nowhere in the Old Testament prophets, or any other extant source. A number of theories have been advanced to explain this. At the time the canon was not firmly established and it is possible that Matthew is quoting some lost source. However all the other quotations in Matthew are from well known works, and if a quotation so closely linking Jesus’ hometown and the messiah existed it would likely have been preserved.[6]
  
  There is much debate, and many theories among scholars as to what the quote could mean. Scholars have searched through the Old Testament for passages that are similar. One popular suggestion is Judges 13:5 where of Samson it says "the child shall be a Nazirite." A nazirite was a member of a sect who practiced asceticism, and the word has no known link to the name of the town. Other scholars reject this explanation. Jesus was not a nazirite and is never described as one. Matthew 11:19 shows Jesus specifically rejecting such teachings.[7] In both Hebrew and Greek the words nazarene and nazirite are quite distinct and are less likely to be conflated than in English.[citation needed] France also notes that Judges has "shall be" while Matthew has "shall be called." France feels that if Matthew had been quoting Judges he would have retained the same form.[8]
  
  Another theory is that it is based on Isaiah 53:2. This messianic reference states that "he grew up before him like a tender shoot." The Hebrew for shoot is nasir, more similar to the word nazarene than nazirite. Keener notes that the term is used to refer to the messiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[9] However this piece of wordplay is meaningless in Greek. Hebrew wordplay is not unknown in Matthew, such as Matthew 1:21. Goulder feels that the author of Matthew felt it essential that Jesus' hometown be justified in prophecy and he thus looked for the closest thing he could find, which was this verse.[10] However, it should be noted that the main problem with this argument is that the Hebrew word for "shoot" in verse 53:2 is not "nasir" but "yowneq" which further complicates the issue.
  
  This verse refers to prophets in the plural, unlike all of Matthew's other references to known Old Testament prophets, which use the singular. This could imply that the wordplay and multiple interpretations was intentional. Rothfuchs reads the plural as the author of Matthew referring to all the quotes so far in the Gospel that directed the Holy Family in travels. To him the line is thus not a direct quote from the prophets, but the inevitable end the previous directions led to.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 12 by Mithrae]

Matthew didn't invent Jesus' hometown to match the prophecy...

Who said that?

...he invented the 'prophecy' to match Jesus' hometown

I think that may be true. If Jesus was raised in a town called Nazareth, then the very creative Matthew saw some mystical significance in that town.

By the way, some people dispute the existence of Nazareth in the time Jesus is said to have lived. Acharya S quotes Holley: "There is no such place as Nazareth in the Old Testament...The name was apparently a later Christian invention." (The Christ Conspiracy, Page 190) In other words, Nazareth never existed until after Jesus is said to have lived.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 12 by Mithrae]

Matthew didn't invent Jesus' hometown to match the prophecy...

Who said that?

...he invented the 'prophecy' to match Jesus' hometown

I think that may be true. If Jesus was raised in a town called Nazareth, then the very creative Matthew saw some mystical significance in that town.

By the way, some people dispute the existence of Nazareth in the time Jesus is said to have lived. Acharya S quotes Holley: "There is no such place as Nazareth in the Old Testament...The name was apparently a later Christian invention." (The Christ Conspiracy, Page 190) In other words, Nazareth never existed until after Jesus is said to have lived.

If only I had a penny for every place that left no written record of its existence until after it'd grown bigger than a few families Josephus wrote that there were over two hundred towns in Galilee at the time, of which he named scarcely a third (if that) if memory serves. Unlike many of those, the name and existence of Nazareth is known both from other written sources and from archaeological excavations (including "unambiguous" evidence of 2nd century habitation from the 1960s and more recent evidence dating back to the time of Jesus). So I trust you'll pardon the observation that Acharya S's feeble bleating that it must not have existed until the later extant records rather than the earlier ones comes across more as propaganda for the choir than any kind of rational evaluation.

As I've noted in the past, mythicists often seem to display this tendency of disputing the existence of anything they find disagreeable to their position; Jesus, Nazareth, Paul and the apostles...

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 14 by Mithrae]

If only I had a penny for every place that left no written record of its existence until after it'd grown bigger than a few families

You might have enough to buy a burger at McDs.

Unlike many of those, the name and existence of Nazareth is known both from other written sources and from archaeological excavations (including "unambiguous" evidence of 2nd century habitation from the 1960s...

That's irrelevant. We're discussing Nazareth in the early first century.

...and more recent evidence dating back to the time of Jesus).

That's better!

So I trust you'll pardon the observation that Acharya S's feeble bleating that it must not have existed until the later extant records rather than the earlier ones comes across more as propaganda for the choir than any kind of rational evaluation.

