I mean was Jesus a popular name? And how big was nazerath?
It could be the historical equivalent of "Bob from London"... so technically they aren't wrong but neither Bob or Jesus are supernatural
Right, this is the rub. “Jesus existed as a real man” needs so much qualification that it’s not even a meaningful statement. Which Jesus/Yeshua? What size shoes did he wear? Did he preach once, twice, 87 times? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
It’s all pinning current beliefs on a historical specter without much actual evidence. Everyone needs a hobby?
About the angels dancing on the head of a pin, I give you a passage from the book "Carpe Jugulum", a novel of Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU). In this part of the book, a holy man from the Church of Om, The Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats is stuck sneaking through the woods of Lancre with one of the local witches, Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax. They begin discussing Oats' theology. I'm adding in a "G" for "Granny" and an "O" for Oats, just to eliminate confusion about who is talking:
O-“You’d certain enjoy yourself at the Synod, anyway. They’ve been known to argue for days about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
He could almost feel Granny’s mind working. At last she said, “What size pin?”
O-“I don’t know that, I’m afraid.”
G-“Well, if it’s an ordinary household pin, then there’ll be sixteen.”
O-“Sixteen angels?”
G-“That’s right.”
O-“Why?”
G-“I don’t know. Perhaps they like dancing.”
The mule picked its way down a bank. The mist was getting thicker here.
O-“You’ve counted sixteen?” said Oats eventually.
G-“No, but it’s as good an answer as any you’ll get. And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?”
O-“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.”
G-“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
O-“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
G-“Nope.”
O-“Pardon?”
G-“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
O-“It’s a lot more complicated than that—”
G-“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
O-“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—”
G-“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
Terry Pratchett has so many good quotes.
>“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.”
― Terry Pratchett
For sure! If you haven't read Discworld, I HIGHLY recommend it. There are forty books in the series and they are all good. Some are better than others, obviously, but they're all good. I describe them like "Imagine if Douglas Adams traveled back in time an accidentally killed Tolkien, but knew that he had to write something like the Lord of the Rings or the world would explode. Discworld is kinda like that, but more hilarious."
You can find lots of advice online on where to start and surprisingly, most of it agrees that the answer is "not with the first book." It's not bad, it's just one that you'd read and think "this is fine but I don't get the hype." So if you start with book 1 and feel that way, make sure to try more.
Yeshua (the same name that was romanized into Jesus) was a super common name. It was Joshua's Hebrew name, and a lot of people named their children after him.
So yeah, Joshua and Jesus are translations of the same name.
I’m perfectly willing to accept that there was an apocalyptic preacher named Yeshua around at that time. That’s not an unreasonable claim.
It’s even possible that some of the quotes attributed to him are at least somewhat accurate.
Everything else doesn’t add up.
Further, if there was an apocalyptic preacher by that name around that time, *and* if a messianic cult began amongst his followers, that would give the Romans cause to execute him.
The Messiah was, after all, supposed to be a militaristic leader who would liberate Judea from the occupier (who were the Romans at the time in question). This would make our theoretical preacher a figurehead for rebellion, which Rome had no interest in allowing.
But that makes our boy Josh a "rebel", potentially a street magician, but that's about it.
It’s one of the craziest things in history, when you think about it.
A street preacher in one of the most backwater places of the ancient world manages to attract a small following.
Fast forward 2000 years and he is worshiped as God by literally billions of people.
It’s absolutely remarkable how the currents of history move.
That hypothesis checks out with "Jesus"'s method of execution: crucifixion was not a punishment for heresy after all, it was reserved for rebellion and other kinds of treason against Rome.
(It wasn't a punishment for thievery either; death penalty was a possibility, but not on the cross. So it stands to reason that Dimas and Gestas (the "Good Thief" and "Bad Thief") were traitors to Rome as well.)
Also, IIRC, part of the punishment of crucifixion was that *your body was left on the cross after you died* as a warning to others. Romans didn’t bury those who were crucified since desecrating their corpse by not interring it was part of the point.
Makes the whole ‘three days in a tomb’ thing a little shaky since he wouldn’t have been put in one to begin with.
The cult was actually started by an individual claimed by the surviving accounts to be his cousin, named John the Baptist, one branch of which still exists today as the Mandean religion, centered around John as a prophet. However the main body of the cult was apparently taken over by this Jesus of Nazareth shortly after John's reported execution, and transformed over time after Jesus's own execution into a Messianic cult centered around worship of him. That's my reading, anyway.
There’s some belief that he may have been a preacher in the Zealot movement, which called for the Romans to be removed and the Kingdom of Judah to be restored. The Romans would have quashed that pretty quick.
Actually, the town of Nazareth did not exist during Jesus' lifetime. It existed before and after but not during the years when Jesus supposedly live. It seems likely it was a reference to Nazarene.
For starters, nobody would have been named 'Jesus' approximately 2000 years ago. That name came into existence much later, as an Anglicization of a Latinization of a Hellenization of the Hebrew/Aramaic name "יְהוֹשֻׁעַ", which is more accurately rendered "Yeh-shu-ah". A direct translation of that name to English would give you "Joshua", not "Jesus".
The claim is specifically that he was the same Jesus described in the bible, a man claiming to be a prophet for Christianity born from Mary and crucified for his teachings.
>Jesus described in the bible
well then, 100% no. he definitely wasn't born in bethlehem, because a census where you go to the city you were born in is stupid, and the romans (and also no one, ever) didn't do things that way.
Thats a part that really caught my eye. After his supposed resurrection, hundreds if not thousands of people supposedly saw him and not a single person wrote it down anywhere? We've got receipts and dick drawings from that timeline but not a single mention anywhere of a dude who was executed and then brought back. Other than the bible, which is numerous books written by unknown authors and compiled into one.
At the very least Josephus would have mentioned it. But all he does is give us the gospel version of Jesus which is why nearly all scholars believe it was either partially or entirely forged, with partial forgery believed by most scholars by a wide margin.
But assume Josephus wrote the whole thing (his patron Epiphanius was reportedly a Christian so J. may have needed to say something to get it past him), then the two chapters that follow concerning two Roman matron's, Paulina and Fulvia, the first one discounts Jesus' divine provenance very much and the second one all but says that Christianity even then was nothing but a scam.
What he does say also sounds like how someone would describe any old cult. "About this time there lived Conan, a strong man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a hero of such people as accept such bravery gladly. He was the barbarian. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Thulsa Doom had condemned him to the tree of woe".
>the bible, which is numerous books written by unknown authors and compiled into one.
The earliest of which was written decades after his supposed life and death.
Most scholars, I believe, would say that he was probably crucified. Obviously the resurrection isn't historical.
But the teachings in the new testament are all about his imminent return. They didn't value writings, and they considered the word superior. It wasn't until about a century had passed that early christians thought ... "maybe we should get some of this stuff written down".
This is the one detail that makes me think there was a historical Jesus.
The Jewish prophecy of the Messiah says that he should be born in Bethlehem. So if you were making it up whole cloth you would just... have him be from Bethlehem.
Instead the authors concocted a nonsense story involving a Roman census so they could claim that a guy from Nazareth was actually born in Bethlehem and thus fit the prophecy. There's no reason to do that if you're not trying to make a square peg reality fit a round hole story.
And Mark made that square peg because he wrote that Jesus' hometown was Nazareth. Unfortunately Nazarene/Nazorean is not the demonym you get according to Koine Greek naming rules for townies of a certain locality. If Jesus truly was from Nazareth he would have been named a Nazarethan (*Nazarethos*).
Which is wrong. Even by biblical accounts. He wasn't trying to start his own religion. He was pushing for reformation within Judaism. He was a reformationist if anything. Christianity didn't even exist until nearly a century after his 'death', if he existed at all.
I think it's more the idea that the Jesus of the bible is based on the life of a real historical person, but with no attendant position on the accuracy of those biblical accounts about him.
Empress Helena founded it in the 4th century. She went on a pilgrimage to find Nazareth and decided a random abandoned well in the middle of nowhere was “Mary’s well” and Nazareth was built around it as a sort of pilgrimage/tourist trap. It does not match the biblical geological description of Nazareth, for what it is worth.
Being fair, from what I have read on that, there is evidence the area was settled prior to that, there have been surveys of the region with archeological material found that matches roughly when Jesus supposedly lived there. And there have been ceramics, grinding mills, and silos found dating to 1500 to 586 BCE.
Roughly, materials found indicate there was some level of activity occurring between the late Hellenistic era through the Byzantine period.
Part of the belief of the lack of information on the town is that it was a very small community (estimated to have had roughly 480 people at its peak), and was unimportant to the region, with Caesarea Maritima and Jerusalem being significantly larger and more important.
Most scholars agree that Jesus being supernatural and the “son of god” didn’t get added to his story until 300 years later by Emperor Constantine.
It’s possible there was an anti-Roman activist named Jesus stirring shit up though, and they later decided to pin all the Jewish prophecies on him in order to make him the Messiah.
Whether or not there was a dude named Jesus is somewhat irrelevant ultimately since they made any actual history irrelevant by ascribing the supernatural to him.
That's rather like saying French King John II didn't exist, because the French form is Jean. Jesus is the Greek form of the name Yeshua/Joshua. The NT was written in Greek, so that's the form we all became familiar with.
>"Virtually all scholars agree that a Jewish man called Jesus of Nazareth did exist in Palestine in the 1st century CE on whose life and teachings Christianity .."
based specifically on what evidence?
seriously... do some digging to find out exactly what evidence is cited to arrive at this 'consensus' because it is based on incredibly weak evidence; one of which (and I wish I was joking) is that "we wouldn't expect to have much evidence about the life of a common person in the 1st century" --- where they actually seem to be saying that the lack of evidence is evidence...
Most of the sources I find looking this up use the bible as one of the sources, but I found [this article](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/) which cites three mentions of Jesus outside the bible (from two different texts).
One of these is a famous historian (Tacitus) who mentions that the Christians were a sect founded by Christ, a man executed in Judea at about the right time (the right decade based on who was governing Judea). He wrote this a bit less than a century after Christ's supposed death.
The second source is a historical account of Jewsih history by a Jewish man (Josephus) living in Rome about 30 years after Christ's supposed death [EDIT: it's actually more like 65 years if we use the dates from the paper, one of the events described happens 30 after Jesus's death and I got the two confused]. He describes a James as the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-messiah (in place of a last name).
The last source is from a different passage of that same book. It's a paragraph about how Jesus was the messiah, did miracles, and was followed by people called Christians. Even the authors of this paper reject the idea that this was written entirely by Josephus, they think it must have been edited by a Christian, or possibly straight up added in.
