Did Jesus Exist?

[Meadmaker]

On the other hand, a lot of people really do believe in George Washington's cherry tree.....

And that is a good analogy. George Washington's cherry tree is a myth, but one that many believed. However, George Washington was real. The story just wouldn't have much impact if it had been made up about some non-existent fellow.

At the time the early Christians were starting to grow, there were people alive who could have remembered whether or not some rabble-rouser was attacking moneychangers or getting himself crucified.

Moreover, why make up a non-existent person. Taking a real person, attaching legends onto him, and then morphing him into a godlike figure, and eventually to God himself, makes a certain amount of sense. But just inventing someone out of whole cloth like that? Why?

This is unlike Xenu. Xenu is an allegedly ancient and mighty figure. That makes a lot of sense to invent if you need to start a religion. But if you were fabricating someone, starting with a nice Jewish boy who was killed is a lousy start. Why not at least start with a real someone, and build him up. That's what the Mandaens did with John the Baptist.

I think the other thread, referenced earlier, made a great point, though. Whether or not he existed, his story has been altered so much by the time that it got into our only historical records of him that the characteristics of the "real" Jesus probably doesn't look much like the only accounts we have of him.

Unless of course the Christians are correct.

 

[kuroyume0161]

I side with phildonnia:

1) and 2) are definitely more likely and highly probable.

3) and 4) are impossible and improbable. More than likely almost nothing in the Gospels relates to a real person.

The Q script hypothesis, many contradictions, and impossible acts/situations relegate most of the NT related to Jesus as fabrication, embellishment, or fictional occurences for making moral/doctrinal statements. IF there was someone who existed who could be called the founder of Christianity (besides Paul), all true records of his existence have been mutilated and interpolated and extrapolated and long forgotten. Very little of the Gospels can be used as historical records and what might be fact is completely obscured by the multitudinous fictions.

My main sticking point is this: seeing the quick rise of Christianity, why was nothing of the man preserved by his most devout followers or even his parents? No artifacts, no verifiable recordings of his acts and sayings (many of the stories in the Gospels are clearly parables in themselves or illustrations - again, see Q script references), no writings of his own, nothing.

Instead, what we see are immediate disputes between sects of the rising religion which quickly morphs and spreads all over the Mediteranean region, each area having its own little version of Christianity. No cohesion and no real connection to the idea of a living person named Jesus in some cases (see Paul and some of the more esoteric sects - also note that the symbology of lambs, fish, doves, etc. are more solidified in the early church than is the notion of a man Jesus). It wasn't until an attempt to codify the religion's doctrine that the doctrine solidified, usually under threat. Most of the extra-biblical documents used to support a real Jesus are interpolations (see Eusebius) or thinly connected (Christus, Christ, Yeshua, and many other forced evidences) to support the doctrine that Jesus was a man-god who resurrected. One must remember that Christus is a Roman name not related to the Greek Christ (Christos) - at least not directly - and that in those times, there were many Christos (annointed ones), cynics, messiahs, and other cultists, and many people named Jesus or Yeshua.

 

[LW]

These are a little suspect because it appears that some over-enthusiastic translator in a monastery somewhere along the line inserted some additional words about Jesus that supported the view of Jesus as divine. But modern historians are pretty sure they know which parts were forged and which parts were original, and there are mentions of Jesus in the original.

The manuscript alteration actually happened before the time of monasteries. We don't have the original text of Josephus anymore, but there is one important ancient pointer to the direction that he did mention Jesus in the original text: the church-father Origen (active in late 2nd century) mentioned Josephus among the authors who denied the Messiahdom of Jesus.

 

[LW]

One must remember that Christus is a Roman name not related to the Greek Christ (Christos) - at least not directly - and that in those times, there were many Christos (annointed ones), cynics, messiahs, and other cultists, and many people named Jesus or Yeshua.

Do you have some source for Christus being a Roman name? I have never encountered it as a Roman name, the online lists of Roman names don't mention it, and all results that the online Latin dictionary gives for the start "chris" are all related to Christianity.

 

[kuroyume0161]

Do you have some source for Christus being a Roman name? I have never encountered it as a Roman name, the online lists of Roman names don't mention it, and all results that the online Latin dictionary gives for the start "chris" are all related to Christianity.

Although the source is obviously biased, Did Jesus Exist?. Christus is not a proper name, but a title (just being ambiguous there, sorry). I do retract that Christus is not related to Christos, according to this.

Still, the use of Christus is no more indicatory of a man named Jesus or Yeshua born of Joseph and Mary who claimed to be the messiah than any other vague reference.

 

[drkitten]

This is unlike Xenu. Xenu is an allegedly ancient and mighty figure. That makes a lot of sense to invent if you need to start a religion. But if you were fabricating someone, starting with a nice Jewish boy who was killed is a lousy start.

There's a maxim in Jewish law that is relevant here : "The mouth which bound is the mouth which loosed." Freely interpreted (for I'm hardly a Judaic scholar), this means that the credibility of a presented fact is increased when negative facts come with it. A classic case is if a woman claims to be divorced (absent other evidence), you might as well believe her -- because with no other evidence, if she had wanted to claim to be single, she could have.

Another example, from jewishencyclopedia.com, reads :

Where it is known of a woman only by her own account that she has been a captive, and she says she was not defiled, her statement is taken, and she may marry into the priesthood; but if the proof of her captivity rests upon witnesses, and she claims that she was not defiled, the court would say [Hebrew omitted] ("We do not live on what she says"; see also, for the rule, Ket. ii. 5, and, for its counterpart, Ket. i. 6-9).