I don't necessarily agree that there was no Nazareth in the early first century, but what you're posting here is ridiculously opinionated. I could just as easily refer to your sources as "feeble bleating" and as coming across as "propaganda for the choir (rather) than any kind of rational evaluation." If you really have good evidence for Nazareth in the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived, then you don't need these kinds of tactics.

As I've noted in the past, mythicists often seem to display this tendency of disputing the existence of anything they find disagreeable to their position; Jesus, Nazareth, Paul and the apostles...

Oh? Do they now? And historicists never do that! No person who dearly hopes that Jesus lived would dispute anything that might cause them to doubt.

Seriously, let's try to be fair and objective. OK?

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 14 by Mithrae]

If only I had a penny for every place that left no written record of its existence until after it'd grown bigger than a few families

You might have enough to buy a burger at McDs.

There've been hundreds of thousands if not millions of towns throughout history, and they overwhelmingly started out as small insignificant hamlets.

Unlike many of those, the name and existence of Nazareth is known both from other written sources and from archaeological excavations (including "unambiguous" evidence of 2nd century habitation from the 1960s...

That's irrelevant. We're discussing Nazareth in the early first century.

...and more recent evidence dating back to the time of Jesus).

That's better!

So I trust you'll pardon the observation that Acharya S's feeble bleating that it must not have existed until the later extant records rather than the earlier ones comes across more as propaganda for the choir than any kind of rational evaluation.

I don't necessarily agree that there was no Nazareth in the early first century, but what you're posting here is ridiculously opinionated. I could just as easily refer to your sources as "feeble bleating" and as coming across as "propaganda for the choir (rather) than any kind of rational evaluation." If you really have good evidence for Nazareth in the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived, then you don't need these kinds of tactics.

I provided good evidence. I also explained why the argument from silence - which is not even an argument from silence since Nazareth is named as Jesus' hometown in all four gospels despite three of the authors' apparent discomfort with the fact - is patently irrational, simply denying the evidence rather than evaluating it. I'm sorry if that has offended you, but a pseudonymous author with a sensationalist book title like "The Christ Conspiracy" should be raising a red flag already

If you actually have concerns about my sources you're more than welcome to express them: But merely pointing out that you could say such things really wouldn't mean a lot if it were in fact the case that yours is a more questionable source (one whose assertion it seems that you yourself are not prepared to accept!).

As I've noted in the past, mythicists often seem to display this tendency of disputing the existence of anything they find disagreeable to their position; Jesus, Nazareth, Paul and the apostles...

Oh? Do they now? And historicists never do that! No person who dearly hopes that Jesus lived would dispute anything that might cause them to doubt.

Seriously, let's try to be fair and objective. OK?

There's a fairly significant difference between saying (for example) that a particular interpretation of Paul's letters is incorrect and claiming that Paul didn't even exist. If you don't understand that distinction, productive discussion might not be possible.

Denying Jesus' existence requires that virtually all the information about him from all the sources is false or misleading: The 30s-40s CE Passion Narrative, the 50s-60s CE Q source, Paul's acquaintance with Jesus' brother (and indeed his entire theology), Josephus' knowledge of Jesus' brother, everything in Mark, everything in Matthew, in Luke, in John, in Hebrews, in Tacitus, in the Talmud...

The evangelical Christian view is just as extremist, requiring that virtually everything about him, certainly everything in the canon, is true and accurate.

By contrast, most historians and scholars recognize for example that the Testimonium Flavianum is unreliable and probably forged wholesale in the 4th century CE, that the gospel stories are often embellished, that each author had his own agenda in writing, that the surviving extant information is incomplete and so on. If we are going to be fair and objective here, it is very easy to see which of these positions acknowledges the facts even when those facts increase uncertainty in the final conclusion.

[Furrowed Brow]

I have also noticed some "contrivances" in the Gospels. For example, Matthew 21:5 has Jesus riding into Jerusalem on both a colt and an ass! Was that story contrived to have Jesus arrive in Jerusalem as the prophesied Messiah rather than some guy who really did arrive there but was unnoticed?

Yes that rings true to me. Doesn't mean it is true but Jesus as a more peripheral figure and the Gospels bigging him up seems plausible to me.

Maybe. Matthew could just as easily have made up the entire story including Jesus himself, so I'm not too impressed with the contrivance argument for the historicity of Jesus.

Yes it could have been invented. The question is to what degree. How much invention? To attempt to answer that we have to try and project ourselves into the position of the original writer and maybe subsequent interpolators and try and work out their objectives and what factual material they have to work with.