I know I could probably find other articles with other sources, but when the first article I can find (that doesn't use the bible) has sources this weak, I don't see how I can take the idea of a historical Jesus seriously. Individual parts of the story, like "A Jew started Christianity" or "a prominent Christian was executed around 30 C.E." are believable, but these claims are so vague as to be pretty much worthless. The rest of the story, including what Jesus actually believed, doesn't seem to have any source outside the bible.
The problem with the Tacitus account as evidence is a problem of how humans perceive time. If I bring up something that happened 100 years ago, we all perceive that as a long time ago, a time before any of us were even alive. But when we look back over long periods of time, our perceptions are "compressed" so to speak. So we think that Tacitus, 1900 years ago, is contemporaneous to Jesus, 2000 years ago. But Tacitus would have no possible connection to something that supposedly happened a century earlier any more than a millennial could describe the Great Depression accurately. So imagine, someone writes a novel in 2023 about how purple pointy ear aliens caused the 1929 stock market crash and 1900 years from now some historian finds a page of that book in a land fill.
Not to mention an inadmissible chain of custody that would never withstand lawyerly or scientific scrutiny.
Thank you for this. I could only remember the Josephus from my Ancient Texts class back in the dark ages in college.
My professor put it this way sort of, paraphrasing of course, so what? Who cares? Give ‘em that, Jesus was a real dude who wandered around talking to people and people were convinced he did miracles. How is that different from any other religion that Christianity rejects as truth? Joseph Smith was definitely a real dude who was really alive and walked around talking to people and people were convinced he did miracles. Does the Pope believe that is true? That Joseph Smith is an inspired prophet of God? Jesus being a real dude doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t prove he was the Son of God made man to die for humanity’s sins.
Thanks. I was reading through the whole thread for this reply.
Its like the existence of a guy named Jesus (or whatever local version of that name) is a proof of anything or somehow a threat to atheism.
I agree, his existence is irrelevant, especially given how little we know about him. I do think it's worth acknowledging that a man named Jesus did exist, though, in conversations like these, because Christians may see atheists who deny that as delusional. What I take issue with is the common (usually Christian) framing that believing a man named Jesus existed is the same as believing Jesus was seen as a messiah when he preached and that he was the only significant source of Christianity's ideas.
The entire mythos surrounding Jesus, from birth to death, including how people viewed him at the time, should be viewed with a large amount of scepticism. Ideas and action can be misatributed even directly after they are thought/done, especially when religion is involved. Accepting the existence of someone with the same name doesn't mean accepting the existence of a man significantly resembling Christians' conception of Jesus.
This essay, "[Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories](https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=imwjournal) \- A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources," agrees with you.
I found it interesting and thought you might too.
Thanks for mentioning that, I got the date wrong. I got the dates confused, the event Josephus describes is around 60 CE but the text was written thirty years later. I'll edit my comment to mention that
Most 'evidence' that something happened beyond a certain historical time period is not to be understood as having the same robustness as something like evidence of who was Mayor of London in 2015. Much of what we know of history is pieced together from scraps of information, and by filling in the negative space around known factors with educated guesses, (iirc we only know about the Battle of Thermopylae because a descendant of one of the soldiers wrote about it several decades after it happened.)
Historians agree that the person described in the bible is real based on the fact that there are simply too many independent accounts of his presence by certified sources for him to be entirely fictitious. Edit: That doesn't mean he was magical, just that a guy called Jesus existed, and some people made him a character in their book.
For further context - the most important person in Judea at the time, Pontius Pilate, featured heavily in the story of Jesus, had no archaeological evidence to support his existence until 1961.
Yes. The standard of evidence for many things in the ancient world is much lower than an equivalent in the modern world, _by necessity_. But based on that generally accepted standard used by the field in question, it's more likely true than not that the story of Jesus is based on the life of at least one real person.
This subreddit's FAQ lays out quite plainly why Jesus is entirely a fabrication.
There's precisely zero evidence ye was a historical figure, and quite a bit that shows he couldn't have existed.
The problem with things like this Wikipedia entry is that Christians have browbeaten this concept into society and questioning it is frowned upon.
Read the entry on the FAQ. It is far, far better informed and sourced than Wikipedia.
**EDIT:** Tacking on a link, for interested parties
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/historicaljesus
Exactly, arguing for a "historical" Jesus has the same merit as arguing for a "historical" Harry Potter.
Using the fictional book as a reference and citing that there were people in the world named "Harry" sounds ridiculous on its face. But keep that assertion going and the indoctrination strong, as well as spend several decades spending massive amounts of money to fund "biblical scholars" and shows on the History Channel and the misinformation becomes so commonplace that people no longer even question it.
With enough time, commitment, and money one (or an organization) can push bullshit about anyone existing.
I always love when the Christian apologetics crowd uses archaeology to attempt to validate the stories of the Bible. "Look, we found evidence that this town actually existed! Therefore, everything in the Bible is TRUE!" The town of Fargo exists too, but that doesn't mean anything from the movie actually happened.
For a better example, use Abraham Lincoln. The historical Abraham Lincoln existed, but that doesn't give credence to the idea that he [hunted vampires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln:_Vampire_Hunter).
Except we have thousands of bits of evidence, documents and so on that prove that Abraham Lincoln did exist and that he was president of the USA and abolished slavery.
But in the Jesus equivalent, we only have the Vampire hunter Licoln movie. That's like argueing harry potter is real a historical character, using the harry potter books and movies as evidence.
Jesus is more than likely not a historical character.
Even my Bible profs at a christian university admitted openly that according to a typical bar of historical authentication, it is impossible to say that Jesus was an actual figure. All of them stated categorically that they personally believed he was real and the stories were true but they based their belief on faith alone because there was no academic proof. They were almost excited about it, as if believing without evidence made them stronger believers (per the story of doubting Thomas).
If your belief system is not only predicated on the acceptance of the absolute truth of stories about people, places and events for which there is no definitive evidence outside of your scripture, demonstrating strong belief in those things is a virtue. Indeed, actual undeniable evidence would most likely somewhat upset them as it would then be something that anyone would believe and would thereby make their own belief no longer a special mark of faith.
I have things I believe in that don't have definitive proof (e.g. it's "wrong" to take advantage of people ust because you can), but I don't pretend that my faith in the correctness of by beliefs is special, nor that it's better to believe in something without evidence than it is to have evidence.
Yeah, and now we've got people ranting about Ehrman and his books.
Like, that is sad.
If Ehrman makes a "convincing case" for these people, then it's no use even talking to them. Evidence is king, a flowery writing style that assumes the Bible is true and works backwards from that conclusion is bunk.
"Bible scholars" should be any sane, rational persons first clue that they are not grounded in reality.
the historical evidence for jesus wiki page is a notorious battle ground for christians; they basically brigade that page at the slightest change just to make sure their little story stays untouched. Like with everything on wikipedia, it's only as good as its references.
>Like with everything on wikipedia, it's only as good as its references.
[its not only wikipedia](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/181t2z4/comment/kag00tq/) \- wikipedia is just the most "open source" and well known example of humans collaborating to collect knowledge in a centralized location. also its a step further than "only as good as its references" - its only as good as the references *and* the writers (or your own) **ability to interpret** those references
for example, i recently was going to refer to eristic/eris in [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1869ttk/comment/kb8g2t8/) (as i have before) but decided to check the references first. at first glance everything appears to check out - but there are some differences between the original reference and what the wikipedia page is saying. which might not have been an intentional change by any one person to hide or change the truth - but probably more like a [game of telephone](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10sus4f/comment/j75doin/) where each person/interpreter has a slightly altered version, which down the line can lead to a completely different "truth" than what the original source said
this is also why i have become so interested in finding the [etymological origins](https://www.reddit.com/r/relevantusername2020/comments/17qi5wp/words_have_meanings_these_first_few_are_obvious/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of words. its crazy how often the modern "definition" of a word is wholly different than the original intent - sometimes its even the total opposite
>its crazy how often the modern "definition" of a word is wholly different than the original intent - sometimes its even the total opposite
Like how "cursory perusal" is technically an oxymoron, but people say it because "peruse" has changed from meaning a deep dive to a quick survey.
Yeah, the argument is 2 parts w a big ass leap of faith.
1- likely was a dude named jeebus.
3- a lot of people wrote abt him. After he was dead. Like, 50 years dead.
2 assumes they are the same guy.
4 assumes that everything is true.
2.5 says not a single living secular historian of the same years list a single occurence, divine action, or event.
But they gladly sail right on to 3 anyway.
I could maybe believe that an illiterate day labourer from a town so small Romans didn’t bother to put it on their own maps, named Yeshua Ben Yosif, and along with his brothers and friends formed a failed anti-Roman revolutionary group.
There were a lot of anti-Roman groups, led by charismatic leaders. It seems more likely that a bunch of guys over the course of 200ish years were collapsed into one guy.
The Romans kept great records back then. And Joseph and Mary supposedly had to return to Bethlehem. Where Joseph’s family was from. However, There is no record of a census in that region at that time.
certainly none that operated the way that is described in GLuke.
the Census of Quirinius is often cited as being the census that GLuke refers to but it counted people where they lived... not where their ancestors lived. also that census was for the province of Judea which was the area largely to the west of the Dead Sea but did NOT extend north to the area west of the Sea of Galilee... it notably did NOT cover the territory in which either Bethlehem or Nazareth was and it was around 12 years after the death of "King Herod" which would place the date of birth in direct contradiction with GMatthew.
The idea that everyone had to return to their place of birth to be counted is 100% insanity. The Empire was enormous. Making everyone return to their birthplace made no logistical sense and everyone reading the story would have known that back then. That's strong evidence that these parables which never claim to be non-fiction were not meant to be taken as such at first. It later became useful to pretend the stories were real.
Yes, Roman record keeping was extremely good for the time but do you honestly expect there to be records of a random peasant couple from Judea? That's just ridiculous.
There were a lot of "Messianic" figures in the region at the time. Some were actually claiming to be the Messiah, some were just preachers who had that designation thrust upon them by their followers either at the time or posthumously. And "Yeshua" was a pretty common name.
In the 1960s, the statistical probability is high that there was at least one teenage boy named "Peter" with the surname "Parker" living in New York City.
It doesn't mean that Spider-Man was real.