Maybe. Matthew could just as easily have made up the entire story including Jesus himself, so I'm not too impressed with the contrivance argument for the historicity of Jesus. Mythicists might argue that "Jesus of Nazareth" was invented as a man born in Bethlehem but who grew up in Nazareth because both towns have mystical significance. Bethlehem is portrayed by Matthew as the birthplace of the Messiah supposedly prophesied in Micah 5:2. Matthew 2:23 also refers to an obscure prophecy: "He shall be called a Nazarene." So that's why Jesus may have been associated with both Bethlehem and Nazareth.

Sure maybe the author is trying to twist a narrative to meet with competing prophecies that make for awkward bedfellows. Alternatively the author may be writing to one prophecy and then inventing another one of their own. Whichever, the objective is clearly to deify Jesus and provide a narrative that legitimises the heritage of a human being. The author could easily just have the angels deliver Jesus from the sky and make him a god from the get go. If we start from the premise everything is invented then we have to ask the question why this choice of narrative and not that. And to answer that we would look to the tradition in which the narrative is written the prophecies it is trying to meet and the matter of facts at the time of writing. As the narrative very much looks like an attempt to lionise a human being this nudges me towards the idea that there was a human somewhere in the background. In much the same way if you take any figure from mythology posited as a half god I tend to assume there is some historical figure the narrative is trying to big up as opposed to making an invented god like figure more mundane. Is there a real historical figure behind the myth of Achilles? I suspect there is. This does not require completely investing in accepting them as real people. It is a matter of balancing the probabilities and leaning one way and not the other.

For example one aspect of the Jesus narrative I don't think is a contrivance is that the God/human of the narrative doesn't really get going fulfilling his mission until he is 30 and he is promptly executed. The getting himself executed sounds sufficiently real to me and the rest is an exercise in glossing over that failure. On the other hand if the author invented Jesus it makes less sense to invent a Jesus that essentially fails and is executed.

Maybe. Matthew could just as easily have made up the entire story including Jesus himself, so I'm not too impressed with the contrivance argument for the historicity of Jesus. Religious sects do not need real people to base their gods on. Zeus and Thor are but two examples of gods made up by religious groups.

True but their are examples of historical figures treated as gods too. The Egyptian pharoahs for example. Julius Caeser later laid claim to be divine. So the question is which is it? Made up god or making up stories to make someone look divine? Given Jesus is executed in the narrative this to my mind looks like a major case of cognitive dissonance on the behalf of his followers trying to come to terms with that failure as opposed to a sect that invent a failed leader who was executed.

If Christians made this story up, then why believe anything they said including the "historical" Jesus?

We don't have to believe anything they said. But it is a worthwhile exercise to try and pick through what they said to see what makes the better sense.

If Christians made this story up, then why believe anything they said including the "historical" Jesus?If we try to argue that we know there was a Jesus because the New Testament writers said so, then we argue that we know Jesus existed because some fanatical, dishonest people said so.

Personally I don't know there was an historical figure behind the story. I tend to accept that is the case because it makes more sense to me. I can accept there was some fanaticism and the someone is lying but I have already built these assumptions into how I look at the narrative.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 16 by Mithrae]

There've been hundreds of thousands if not millions of towns throughout history, and they overwhelmingly started out as small insignificant hamlets.

I understand that towns usually start out small. What is your point? Are you saying that the small size of Nazareth explains the dearth of evidence for its existence in the first century? All that does is explain the dearth of evidence. It isn't evidence. I see historicists arguing that way a lot. If the evidence for a historical Jesus is lacking, then they construct elaborate arguments to explain away that lack of evidence.

I provided good evidence.

I checked the article you posted a link to, "Nazareth excavation reveals remains from time of Jesus." How do you judge that evidence as "good"?

I also explained why the argument from silence - which is not even an argument from silence since Nazareth is named as Jesus' hometown in all four gospels despite three of the authors' apparent discomfort with the fact - is patently irrational, simply denying the evidence rather than evaluating it.

I'm well aware that Nazareth is mentioned in the gospels. That's the very issue: was the Nazareth mentioned in the gospels a town at the time Jesus is believed to have lived there? The error in your reasoning is that you are offering as evidence the very claims that are being scrutinized. If I claim to have seen a UFO, is my claim evidence that I saw a UFO?

... a pseudonymous author with a sensationalist book title like "The Christ Conspiracy" should be raising a red flag already

If you think pseudonymous authors with sensationalist titles raise red flags, then why are you a historicist? The gospels are exactly that; they are written by pseudonymous authors with sensationalist titles. They provide almost all the evidence for a historical Jesus. You have unwittingly exposed a major weakness of your own position and are special pleading.

...merely pointing out that you could say such things really wouldn't mean a lot if it were in fact the case that yours is a more questionable source (one whose assertion it seems that you yourself are not prepared to accept!).

I hold no dogmas about the existence of Nazareth in any era. Maybe there was a Nazareth when the New Testament says Jesus lived. My point is that orthodoxy is not credibility. It's easy enough to dig up evidence for Nazareth online and anything about it. Here's some "good" evidence that Nazareth wasn't there when Jesus is claimed to have lived:

Since Jesus is frequently referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth,� it is interesting to learn that the town now called Nazareth did not exist in the first centuries BCE and CE. Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscans to prove the cave they possess was once the home of Jesus’ family. But actually they have shown the site to have been a necropolis – a city of the dead – during the first century CE. (Naturally, the Franciscans cannot agree!) With no Nazareth other than a cemetery existing at the time, how could there have been a Jesus of Nazareth? Without an Oz, could there have been a Wizard of Oz?

And there's even more evidence that Nazareth wasn't there at the time. René Salm on page 339 of Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth states about his book, The Myth of Nazareth:

My book's argument can be summarized as follows:

A. The material finds reveal the following:
(1) the lack of demonstrable material evidence from ca. 700 BCE to ca. 100 CE;
(2) the 25 CE+ dating of all the earliest oil lamps at Nazareth;
(3) the 50 CE+ dating of all the post-Iron Age tombs at Nazareth

What do these sources prove? They prove that opinions vary regarding this issue of Nazareth. You can dismiss what you disagree with, but I prefer to keep an open mind. That way I'm more likely to discover the truth.

Denying Jesus' existence requires that virtually all the information about him from all the sources is false or misleading...

I really don't deny that Jesus existed. My beef is that the historical evidence for Jesus is very weak. It's so weak that Jesus being a myth seems very possible to me. Besides, it's entirely possible that all the information claiming he existed is in fact misinformation. All the evidence for faith healing and professional wrestling is false or misleading, so why not see the "information" for Jesus the same way?

Paul's acquaintance with Jesus' brother...

You are begging the question here. Paul couldn't have known any brothers of Jesus unless there was a Jesus--the very claim you are making! Be careful not to assume what you are trying to prove. Besides, do you really think that Jesus existed because Paul said so?

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 17 by Furrowed Brow]

Doesn't mean it is true but Jesus as a more peripheral figure and the Gospels bigging him up seems plausible to me.

I think that there is an even chance that the gospels did "big up" a real Jesus. It's very possible. After all, Benny Hinn is believed to be a man who works miracles, and he is very real.

Yes it could have been invented. The question is to what degree. How much invention? To attempt to answer that we have to try and project ourselves into the position of the original writer and maybe subsequent interpolators and try and work out their objectives and what factual material they have to work with.

Like I've opined already, all we can do is make educated guesses regarding the historicity of Jesus. Then we hope that others will accept our conjecture as believable. That's essentially what Jesus scholars have been doing all along.

In much the same way if you take any figure from mythology posited as a half god I tend to assume there is some historical figure the narrative is trying to big up as opposed to making an invented god like figure more mundane. Is there a real historical figure behind the myth of Achilles? I suspect there is.

How about Zeus? Like Jesus he was a god-man who interacted with people after he came down to earth from a heavenly realm. Like Jesus many "historical" people have spoken of him!

For example one aspect of the Jesus narrative I don't think is a contrivance is that the God/human of the narrative doesn't really get going fulfilling his mission until he is 30 and he is promptly executed.

Really? It seems more likely to me that a "real" Jesus would not wait until age 30 to start his ministry. In Mark, there is no mention of anything about the life of Jesus prior to his ministry. Jesus seems to appear out of nowhere--just like a mythological figure might. Real people need to grow up and gradually develop; myths have no such constraint.

The getting himself executed sounds sufficiently real to me and the rest is an exercise in glossing over that failure.

It's not difficult to come up with reasons to make up an executed Jesus. A crucified Jesus makes the Romans and the Jewish competition look evil. In addition, a crucified Jesus sets up the resurrection. Rising from the dead is no failure!

We don't have to believe anything they said.

Then who do we believe? Without the New Testament, there is little else to go on to judge if Jesus existed. Should we base a real Jesus on what Josephus said?

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 2 by alwayson]

Bart Ehrman has a long track record of lying about what Paul actually says...

Ever since Ehrman started defending his "historical Jesus" he really seems to be losing credibility at least with me. We are to believe that there was a historical Jesus because Paul said he knew Jesus' "brother"?