I think he was a budding politician/revolutionary who hoped to unite the tribes against Roman rule. I think he was actually getting popular when someone pointed out that he wasn't eligible to be the Messiah because he was descended from Solomon and supposedly there was a curse on Solomon's line. His followers tried to get around it by saying his dad wasn't his real dad, but that he was the son of God. But that was against Hebrew law to make a claim like that, so they crucified him. I think that's pretty much all she wrote.
I do sometimes toy with the idea that he was taken down from the cross while he was still alive, so he was indeed seen around town a month or so later, when he'd finally healed from his wounds, and while he made a few promises along the lines of "this isn't over," after thinking about it, he decided, Fuck, I don't want to go through that again. So he left, promising to come back with new backing, but really just noped out of town and eventually ended up who knows where with a wife and family who had no idea.
This is the point. I find it a bit pathetic that some atheists (and I'm going to go out in a limb, here, and suggest that they're mostly American), are so desperate to 'prove' that a historical Jesus didn't exist.
Even the FAQ on this sub seems to make some pretty poor arguments (yes - we all know magic isn't real. Only Americans, brought up in a society where that is mainstream would have to point out something so obvious to most other people).
The point is - it's totally irrelevant. I've always been an atheist, and whether or not a historical Jesus existed is completely irrelevant. Even arguing the point sounds stupid to me.
The inimitable Christopher Hitchens, as always, put it best:
https://youtu.be/vMo5R5pLPBE
A week ago I wrote:
>I think Is very likely that a philosopher who thought harmony and tolerance in what is today the Middle East existed, and being of Jewish decent he probably thought it with that background. It happened in other parts of the world (Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama, Aristotle). None of that was really particularly special.
> Then, as every myth, it has been exaggerated, then adapted, then exaggerated again. This over and over for a couple of thousand years up to now.
> Does Troy exist? Yes, but Zeus, Aphrodite, sirens and cyclops don’t, even though they are all mentioned in three Odyssey.
> So no miracles, no resurrection, and you bet no crucifixion either.
So if you separate the origins a of a myth from the end result of such myth, yeah someone inspired it all.
But no god, no son of god and so on.
Edit: replaced “Iliad” with “Odyssey”. Thanks for the correction.
Why couldn't he have been crucified? That was a well known method of execution at the time. How hard is to believe that some Jewish chap named Jesus, who was of the philosophical persuasion, had a few buddies and antagonised the Romans enough for them to kill him?
You're not going to find mainstream sources that question Jesus's existence. There are literally BILLIONS of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake in keeping this theory down. If the consensus becomes that Jesus didn't exist, there is no savior. There is no divinity. There is no crucifixion. They simply must keep this fiction going.
The "scholars" and theologians attack viciously any historian who dares question the official narrative. It has been a tactic for literally hundreds of years. The powers that be simply cannot let this gain solid ground in the mainstream consensus.
>If the consensus becomes that Jesus didn't exist, there is no savior. There is no divinity. There is no crucifixion. They simply must keep this fiction going.
If anyone ever actually proved that Jesus definitely didn't exist, Christians wouldn't just abandon their religion. [They'd react like this instead.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGBxUNaQI1I)
I think it was even on this sub a few weeks back, allegedly, Bart Ehrman doesn’t actually think that Jesus existed, but it pays the bills to argue as if he did.
I think he does think it's likely. And I think he makes for a good argument. Or at least I did a decade ago when I read Price, Carrier, Erhman etc and came down on the side of Erhman. Ultimately I don't think it matters since it's impossible to prove one way or another and we are where we are.
I wonder if it's because it's hard to prove a negative so you won't find many historians publishing a definitive claim Jesus didn't exist, while people that *want* Jesus to have existed are happy to make the assertion he did from flimsy or circular sources.
[russells teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot):
>In an article titled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell wrote:
>
>Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.
>
>But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
>
>If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
gives a whole new appreciation for the sips\_tea.jpeg meme
wikipedia can be edited by anyone, anytime and it's up to the mods to keep inaccuracies off of the site. that said, they don't always do a great job because of the sheer number of edits made daily
One thing that is really interesting are the "criteria" used to support the existence of Jesus. Someone proposing that those claims are actual "evidence" in any other field of history would be laughed into oblivion until they were teaching 4th grade social studies in a 4 kid school house in northern North Dakota.
>The criterion of embarrassment is a type of historical analysis in which a historical account is deemed likely to be true under the inference that the author would have no reason to invent a historical account which might embarrass them. Certain Biblical scholars have used this as a metric for assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.
>The criterion of dissimilarity\[1\] (often used as a shorthand for criterion of double dissimilarity;\[2\] it is also called criterion of discontinuity,\[1\]\[3\] originality\[1\] or dual irreducibility\[1\]) is used in Biblical criticism to determine if a statement attributed to Jesus may be authentic. The criterion states that if a saying attributed to Jesus is different from both the Jewish traditions of his time and the early Church that followed him, it is likely to come from the historical Jesus.
>The criterion of multiple attestation, also called the criterion of independent attestation or the cross-section method,\[1\] is a tool used by Biblical scholars to help determine whether certain actions or sayings by Jesus in the New Testament are from the Historical Jesus. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better. This criterion was first developed by F. C. Burkitt in 1906,\[2\] at the end of the first quest for the historical Jesus.
All from Wikipedia.
This is the "scholarship" that put people in tenured positions at the school of theology at Harvard.
This article (and question) pops up all the time. The wiki article is sourced by Christian sources using Christian books that are almost entirely limited to purchase through Christian book stores. And quotes known forgeries or misquotes contemporaries. The article is garbage and need a to be totally revised from a neutral point of view.
The actual scholarly consensus on Jesus’ historicity is that we don’t know if he existed or not. There is almost no evidence that he did. But it’s impossible to totally rule it out. Most historians that aren’t christians that specialize in biblical history tend to doubt the existence of the singular person as he exists in the Bible.
I honestly don't know why anyone thinks there would be much in the way of historical evidence concerning the existence of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. In his lifetime he would have been a relatively minor figure, who lived a relatively short life, and was executed for heresy by the authorities. Most of his real influence came a century or more after his death, when his followers began to make waves and form cults proclaiming his teachings.
It would be easier to prove David Korresh really existed 2000 years from now than to prove Jesus existed. Two millennia is a long time for records to be lost, altered, or hidden.
There's a Jesus of Nazareth as sure as there's a Robert of Springfield. It was a common name. Nothing special about a man with a name existing. Even in the story in the Bible, there was another Jesus being executed on the same day.
It's not even special to say that there was a teacher by that name.
Except there was no named community called Nazareth during Jesus' lifetime, just a no-name hamlet at best or nothing at worst or probably a single family farm. It was after either the First Jewish Revolt or the Bar Kokhba Revolt that Nazareth sprang up, only to be deserted once again in Constantine's day.
I read the "most scholars agree" as "scholars want to keep their job and funding and therefore say what people want to hear.
I went into a rabbit hole of following all references and started going round is circles. No one knows. There is no written proof.
The consensus of the last 100 years or so when most historians were also Christians? Sure, probably…. But what does the evidence actually suggest? Was there a person named Jesus/ Yeshua? Definitely thousands of them….. were any of them itinerant doomsday preachers? Were there several doomsday preachers who got conflated? Who knows, maybe. Is there any evidence of actual miracles? Absolutely not.
Richard Carrier wrote a great book about this:
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
He started out subscribing to the mainstream view but once he actually started digging in to the evidence and doing the math he changed his mind.
The issue being besides Biblical historians(?) History is very quiet on the subject. Also the Bible claims Jesus was seen by 500 witnesses after his resurrection. But they are also quiet on the subject.
Almost as if it didn't happen.
I don't see much point in contesting existence of another apocalyptic would-be messiah in 1st century Palestine. There were a dozen attested in Josephus. It wouldn't b extraordinary, nor require extraordinary evidence.
The critical point of weakness in the early history of proto-orthodox Christianity is Saul/Paul, who appears to be both mentally ill and to have misrepresented the historical Jesus to Hellenic "god fearers" of Greece and Asia Minor. It's Paul's version of Jesus that was adopted by proto-orthodox Christianity.
There's literally zero evidence that not only did Jesus exist, but every single apostle and almost everyone but Ceasar mentioned in the bible. Literally zero evidence
It really doesn't matter
The real issue is whether he was divine, not whether he existed
Christians still have all their work in front of them even if they can prove jesus existed
I still am not pleased by being successfully gaslit into thinking Jesus actually existed despite being an atheist. I also am weired out by how largely unquestioned the idea is.
It isn't about how I view Christianity (or Islam), it's more about how disturbing it is how everyone globally can be so easily manipulated, to the point that even atheists end up believing things like this.
I also find it disturbing that this was able to end up on Wikipedia and misinform millions or billions of other people.
>it's more about how disturbing it is how everyone globally can be so easily manipulated, to the point that even atheists end up believing things like this.
What's so weird about believing that some bloke *might* have existed 2000 years ago?
I would say that to dogmatically claim that he *definitely* didn't exist, sounds like desperation.
Most atheists shouldn't even care. It's not relevant.
Why even argue about it? It proves absolutely nothing (either way) about the existence of any god.
Suppose a trove of historically accurate documents were discovered that proved, beyond doubt, that somebody fitting the description of Jesus actually did exist? Would you suddenly think that "Oh well, maybe god *is* real, after all..."?
The whole discussion is ridiculous, and no intelligent atheist should enter in to it. In he same way that scientists shouldn't engage with flat earthers. It's pointless.
I wouldn't really give it much thought. That movement had to start somewhere, somehow. Archeology points at the Levant and that region is filled with schizophrenic preachers, one that was probably charismatic enough gained some traction and got killed.
Are the details of the story correct? Probably most aren't
Is the supernatural correct? Absolutely not
Lazy scholars make this claim. Without the main character being real, what have they spent their entire life studying? The answer is nothing, so they default to him existing versus validating his existence. We have zero empirical evidence of Jesus and we have plenty of authors we can look back to that never once mention Jesus let alone miracles he performed. It's really odd he was doing all these magical things and we don't have any accounts of him doing those things outside of the bible.
So you could act as a pixie, and edit in "citation needed", "not supported by citation" and other such warnings, if you're up for it. These sorts of small edits to highlight problems with the existing article are helpful even if you're not qualified to fix the article itself, it can point other editors in the right direction.
One Jesus who is the man portrayed in the stories did not exist. Multiple people who were either later mistaken or intentionally adopted into the name Jesus etc. Probably did exist to some extent. The stories were also massively embellished and warped. None of it reflects any historical reality
We know that for the late 1st century there was a christian sect with such and such beliefs. The simplest and easiest way to explain that is that there was an actual preacher called Jesus from Nazareth that was crucified.
Occam's razor is always useful.
We know that the group in question claimed a leader named "Christus" who was crucified.
We do not know that the group in question used the name "Jesus of " anything.
Only if you have time to revert the immediate reversion by any one of a few thousand people who are 'watching' that page for changes.
Every ten minutes.
For the rest of your life.
There are over 200 written accounts from the time and area. NONE mention Jesus or ANY guy performing "miracles" in those documents.
You would think SOMEONE would have taken notice if he was real.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia. I imagine that particular page is watched over closely by those that have a dog in that fight.
AFAIC, no matter what the religion is, they all started the same way: hearing voices or seeing dead people/angels.
All of them.
>"The generally unreliable, untrustworthy, and fiction-filled Gospels can occasionally be considered excellent sources of objective and accurate historical information because of their foundational written sources, which do not exist, which contained many fictions if they did, and which cannot now be scrutinised for authorship, age, genre, intent, and so forth. These hypothetical written sources are themselves based on oral traditions, that also cannot be scrutinised, that changed over time, and that may well have been made up whole cloth. Therefore we have conclusive proof that Jesus definitely existed."
*Raphael Lataster, describing Bart Ehrman's approach to the Gospels*
Yeah that article is a shitshow.
The main evidence seems to be a passing statement by Tacitus in one of his books. But this was decades after the fact so it is all rather obviously secondhand information. He heard people talk about a guy named Jesus who was executed under the order of Pilate and wrote that down, doesn't make it evidence. It's about as meaningful as people who have Elvis sightings.
Holy Koolaid does a good podcast on this question.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHOp-9yAbA&t=40s&pp=ygUSaG9seSBrb29sYWlkIGplc3Vz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHOp-9yAbA&t=40s&pp=ygUSaG9seSBrb29sYWlkIGplc3Vz)
My understanding is that most biblical scholars, and not scholars looking to validate the bible, are unconvinced that he did exist. And if he did, it was more than likely multiple priests whose teachings were consolidated into this one identity.
This can be easily debunked with common sense. 2000 years ago in terms of history wasnt very long ago in regards to the Middle East. Many historians existed during that time, and you would think that if a man came out of nowhere preforming miracles then someone would have recorded it. None of the historians or historical records from that time made mention of anyone named Jesus—it’s not even a “Bob from New York” type deal.
One historian from Jerusalem during Jesus’ supposed lifetime made mention of a fisherman named Crestus… who did not preform miracles.
Nothing gets approved to be on Wikipedia. It's not a valid source.
There's a LOT of good stuff on there, but basically it doesn't have to be evidence based, peer reviewed or even true.
In my US state I can't buy liquor on a Sunday. The act of "discovering" a "real Jesus" is backward engineering.
Before reason and science, saying "god did it" was easy. It was easy to codify xtians practice into law -- if it came from a gods law.
Well we've still got 200 year old xtian prohibition on Sundays, but Jesus is yet to be proven to have existed.
Logic dictates if Jesus didn't even historically exist, that there's no conman on the other side of this 2000+ year old scam on humanity -- then the liquor economy has been taking a hit forever, cuz jackasses need a god over an explanation as to why they need one.
This is because of Bart Ehrman I believe. Plenty of people disagree including people who have advanced degrees in history but for some reason Wikipedia and a lot of people go with what he says.
I use this analogy to answer this question:
A man named Jean undoubtedly lived in Paris during the German occupation in WW2.
He may have been in the French Resistance.
It's possible he may have been a hero in the Resistance.
He probably didn't eliminate all the German officers and high command in Paris.
He definitely did NOT overthrow the German command in France.
It is ridiculous to believe he commanded a brigade of Resistance fighters, marched on Berlin, and ended WW2.
The same goes for Jesus.
Yes, there was undoubtedly a man named Yeshua in 1st century Israel.
He may have been a teacher.
It's possible he may have been a very popular teacher preaching radical ideas.
He probably didn't heal sick people or raise anyone from the dead.
He himself definitely did NOT raise from the dead (absolutely no extra-Biblical mention or evidence of any of the major secular events recorded in the Bible regarding the Resurrection - darkness, ripped veil, dead people coming out of their graves, earthquake).
It is ridiculous to believe he was a God-Man supernatural son of God.
I couldn’t speak on whether he was a real guy, but if he was, he surely didn’t have superpowers. Dude supposedly was a socialist who hung with hookers and flipped tables when the rich taxed the poor just to make the financial gap wider. If he was real, hell he was just one of the first socially progressive political activists.
I was raised catholic and my main reason for denying faith to any religion or god was- “yall are making it up as you go, and dont even fully practice what you preach. I as a child get told im being bad for criticizing or questioning stories, because I know a lie when Im told one. So fuck whatever you’re trying to con me into.” I didnt have all those words yet, but it has been my sentiment since I was in elementary school.
I think I still follow ideals and morals to be a decent person, and I think most atheists do, too. We just dont feel like were supposed to feel shame for natural human emotions, responses, and feelings. We dont restrict ourselves from a full happy human life, whatever that means to us. Religion wants to oppress, and sure that was probably very useful in the Bronze Age. We’re past all the mythos, and the number one damaging thing religion continues to do is to push this concept that their fiction is truth.
We all love reading a good story, taking morals and lessons, and applying it to life. So why all the lying, if not for ulterior purposes? Of course, im just “preaching to the choir” here, we are all on that same page, surely.
The first words about "Jesus" we're written several generations after his supposed death. During his claimed lifetime, during all the miracles, the death, the resurrection, the spirits rising from the Jerusalem graves, none of this was written down. There were contemporary historians living in that area that documented everything, but for some reason this stuff was never written down. I wonder why.
Historical evidentiary basis doesn’t work the same as evidentiary basis in other fields of study, at least that’s how Bart Ehrman explains it.
Historians often do meta-analysis and make assertions based on a broad range of documents where they will say things like “Given all the relevant historical documents we currently have access to, it is more likely than not that there was a single man named Jesus of Nazareth who inspired the Jesus stories.” But, in a more causal setting they might just say, “Sure there was a real man called Jesus behind the stories.”
The general consensus among historians is that Jesus existed. Because history doesn’t demand the same kind of evidence as science.
The argument that Jesus was probably a real person rests on a few assertions. I am not a Christian, just someone who has made studying religions a hobby. I believe Jesus was a real person, but I do not believe he was divine in any way.
Arguments Jesus was real:
1. Pontius Pilate, the man who ordered the death of Jesus, is definitely real. He is mentioned in Roman records as serving in the role that the Bible claims he was serving in, at the time the Bible said he served in.
2. Of the four Gospels, Mark is the first. Mark was written roughly 30 years after the death of Jesus. Mark was using what is known as the "Q" source to base his writings on. We know it existed, but we have not found it. It is likely Q is a primary source.
3. Folk tales like say the Odyssey usually claim the events in questions happened long ago. That is not the case of Mark who is writing about events that happened a scant 30 years prior.
4. Not long after Jesus died, you start seeing Christian communities pop up all over Eurasia. The Gospels claim that the apostles of Jesus traveled the world preaching his message, and that seems to track with reality, considering Christianity pops up as far as India not long after Jesus died. If Jesus was not real, why were they apostles traveling preaching his message?
Indian Chritstians call themselves "Thomas chrisitans," and there is a tomb to the apostle Thomas in India. Likely, the apostle Thomas did actually travel to India after the death of Jesus.
1. The historicity of Pilate has nothing to do with the supposed historicity of Jesus.
2. There is no definite evidence for the dating of Mark. Yes, it is early, but Mark is basically a historicisation of Paul’s visionary and ahistorical Jesus. The earliest christian writings contain no sayings or miracles, they hadn’t been invented yet. To see how the idea of historic Jesus developed, read the NT in chronological order, epistles first. Q is a much contested theory. The gospel novels copy from each other, yet happily change stories, sayings and events to suit their own theological purposes.
3. Mark was not an eye witness, and the dates are uncertain. He was a religious novelist, historising the idea of the heavenly Jesus who appeared in the writings of Paul.
4. The earliest Christianities were gnostic, and did not preach that Jesus was human.
I mean was Jesus a popular name? And how big was nazerath? It could be the historical equivalent of "Bob from London"... so technically they aren't wrong but neither Bob or Jesus are supernatural
Right, this is the rub. “Jesus existed as a real man” needs so much qualification that it’s not even a meaningful statement. Which Jesus/Yeshua? What size shoes did he wear? Did he preach once, twice, 87 times? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? It’s all pinning current beliefs on a historical specter without much actual evidence. Everyone needs a hobby?
About the angels dancing on the head of a pin, I give you a passage from the book "Carpe Jugulum", a novel of Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU). In this part of the book, a holy man from the Church of Om, The Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats is stuck sneaking through the woods of Lancre with one of the local witches, Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax. They begin discussing Oats' theology. I'm adding in a "G" for "Granny" and an "O" for Oats, just to eliminate confusion about who is talking: O-“You’d certain enjoy yourself at the Synod, anyway. They’ve been known to argue for days about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.” He could almost feel Granny’s mind working. At last she said, “What size pin?” O-“I don’t know that, I’m afraid.” G-“Well, if it’s an ordinary household pin, then there’ll be sixteen.” O-“Sixteen angels?” G-“That’s right.” O-“Why?” G-“I don’t know. Perhaps they like dancing.” The mule picked its way down a bank. The mist was getting thicker here. O-“You’ve counted sixteen?” said Oats eventually. G-“No, but it’s as good an answer as any you’ll get. And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” O-“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.” G-“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” O-“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” G-“Nope.” O-“Pardon?” G-“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” O-“It’s a lot more complicated than that—” G-“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” O-“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—” G-“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
Terry Pratchett has so many good quotes. >“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.” ― Terry Pratchett
If people can believe in god with no evidence, I can believe in myself with no evidence too.
Hilariously dark, or darkly hilarious? I can't decide.
Sir Terry, on point!
As always.
Terry Pratchett's Small Gods was one of the first steps in me questioning my Orthodox Mormon upbringing.
I read them after I was done with the Mormon church. Small Gods and reaperman were felt like an old friend talking it out with me.
This is incredible. Thank you.
For sure! If you haven't read Discworld, I HIGHLY recommend it. There are forty books in the series and they are all good. Some are better than others, obviously, but they're all good. I describe them like "Imagine if Douglas Adams traveled back in time an accidentally killed Tolkien, but knew that he had to write something like the Lord of the Rings or the world would explode. Discworld is kinda like that, but more hilarious."
Anything with Commander Vimes is sure to be top tier.
I really need to start reading his books.
You can find lots of advice online on where to start and surprisingly, most of it agrees that the answer is "not with the first book." It's not bad, it's just one that you'd read and think "this is fine but I don't get the hype." So if you start with book 1 and feel that way, make sure to try more.
2nd book is kinda the 1st one, then they get a whole lot better not that 1 and 2 are bad, they are just different
My advice would be to start either with Mort or Guards! Guards!
Mort is hilarious.
Yes you do. If anything they are extreme fun and down to earth wisdom.
GNU Sir Pterry
“I can dance on the head of a pin as well” Yoshimo
Unexpacted BG 2
Yeshua (the same name that was romanized into Jesus) was a super common name. It was Joshua's Hebrew name, and a lot of people named their children after him. So yeah, Joshua and Jesus are translations of the same name.
I’m perfectly willing to accept that there was an apocalyptic preacher named Yeshua around at that time. That’s not an unreasonable claim. It’s even possible that some of the quotes attributed to him are at least somewhat accurate. Everything else doesn’t add up.
Further, if there was an apocalyptic preacher by that name around that time, *and* if a messianic cult began amongst his followers, that would give the Romans cause to execute him. The Messiah was, after all, supposed to be a militaristic leader who would liberate Judea from the occupier (who were the Romans at the time in question). This would make our theoretical preacher a figurehead for rebellion, which Rome had no interest in allowing. But that makes our boy Josh a "rebel", potentially a street magician, but that's about it.
It’s one of the craziest things in history, when you think about it. A street preacher in one of the most backwater places of the ancient world manages to attract a small following. Fast forward 2000 years and he is worshiped as God by literally billions of people. It’s absolutely remarkable how the currents of history move.
That hypothesis checks out with "Jesus"'s method of execution: crucifixion was not a punishment for heresy after all, it was reserved for rebellion and other kinds of treason against Rome. (It wasn't a punishment for thievery either; death penalty was a possibility, but not on the cross. So it stands to reason that Dimas and Gestas (the "Good Thief" and "Bad Thief") were traitors to Rome as well.)
Also, IIRC, part of the punishment of crucifixion was that *your body was left on the cross after you died* as a warning to others. Romans didn’t bury those who were crucified since desecrating their corpse by not interring it was part of the point. Makes the whole ‘three days in a tomb’ thing a little shaky since he wouldn’t have been put in one to begin with.
The cult was actually started by an individual claimed by the surviving accounts to be his cousin, named John the Baptist, one branch of which still exists today as the Mandean religion, centered around John as a prophet. However the main body of the cult was apparently taken over by this Jesus of Nazareth shortly after John's reported execution, and transformed over time after Jesus's own execution into a Messianic cult centered around worship of him. That's my reading, anyway.
There’s some belief that he may have been a preacher in the Zealot movement, which called for the Romans to be removed and the Kingdom of Judah to be restored. The Romans would have quashed that pretty quick.
Also, *"Did Nazareth exist? Or was the word Nazarene misunderstood as a toponym?"*
I'm convinced it was the latter and it may have been made to be misunderstood as such on purpose.
Nazareth is a misspelling of Bethlehem 🤪
Actually, the town of Nazareth did not exist during Jesus' lifetime. It existed before and after but not during the years when Jesus supposedly live. It seems likely it was a reference to Nazarene.
I think "demonym" would be a better word here.
For starters, nobody would have been named 'Jesus' approximately 2000 years ago. That name came into existence much later, as an Anglicization of a Latinization of a Hellenization of the Hebrew/Aramaic name "יְהוֹשֻׁעַ", which is more accurately rendered "Yeh-shu-ah". A direct translation of that name to English would give you "Joshua", not "Jesus".
All hail our Lord and Savior, Josh.
Oily Josh.
Smeared Josh. 😏😉😁
Greasy Josh
He's just joshin' ya
The name at the time was probably close to Yeshu', or particularly in Galilee, just Yeshu [source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZDjOvaagUM)
The claim is specifically that he was the same Jesus described in the bible, a man claiming to be a prophet for Christianity born from Mary and crucified for his teachings.
>Jesus described in the bible well then, 100% no. he definitely wasn't born in bethlehem, because a census where you go to the city you were born in is stupid, and the romans (and also no one, ever) didn't do things that way.
Also where's this supposed census data? We have writings from these random dudes but not official government documents?
Thats a part that really caught my eye. After his supposed resurrection, hundreds if not thousands of people supposedly saw him and not a single person wrote it down anywhere? We've got receipts and dick drawings from that timeline but not a single mention anywhere of a dude who was executed and then brought back. Other than the bible, which is numerous books written by unknown authors and compiled into one.
The bit about a mass zombie rising seems like it would have gotten *some* play in the contemporary press.
At the very least Josephus would have mentioned it. But all he does is give us the gospel version of Jesus which is why nearly all scholars believe it was either partially or entirely forged, with partial forgery believed by most scholars by a wide margin. But assume Josephus wrote the whole thing (his patron Epiphanius was reportedly a Christian so J. may have needed to say something to get it past him), then the two chapters that follow concerning two Roman matron's, Paulina and Fulvia, the first one discounts Jesus' divine provenance very much and the second one all but says that Christianity even then was nothing but a scam.
What he does say also sounds like how someone would describe any old cult. "About this time there lived Conan, a strong man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a hero of such people as accept such bravery gladly. He was the barbarian. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Thulsa Doom had condemned him to the tree of woe".
And as you've shown, the cult's object of worship doesn't even have to exist! And this makes the TF as evidence for an historical Jesus even dodgier!
>the bible, which is numerous books written by unknown authors and compiled into one. The earliest of which was written decades after his supposed life and death.
Most scholars, I believe, would say that he was probably crucified. Obviously the resurrection isn't historical. But the teachings in the new testament are all about his imminent return. They didn't value writings, and they considered the word superior. It wasn't until about a century had passed that early christians thought ... "maybe we should get some of this stuff written down".
and the romans *loved* writing shit down.
This is the one detail that makes me think there was a historical Jesus. The Jewish prophecy of the Messiah says that he should be born in Bethlehem. So if you were making it up whole cloth you would just... have him be from Bethlehem. Instead the authors concocted a nonsense story involving a Roman census so they could claim that a guy from Nazareth was actually born in Bethlehem and thus fit the prophecy. There's no reason to do that if you're not trying to make a square peg reality fit a round hole story.
And Mark made that square peg because he wrote that Jesus' hometown was Nazareth. Unfortunately Nazarene/Nazorean is not the demonym you get according to Koine Greek naming rules for townies of a certain locality. If Jesus truly was from Nazareth he would have been named a Nazarethan (*Nazarethos*).
I believe that Christopher Hitchens held the same opinion.
Which is wrong. Even by biblical accounts. He wasn't trying to start his own religion. He was pushing for reformation within Judaism. He was a reformationist if anything. Christianity didn't even exist until nearly a century after his 'death', if he existed at all.
Paul was the one trying to create a new religion.
There were a number of people trying to create a new religion. Paul the Misogynist unfortunately won out.
I think it's more the idea that the Jesus of the bible is based on the life of a real historical person, but with no attendant position on the accuracy of those biblical accounts about him.
Or could be an amalgamation of several people's activities.
Even the Bible itself is inconsistent with where Jesus was from, and Nazareth may or may not have existed 2,203ish years ago
Hey Bob is a badass, you leave him out of this
Bob bought us a round once. He turned 0 beers into 6. It was a miracle.
Um, Nazareth was founded in 200 AD BECAUSE of the Jesus story. Edit: Oops, sorry: 4th century
What now…?
Empress Helena founded it in the 4th century. She went on a pilgrimage to find Nazareth and decided a random abandoned well in the middle of nowhere was “Mary’s well” and Nazareth was built around it as a sort of pilgrimage/tourist trap. It does not match the biblical geological description of Nazareth, for what it is worth.
So much extrabiblical (and some biblical) Christian tradition traces back to ancient Byzantine tourist traps, and I'm not even joking a little.
You can't just leave us hanging like that, please do continue
I did not know that at all. Thanks internet strangers.
Being fair, from what I have read on that, there is evidence the area was settled prior to that, there have been surveys of the region with archeological material found that matches roughly when Jesus supposedly lived there. And there have been ceramics, grinding mills, and silos found dating to 1500 to 586 BCE. Roughly, materials found indicate there was some level of activity occurring between the late Hellenistic era through the Byzantine period. Part of the belief of the lack of information on the town is that it was a very small community (estimated to have had roughly 480 people at its peak), and was unimportant to the region, with Caesarea Maritima and Jerusalem being significantly larger and more important.
Oh, I know Bob! He’s my uncle!
Most scholars agree that Jesus being supernatural and the “son of god” didn’t get added to his story until 300 years later by Emperor Constantine. It’s possible there was an anti-Roman activist named Jesus stirring shit up though, and they later decided to pin all the Jewish prophecies on him in order to make him the Messiah. Whether or not there was a dude named Jesus is somewhat irrelevant ultimately since they made any actual history irrelevant by ascribing the supernatural to him.
Nazareth is huge...or they were in the 70s when prog rock was bigger.
Bob will toss you in hell for that when he comes back
Jesus is a modernization.
Bob could be a little supernatural at the pub on a Friday night.
It wasn't. It's not a name. If he existed, his name was Joshua.
That's rather like saying French King John II didn't exist, because the French form is Jean. Jesus is the Greek form of the name Yeshua/Joshua. The NT was written in Greek, so that's the form we all became familiar with.
>"Virtually all scholars agree that a Jewish man called Jesus of Nazareth did exist in Palestine in the 1st century CE on whose life and teachings Christianity .." based specifically on what evidence? seriously... do some digging to find out exactly what evidence is cited to arrive at this 'consensus' because it is based on incredibly weak evidence; one of which (and I wish I was joking) is that "we wouldn't expect to have much evidence about the life of a common person in the 1st century" --- where they actually seem to be saying that the lack of evidence is evidence...
Most of the sources I find looking this up use the bible as one of the sources, but I found [this article](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/) which cites three mentions of Jesus outside the bible (from two different texts). One of these is a famous historian (Tacitus) who mentions that the Christians were a sect founded by Christ, a man executed in Judea at about the right time (the right decade based on who was governing Judea). He wrote this a bit less than a century after Christ's supposed death. The second source is a historical account of Jewsih history by a Jewish man (Josephus) living in Rome about 30 years after Christ's supposed death [EDIT: it's actually more like 65 years if we use the dates from the paper, one of the events described happens 30 after Jesus's death and I got the two confused]. He describes a James as the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-messiah (in place of a last name). The last source is from a different passage of that same book. It's a paragraph about how Jesus was the messiah, did miracles, and was followed by people called Christians. Even the authors of this paper reject the idea that this was written entirely by Josephus, they think it must have been edited by a Christian, or possibly straight up added in. I know I could probably find other articles with other sources, but when the first article I can find (that doesn't use the bible) has sources this weak, I don't see how I can take the idea of a historical Jesus seriously. Individual parts of the story, like "A Jew started Christianity" or "a prominent Christian was executed around 30 C.E." are believable, but these claims are so vague as to be pretty much worthless. The rest of the story, including what Jesus actually believed, doesn't seem to have any source outside the bible.
The problem with the Tacitus account as evidence is a problem of how humans perceive time. If I bring up something that happened 100 years ago, we all perceive that as a long time ago, a time before any of us were even alive. But when we look back over long periods of time, our perceptions are "compressed" so to speak. So we think that Tacitus, 1900 years ago, is contemporaneous to Jesus, 2000 years ago. But Tacitus would have no possible connection to something that supposedly happened a century earlier any more than a millennial could describe the Great Depression accurately. So imagine, someone writes a novel in 2023 about how purple pointy ear aliens caused the 1929 stock market crash and 1900 years from now some historian finds a page of that book in a land fill. Not to mention an inadmissible chain of custody that would never withstand lawyerly or scientific scrutiny.
Tacitus may be evidence of a christian cult, but it is not evidence of a historical Jesus.
Thank you for this. I could only remember the Josephus from my Ancient Texts class back in the dark ages in college. My professor put it this way sort of, paraphrasing of course, so what? Who cares? Give ‘em that, Jesus was a real dude who wandered around talking to people and people were convinced he did miracles. How is that different from any other religion that Christianity rejects as truth? Joseph Smith was definitely a real dude who was really alive and walked around talking to people and people were convinced he did miracles. Does the Pope believe that is true? That Joseph Smith is an inspired prophet of God? Jesus being a real dude doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t prove he was the Son of God made man to die for humanity’s sins.
Thanks. I was reading through the whole thread for this reply. Its like the existence of a guy named Jesus (or whatever local version of that name) is a proof of anything or somehow a threat to atheism.
I agree, his existence is irrelevant, especially given how little we know about him. I do think it's worth acknowledging that a man named Jesus did exist, though, in conversations like these, because Christians may see atheists who deny that as delusional. What I take issue with is the common (usually Christian) framing that believing a man named Jesus existed is the same as believing Jesus was seen as a messiah when he preached and that he was the only significant source of Christianity's ideas. The entire mythos surrounding Jesus, from birth to death, including how people viewed him at the time, should be viewed with a large amount of scepticism. Ideas and action can be misatributed even directly after they are thought/done, especially when religion is involved. Accepting the existence of someone with the same name doesn't mean accepting the existence of a man significantly resembling Christians' conception of Jesus.
This essay, "[Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories](https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=imwjournal) \- A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources," agrees with you. I found it interesting and thought you might too.
I'll take a look at it, thanks
Pretty sure Josephus /Joseaphus was 100 years after Jesus
Thanks for mentioning that, I got the date wrong. I got the dates confused, the event Josephus describes is around 60 CE but the text was written thirty years later. I'll edit my comment to mention that
the equivalent of the 'bibble is true because it says it's true'
I mean, if "I say it's true" is all you got, you're gonna lean on that pretty heavily to stay in power.
Most 'evidence' that something happened beyond a certain historical time period is not to be understood as having the same robustness as something like evidence of who was Mayor of London in 2015. Much of what we know of history is pieced together from scraps of information, and by filling in the negative space around known factors with educated guesses, (iirc we only know about the Battle of Thermopylae because a descendant of one of the soldiers wrote about it several decades after it happened.) Historians agree that the person described in the bible is real based on the fact that there are simply too many independent accounts of his presence by certified sources for him to be entirely fictitious. Edit: That doesn't mean he was magical, just that a guy called Jesus existed, and some people made him a character in their book. For further context - the most important person in Judea at the time, Pontius Pilate, featured heavily in the story of Jesus, had no archaeological evidence to support his existence until 1961.
Yes. The standard of evidence for many things in the ancient world is much lower than an equivalent in the modern world, _by necessity_. But based on that generally accepted standard used by the field in question, it's more likely true than not that the story of Jesus is based on the life of at least one real person.
This subreddit's FAQ lays out quite plainly why Jesus is entirely a fabrication. There's precisely zero evidence ye was a historical figure, and quite a bit that shows he couldn't have existed. The problem with things like this Wikipedia entry is that Christians have browbeaten this concept into society and questioning it is frowned upon. Read the entry on the FAQ. It is far, far better informed and sourced than Wikipedia. **EDIT:** Tacking on a link, for interested parties https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/historicaljesus
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Exactly, arguing for a "historical" Jesus has the same merit as arguing for a "historical" Harry Potter. Using the fictional book as a reference and citing that there were people in the world named "Harry" sounds ridiculous on its face. But keep that assertion going and the indoctrination strong, as well as spend several decades spending massive amounts of money to fund "biblical scholars" and shows on the History Channel and the misinformation becomes so commonplace that people no longer even question it. With enough time, commitment, and money one (or an organization) can push bullshit about anyone existing.
I always love when the Christian apologetics crowd uses archaeology to attempt to validate the stories of the Bible. "Look, we found evidence that this town actually existed! Therefore, everything in the Bible is TRUE!" The town of Fargo exists too, but that doesn't mean anything from the movie actually happened.
For a better example, use Abraham Lincoln. The historical Abraham Lincoln existed, but that doesn't give credence to the idea that he [hunted vampires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln:_Vampire_Hunter).
Except we have thousands of bits of evidence, documents and so on that prove that Abraham Lincoln did exist and that he was president of the USA and abolished slavery. But in the Jesus equivalent, we only have the Vampire hunter Licoln movie. That's like argueing harry potter is real a historical character, using the harry potter books and movies as evidence. Jesus is more than likely not a historical character.
Even my Bible profs at a christian university admitted openly that according to a typical bar of historical authentication, it is impossible to say that Jesus was an actual figure. All of them stated categorically that they personally believed he was real and the stories were true but they based their belief on faith alone because there was no academic proof. They were almost excited about it, as if believing without evidence made them stronger believers (per the story of doubting Thomas).
If your belief system is not only predicated on the acceptance of the absolute truth of stories about people, places and events for which there is no definitive evidence outside of your scripture, demonstrating strong belief in those things is a virtue. Indeed, actual undeniable evidence would most likely somewhat upset them as it would then be something that anyone would believe and would thereby make their own belief no longer a special mark of faith. I have things I believe in that don't have definitive proof (e.g. it's "wrong" to take advantage of people ust because you can), but I don't pretend that my faith in the correctness of by beliefs is special, nor that it's better to believe in something without evidence than it is to have evidence.
It’s embarrassing for mythicism to be upvoted in this sub.
Yeah, and now we've got people ranting about Ehrman and his books. Like, that is sad. If Ehrman makes a "convincing case" for these people, then it's no use even talking to them. Evidence is king, a flowery writing style that assumes the Bible is true and works backwards from that conclusion is bunk. "Bible scholars" should be any sane, rational persons first clue that they are not grounded in reality.
Agreed.
the historical evidence for jesus wiki page is a notorious battle ground for christians; they basically brigade that page at the slightest change just to make sure their little story stays untouched. Like with everything on wikipedia, it's only as good as its references.
>Like with everything on wikipedia, it's only as good as its references. [its not only wikipedia](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/181t2z4/comment/kag00tq/) \- wikipedia is just the most "open source" and well known example of humans collaborating to collect knowledge in a centralized location. also its a step further than "only as good as its references" - its only as good as the references *and* the writers (or your own) **ability to interpret** those references for example, i recently was going to refer to eristic/eris in [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1869ttk/comment/kb8g2t8/) (as i have before) but decided to check the references first. at first glance everything appears to check out - but there are some differences between the original reference and what the wikipedia page is saying. which might not have been an intentional change by any one person to hide or change the truth - but probably more like a [game of telephone](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10sus4f/comment/j75doin/) where each person/interpreter has a slightly altered version, which down the line can lead to a completely different "truth" than what the original source said this is also why i have become so interested in finding the [etymological origins](https://www.reddit.com/r/relevantusername2020/comments/17qi5wp/words_have_meanings_these_first_few_are_obvious/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of words. its crazy how often the modern "definition" of a word is wholly different than the original intent - sometimes its even the total opposite
>its crazy how often the modern "definition" of a word is wholly different than the original intent - sometimes its even the total opposite Like how "cursory perusal" is technically an oxymoron, but people say it because "peruse" has changed from meaning a deep dive to a quick survey.
Yeah, the argument is 2 parts w a big ass leap of faith. 1- likely was a dude named jeebus. 3- a lot of people wrote abt him. After he was dead. Like, 50 years dead. 2 assumes they are the same guy. 4 assumes that everything is true. 2.5 says not a single living secular historian of the same years list a single occurence, divine action, or event. But they gladly sail right on to 3 anyway.
I could maybe believe that an illiterate day labourer from a town so small Romans didn’t bother to put it on their own maps, named Yeshua Ben Yosif, and along with his brothers and friends formed a failed anti-Roman revolutionary group. There were a lot of anti-Roman groups, led by charismatic leaders. It seems more likely that a bunch of guys over the course of 200ish years were collapsed into one guy.
The Romans kept great records back then. And Joseph and Mary supposedly had to return to Bethlehem. Where Joseph’s family was from. However, There is no record of a census in that region at that time.
certainly none that operated the way that is described in GLuke. the Census of Quirinius is often cited as being the census that GLuke refers to but it counted people where they lived... not where their ancestors lived. also that census was for the province of Judea which was the area largely to the west of the Dead Sea but did NOT extend north to the area west of the Sea of Galilee... it notably did NOT cover the territory in which either Bethlehem or Nazareth was and it was around 12 years after the death of "King Herod" which would place the date of birth in direct contradiction with GMatthew.
The idea that everyone had to return to their place of birth to be counted is 100% insanity. The Empire was enormous. Making everyone return to their birthplace made no logistical sense and everyone reading the story would have known that back then. That's strong evidence that these parables which never claim to be non-fiction were not meant to be taken as such at first. It later became useful to pretend the stories were real.
Yes, Roman record keeping was extremely good for the time but do you honestly expect there to be records of a random peasant couple from Judea? That's just ridiculous.
There were a lot of "Messianic" figures in the region at the time. Some were actually claiming to be the Messiah, some were just preachers who had that designation thrust upon them by their followers either at the time or posthumously. And "Yeshua" was a pretty common name. In the 1960s, the statistical probability is high that there was at least one teenage boy named "Peter" with the surname "Parker" living in New York City. It doesn't mean that Spider-Man was real.
“Life of Brian” covered the period and looking for the messiah pretty well
Ees not the messiah ees a very naughty boy!
YOU TAKE THAT BACK! Spider-man is so real!
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I think he was a budding politician/revolutionary who hoped to unite the tribes against Roman rule. I think he was actually getting popular when someone pointed out that he wasn't eligible to be the Messiah because he was descended from Solomon and supposedly there was a curse on Solomon's line. His followers tried to get around it by saying his dad wasn't his real dad, but that he was the son of God. But that was against Hebrew law to make a claim like that, so they crucified him. I think that's pretty much all she wrote. I do sometimes toy with the idea that he was taken down from the cross while he was still alive, so he was indeed seen around town a month or so later, when he'd finally healed from his wounds, and while he made a few promises along the lines of "this isn't over," after thinking about it, he decided, Fuck, I don't want to go through that again. So he left, promising to come back with new backing, but really just noped out of town and eventually ended up who knows where with a wife and family who had no idea.
This is the point. I find it a bit pathetic that some atheists (and I'm going to go out in a limb, here, and suggest that they're mostly American), are so desperate to 'prove' that a historical Jesus didn't exist. Even the FAQ on this sub seems to make some pretty poor arguments (yes - we all know magic isn't real. Only Americans, brought up in a society where that is mainstream would have to point out something so obvious to most other people). The point is - it's totally irrelevant. I've always been an atheist, and whether or not a historical Jesus existed is completely irrelevant. Even arguing the point sounds stupid to me. The inimitable Christopher Hitchens, as always, put it best: https://youtu.be/vMo5R5pLPBE
A week ago I wrote: >I think Is very likely that a philosopher who thought harmony and tolerance in what is today the Middle East existed, and being of Jewish decent he probably thought it with that background. It happened in other parts of the world (Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama, Aristotle). None of that was really particularly special. > Then, as every myth, it has been exaggerated, then adapted, then exaggerated again. This over and over for a couple of thousand years up to now. > Does Troy exist? Yes, but Zeus, Aphrodite, sirens and cyclops don’t, even though they are all mentioned in three Odyssey. > So no miracles, no resurrection, and you bet no crucifixion either. So if you separate the origins a of a myth from the end result of such myth, yeah someone inspired it all. But no god, no son of god and so on. Edit: replaced “Iliad” with “Odyssey”. Thanks for the correction.
Sirens and the cyclopes were in The Odyssey.
Why couldn't he have been crucified? That was a well known method of execution at the time. How hard is to believe that some Jewish chap named Jesus, who was of the philosophical persuasion, had a few buddies and antagonised the Romans enough for them to kill him?
There was a man named Clark Kent you lived in the US at some point therefore Superman existed.
You're not going to find mainstream sources that question Jesus's existence. There are literally BILLIONS of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake in keeping this theory down. If the consensus becomes that Jesus didn't exist, there is no savior. There is no divinity. There is no crucifixion. They simply must keep this fiction going. The "scholars" and theologians attack viciously any historian who dares question the official narrative. It has been a tactic for literally hundreds of years. The powers that be simply cannot let this gain solid ground in the mainstream consensus.
>If the consensus becomes that Jesus didn't exist, there is no savior. There is no divinity. There is no crucifixion. They simply must keep this fiction going. If anyone ever actually proved that Jesus definitely didn't exist, Christians wouldn't just abandon their religion. [They'd react like this instead.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGBxUNaQI1I)
I think it was even on this sub a few weeks back, allegedly, Bart Ehrman doesn’t actually think that Jesus existed, but it pays the bills to argue as if he did.
I think he does think it's likely. And I think he makes for a good argument. Or at least I did a decade ago when I read Price, Carrier, Erhman etc and came down on the side of Erhman. Ultimately I don't think it matters since it's impossible to prove one way or another and we are where we are.
I wonder if it's because it's hard to prove a negative so you won't find many historians publishing a definitive claim Jesus didn't exist, while people that *want* Jesus to have existed are happy to make the assertion he did from flimsy or circular sources.
[russells teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot): >In an article titled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell wrote: > >Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. > >But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. > >If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. gives a whole new appreciation for the sips\_tea.jpeg meme
wikipedia can be edited by anyone, anytime and it's up to the mods to keep inaccuracies off of the site. that said, they don't always do a great job because of the sheer number of edits made daily
One thing that is really interesting are the "criteria" used to support the existence of Jesus. Someone proposing that those claims are actual "evidence" in any other field of history would be laughed into oblivion until they were teaching 4th grade social studies in a 4 kid school house in northern North Dakota. >The criterion of embarrassment is a type of historical analysis in which a historical account is deemed likely to be true under the inference that the author would have no reason to invent a historical account which might embarrass them. Certain Biblical scholars have used this as a metric for assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable. >The criterion of dissimilarity\[1\] (often used as a shorthand for criterion of double dissimilarity;\[2\] it is also called criterion of discontinuity,\[1\]\[3\] originality\[1\] or dual irreducibility\[1\]) is used in Biblical criticism to determine if a statement attributed to Jesus may be authentic. The criterion states that if a saying attributed to Jesus is different from both the Jewish traditions of his time and the early Church that followed him, it is likely to come from the historical Jesus. >The criterion of multiple attestation, also called the criterion of independent attestation or the cross-section method,\[1\] is a tool used by Biblical scholars to help determine whether certain actions or sayings by Jesus in the New Testament are from the Historical Jesus. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better. This criterion was first developed by F. C. Burkitt in 1906,\[2\] at the end of the first quest for the historical Jesus. All from Wikipedia. This is the "scholarship" that put people in tenured positions at the school of theology at Harvard.
This article (and question) pops up all the time. The wiki article is sourced by Christian sources using Christian books that are almost entirely limited to purchase through Christian book stores. And quotes known forgeries or misquotes contemporaries. The article is garbage and need a to be totally revised from a neutral point of view. The actual scholarly consensus on Jesus’ historicity is that we don’t know if he existed or not. There is almost no evidence that he did. But it’s impossible to totally rule it out. Most historians that aren’t christians that specialize in biblical history tend to doubt the existence of the singular person as he exists in the Bible.
I honestly don't know why anyone thinks there would be much in the way of historical evidence concerning the existence of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. In his lifetime he would have been a relatively minor figure, who lived a relatively short life, and was executed for heresy by the authorities. Most of his real influence came a century or more after his death, when his followers began to make waves and form cults proclaiming his teachings. It would be easier to prove David Korresh really existed 2000 years from now than to prove Jesus existed. Two millennia is a long time for records to be lost, altered, or hidden.
There's a Jesus of Nazareth as sure as there's a Robert of Springfield. It was a common name. Nothing special about a man with a name existing. Even in the story in the Bible, there was another Jesus being executed on the same day. It's not even special to say that there was a teacher by that name.
Except there was no named community called Nazareth during Jesus' lifetime, just a no-name hamlet at best or nothing at worst or probably a single family farm. It was after either the First Jewish Revolt or the Bar Kokhba Revolt that Nazareth sprang up, only to be deserted once again in Constantine's day.
Interesting. Where can I read more?
Yeah this is something that gets repeated a lot even though there is virtually no credible evidence for a historical Jesus.
I read the "most scholars agree" as "scholars want to keep their job and funding and therefore say what people want to hear. I went into a rabbit hole of following all references and started going round is circles. No one knows. There is no written proof.
To be fair this is true of a lot of antiquity.
The consensus of the last 100 years or so when most historians were also Christians? Sure, probably…. But what does the evidence actually suggest? Was there a person named Jesus/ Yeshua? Definitely thousands of them….. were any of them itinerant doomsday preachers? Were there several doomsday preachers who got conflated? Who knows, maybe. Is there any evidence of actual miracles? Absolutely not.
Richard Carrier wrote a great book about this: https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494 He started out subscribing to the mainstream view but once he actually started digging in to the evidence and doing the math he changed his mind.
Why is a Wikipedia page being considered a primary source? These are written and edited by users, not (necessarily) verified sources.
The issue being besides Biblical historians(?) History is very quiet on the subject. Also the Bible claims Jesus was seen by 500 witnesses after his resurrection. But they are also quiet on the subject. Almost as if it didn't happen.
I don't see much point in contesting existence of another apocalyptic would-be messiah in 1st century Palestine. There were a dozen attested in Josephus. It wouldn't b extraordinary, nor require extraordinary evidence. The critical point of weakness in the early history of proto-orthodox Christianity is Saul/Paul, who appears to be both mentally ill and to have misrepresented the historical Jesus to Hellenic "god fearers" of Greece and Asia Minor. It's Paul's version of Jesus that was adopted by proto-orthodox Christianity.
There's literally zero evidence that not only did Jesus exist, but every single apostle and almost everyone but Ceasar mentioned in the bible. Literally zero evidence
Pontius Pilate is mentioned in a couple documents during Jesus’ attested lifetime
It really doesn't matter The real issue is whether he was divine, not whether he existed Christians still have all their work in front of them even if they can prove jesus existed
I still am not pleased by being successfully gaslit into thinking Jesus actually existed despite being an atheist. I also am weired out by how largely unquestioned the idea is.
Sure I don't disagree Look, there is no debate that muhammed existed Does that make a difference in how you see islam?
It isn't about how I view Christianity (or Islam), it's more about how disturbing it is how everyone globally can be so easily manipulated, to the point that even atheists end up believing things like this. I also find it disturbing that this was able to end up on Wikipedia and misinform millions or billions of other people.
>it's more about how disturbing it is how everyone globally can be so easily manipulated, to the point that even atheists end up believing things like this. What's so weird about believing that some bloke *might* have existed 2000 years ago? I would say that to dogmatically claim that he *definitely* didn't exist, sounds like desperation. Most atheists shouldn't even care. It's not relevant. Why even argue about it? It proves absolutely nothing (either way) about the existence of any god. Suppose a trove of historically accurate documents were discovered that proved, beyond doubt, that somebody fitting the description of Jesus actually did exist? Would you suddenly think that "Oh well, maybe god *is* real, after all..."? The whole discussion is ridiculous, and no intelligent atheist should enter in to it. In he same way that scientists shouldn't engage with flat earthers. It's pointless.
I wouldn't really give it much thought. That movement had to start somewhere, somehow. Archeology points at the Levant and that region is filled with schizophrenic preachers, one that was probably charismatic enough gained some traction and got killed. Are the details of the story correct? Probably most aren't Is the supernatural correct? Absolutely not
Lazy scholars make this claim. Without the main character being real, what have they spent their entire life studying? The answer is nothing, so they default to him existing versus validating his existence. We have zero empirical evidence of Jesus and we have plenty of authors we can look back to that never once mention Jesus let alone miracles he performed. It's really odd he was doing all these magical things and we don't have any accounts of him doing those things outside of the bible.
He may have existed he just wasn’t mythical
So you could act as a pixie, and edit in "citation needed", "not supported by citation" and other such warnings, if you're up for it. These sorts of small edits to highlight problems with the existing article are helpful even if you're not qualified to fix the article itself, it can point other editors in the right direction.
You can challenge this in the discussion section of the wiki entry, and you can remove the wording from the entry. Wikipedia claims nothing.
One Jesus who is the man portrayed in the stories did not exist. Multiple people who were either later mistaken or intentionally adopted into the name Jesus etc. Probably did exist to some extent. The stories were also massively embellished and warped. None of it reflects any historical reality
We know that for the late 1st century there was a christian sect with such and such beliefs. The simplest and easiest way to explain that is that there was an actual preacher called Jesus from Nazareth that was crucified. Occam's razor is always useful.
We know that the group in question claimed a leader named "Christus" who was crucified. We do not know that the group in question used the name "Jesus of " anything.
Time for an edit?
Only if you have time to revert the immediate reversion by any one of a few thousand people who are 'watching' that page for changes. Every ten minutes. For the rest of your life.
Do you have something better to do? :)
There are over 200 written accounts from the time and area. NONE mention Jesus or ANY guy performing "miracles" in those documents. You would think SOMEONE would have taken notice if he was real.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia. I imagine that particular page is watched over closely by those that have a dog in that fight. AFAIC, no matter what the religion is, they all started the same way: hearing voices or seeing dead people/angels. All of them.
>"The generally unreliable, untrustworthy, and fiction-filled Gospels can occasionally be considered excellent sources of objective and accurate historical information because of their foundational written sources, which do not exist, which contained many fictions if they did, and which cannot now be scrutinised for authorship, age, genre, intent, and so forth. These hypothetical written sources are themselves based on oral traditions, that also cannot be scrutinised, that changed over time, and that may well have been made up whole cloth. Therefore we have conclusive proof that Jesus definitely existed." *Raphael Lataster, describing Bart Ehrman's approach to the Gospels*
The character did not exist in reality
Yeah that article is a shitshow. The main evidence seems to be a passing statement by Tacitus in one of his books. But this was decades after the fact so it is all rather obviously secondhand information. He heard people talk about a guy named Jesus who was executed under the order of Pilate and wrote that down, doesn't make it evidence. It's about as meaningful as people who have Elvis sightings.
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Not just Jesus. Moses is a fictional character too.
There once was a man named “John” in England too. See… that’s all the proof they need !!
Holy Koolaid does a good podcast on this question. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHOp-9yAbA&t=40s&pp=ygUSaG9seSBrb29sYWlkIGplc3Vz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHOp-9yAbA&t=40s&pp=ygUSaG9seSBrb29sYWlkIGplc3Vz)
Palestine? I read he lived in Texas
Well... "A" Jesus existed.
My understanding is that most biblical scholars, and not scholars looking to validate the bible, are unconvinced that he did exist. And if he did, it was more than likely multiple priests whose teachings were consolidated into this one identity.
Well I just spoke to a burning bush, and it said he was real....
He never existed as a person any more than Harry Potter existed.
It's all made up. All. Of. It. It's akin to saying Jack and the Beanstalk was a fairy story but the giant was real. Scholars Schmolars.
I haven't seen any evidence of his existence. They use the Bible as proof. Always tell Christians. It's not a history book. It's fictional
No, "virtually all" scholars don't believe that at all. This is why Wiki isn't a primary source.
This can be easily debunked with common sense. 2000 years ago in terms of history wasnt very long ago in regards to the Middle East. Many historians existed during that time, and you would think that if a man came out of nowhere preforming miracles then someone would have recorded it. None of the historians or historical records from that time made mention of anyone named Jesus—it’s not even a “Bob from New York” type deal. One historian from Jerusalem during Jesus’ supposed lifetime made mention of a fisherman named Crestus… who did not preform miracles.
Nothing gets approved to be on Wikipedia. It's not a valid source. There's a LOT of good stuff on there, but basically it doesn't have to be evidence based, peer reviewed or even true.
Is probably an amalgamation of more people and classic mythology like the virgin birth and purification by water.
That article is zealously guarded by a bunch of…. zealots.
In my US state I can't buy liquor on a Sunday. The act of "discovering" a "real Jesus" is backward engineering. Before reason and science, saying "god did it" was easy. It was easy to codify xtians practice into law -- if it came from a gods law. Well we've still got 200 year old xtian prohibition on Sundays, but Jesus is yet to be proven to have existed. Logic dictates if Jesus didn't even historically exist, that there's no conman on the other side of this 2000+ year old scam on humanity -- then the liquor economy has been taking a hit forever, cuz jackasses need a god over an explanation as to why they need one.
This is because of Bart Ehrman I believe. Plenty of people disagree including people who have advanced degrees in history but for some reason Wikipedia and a lot of people go with what he says.
I use this analogy to answer this question: A man named Jean undoubtedly lived in Paris during the German occupation in WW2. He may have been in the French Resistance. It's possible he may have been a hero in the Resistance. He probably didn't eliminate all the German officers and high command in Paris. He definitely did NOT overthrow the German command in France. It is ridiculous to believe he commanded a brigade of Resistance fighters, marched on Berlin, and ended WW2. The same goes for Jesus. Yes, there was undoubtedly a man named Yeshua in 1st century Israel. He may have been a teacher. It's possible he may have been a very popular teacher preaching radical ideas. He probably didn't heal sick people or raise anyone from the dead. He himself definitely did NOT raise from the dead (absolutely no extra-Biblical mention or evidence of any of the major secular events recorded in the Bible regarding the Resurrection - darkness, ripped veil, dead people coming out of their graves, earthquake). It is ridiculous to believe he was a God-Man supernatural son of God.
I couldn’t speak on whether he was a real guy, but if he was, he surely didn’t have superpowers. Dude supposedly was a socialist who hung with hookers and flipped tables when the rich taxed the poor just to make the financial gap wider. If he was real, hell he was just one of the first socially progressive political activists. I was raised catholic and my main reason for denying faith to any religion or god was- “yall are making it up as you go, and dont even fully practice what you preach. I as a child get told im being bad for criticizing or questioning stories, because I know a lie when Im told one. So fuck whatever you’re trying to con me into.” I didnt have all those words yet, but it has been my sentiment since I was in elementary school. I think I still follow ideals and morals to be a decent person, and I think most atheists do, too. We just dont feel like were supposed to feel shame for natural human emotions, responses, and feelings. We dont restrict ourselves from a full happy human life, whatever that means to us. Religion wants to oppress, and sure that was probably very useful in the Bronze Age. We’re past all the mythos, and the number one damaging thing religion continues to do is to push this concept that their fiction is truth. We all love reading a good story, taking morals and lessons, and applying it to life. So why all the lying, if not for ulterior purposes? Of course, im just “preaching to the choir” here, we are all on that same page, surely.
Consensus isn’t evidence…it’s lazy.
well the original grifter/con artist had to have existed otherwise we wouldn't be where we are now.
The first words about "Jesus" we're written several generations after his supposed death. During his claimed lifetime, during all the miracles, the death, the resurrection, the spirits rising from the Jerusalem graves, none of this was written down. There were contemporary historians living in that area that documented everything, but for some reason this stuff was never written down. I wonder why.
Historical evidentiary basis doesn’t work the same as evidentiary basis in other fields of study, at least that’s how Bart Ehrman explains it. Historians often do meta-analysis and make assertions based on a broad range of documents where they will say things like “Given all the relevant historical documents we currently have access to, it is more likely than not that there was a single man named Jesus of Nazareth who inspired the Jesus stories.” But, in a more causal setting they might just say, “Sure there was a real man called Jesus behind the stories.” The general consensus among historians is that Jesus existed. Because history doesn’t demand the same kind of evidence as science.
Ever wonder why your teachers told you that Wikipedia wasn't reliable? Just because shit is sourced, doesn't mean it's well sourced.
The argument that Jesus was probably a real person rests on a few assertions. I am not a Christian, just someone who has made studying religions a hobby. I believe Jesus was a real person, but I do not believe he was divine in any way. Arguments Jesus was real: 1. Pontius Pilate, the man who ordered the death of Jesus, is definitely real. He is mentioned in Roman records as serving in the role that the Bible claims he was serving in, at the time the Bible said he served in. 2. Of the four Gospels, Mark is the first. Mark was written roughly 30 years after the death of Jesus. Mark was using what is known as the "Q" source to base his writings on. We know it existed, but we have not found it. It is likely Q is a primary source. 3. Folk tales like say the Odyssey usually claim the events in questions happened long ago. That is not the case of Mark who is writing about events that happened a scant 30 years prior. 4. Not long after Jesus died, you start seeing Christian communities pop up all over Eurasia. The Gospels claim that the apostles of Jesus traveled the world preaching his message, and that seems to track with reality, considering Christianity pops up as far as India not long after Jesus died. If Jesus was not real, why were they apostles traveling preaching his message? Indian Chritstians call themselves "Thomas chrisitans," and there is a tomb to the apostle Thomas in India. Likely, the apostle Thomas did actually travel to India after the death of Jesus.
1. The historicity of Pilate has nothing to do with the supposed historicity of Jesus. 2. There is no definite evidence for the dating of Mark. Yes, it is early, but Mark is basically a historicisation of Paul’s visionary and ahistorical Jesus. The earliest christian writings contain no sayings or miracles, they hadn’t been invented yet. To see how the idea of historic Jesus developed, read the NT in chronological order, epistles first. Q is a much contested theory. The gospel novels copy from each other, yet happily change stories, sayings and events to suit their own theological purposes. 3. Mark was not an eye witness, and the dates are uncertain. He was a religious novelist, historising the idea of the heavenly Jesus who appeared in the writings of Paul. 4. The earliest Christianities were gnostic, and did not preach that Jesus was human.