If I were going to make up a legend of the Messiah, I wouldn't have had him crucified. Especially in first century Palestine, crucifixion was a horrible, horrible, death, reserved only for very heinous traitors, and it greatly detracts from the story to have to admit that the central figure was such a person. (Imagine trying to start a religion today that hinged around a convicted pedophile.) Even if I were to start telling legends about the Messiah, I'd probably conveniently omit the "crucifixion" part and just mention how he was "put to death" by the Romans, without mentioning the details.

The only reason for my to mention the crucifixion at all is because I have to -- and the only reason for that is if everyone else who is hearing the tale already knows about the crucifixion from other sources.

So it may well be betting odds that someone fitting Jesus' general description existed and was crucified --- because we can infer too many witnesses to brush that under the table.

 

[DaveW]

If I were going to make up a legend of the Messiah, I wouldn't have had him crucified. Especially in first century Palestine, crucifixion was a horrible, horrible, death, reserved only for very heinous traitors, and it greatly detracts from the story to have to admit that the central figure was such a person. (Imagine trying to start a religion today that hinged around a convicted pedophile.) Even if I were to start telling legends about the Messiah, I'd probably conveniently omit the "crucifixion" part and just mention how he was "put to death" by the Romans, without mentioning the details.

I'm not a scholar on this subject, but I feel I should comment on this. Since the whole point of the Jesus character was to die for our sins, why wouldn't the story be made up (if it was) to include such a horrible death (to attone for all our very horrible sins)?

Also, one argument I keep seeing for a "historical" Jesus can be paraphrased "It's so much easier that this story is based on an actual person." I see an appeal to ignorance on this line of reasoning. There are plenty of well fleshed out stories that have no basis on a historical figure. Why would this one necessarily be different?


--Edit: for the record, I have no opinion on the matter of there being a historical Jesus.

--Edit2: to correct some poor wording

 

[drkitten]

I'm not a scholar on this subject, but I feel I should comment on this. Since the whole point of the Jesus character was to die for our sins, why wouldn't the story be made up (if it was) to include such a horrible death (to attone for all our very horrible sins)?

Because the crucifixion wasn't a particularly horrible death so much as it was an ignoble death. A dishonorable one. A death that fundamentally detracts from the basic credibility of the message as it would have been received by the first century Palestinians.

The best modern analogy that I can come up with is death from Aids, especially death from Aids in the late 1980s before it moved in droves into the straight community. It was widely perceived that the only way to catch Aids was to participate in activities, either drug use or homosexual sex, that society widely regarded as disgusting, dishonorable, immoral, et cetera. A lot of people were very explicit in their claims that Aids was an actual punishment from God for one's sins on a very personal level (check Jack Chick for some examples). People who had Aids went out of their way to hide it because of the stigma.

I suppose a much better writer than I could have written a very good story about a heroic figure who, at the height of his heroism, is struck down with Aids as some sort of ironic commentary on the nature of heroism. But irony wasn't used in the heroic fiction of 1 A.D. and the writers of the time wouldn't have taken that tack. There are actually a number of examples of heroic fiction regarding the Messiah dating from that era -- and they pretty much all involve mythological heros establishing a kingdom on Earth.

Good people -- people beloved of God -- people whose moral message one should follow -- were not crucified in first century Palestine. Or at least that was the general understanding, and if you're going to create something out of whole cloth, you would have to follow the general understanding.

Also, one argument I keep seeing for a "historical" Jesus can be paraphrased "It's so much easier that this story is based on an actual person." I call bs on this line of reasoning. There are plenty of well fleshed out stories that have no basis on a historical figure. Why would this one necessarily be different?

Really? Tell me how many well-fleshed out stories there are about public events in the past ten years a) that people believe, and b) don't have a substantial basis in reality?

Philip Roth has a new book out, called The Plot Against America describing a what-if scenario in which Lindbergh was elected president in 1940. No one believes it. If I were fool enough to believe it, I could ask people who actually voted in the 1940 elections whether or not Lindbergh won (or was even on the ticket).

And you'll never be able to tell people that the events described in the book were real, because too many people remember that they didn't happen.

If you were going to tell a story about the public events in which Jesus was crucified in 30A.D., you either had to get your facts right, or you would get the same reaction when people remembered that what you said didn't happen.

It's different now. No one remembers 30A.D., and fifty years from now, no one will remember the 1940 elections. Maybe then you'll be able to tell Roth's Plot as though it were non-fiction, and people will believe you. Maybe you will be able to re-write the book to carry the message you want it to carry. But you can't do it today.

 

[DaveW]

Because the crucifixion wasn't a particularly horrible death so much as it was an ignoble death. A dishonorable one. A death that fundamentally detracts from the basic credibility of the message as it would have been received by the first century Palestinians.

The best modern analogy that I can come up with is death from Aids, especially death from Aids in the late 1980s before it moved in droves into the straight community. It was widely perceived that the only way to catch Aids was to participate in activities, either drug use or homosexual sex, that society widely regarded as disgusting, dishonorable, immoral, et cetera. A lot of people were very explicit in their claims that Aids was an actual punishment from God for one's sins on a very personal level (check Jack Chick for some examples). People who had Aids went out of their way to hide it because of the stigma.

I suppose a much better writer than I could have written a very good story about a heroic figure who, at the height of his heroism, is struck down with Aids as some sort of ironic commentary on the nature of heroism. But irony wasn't used in the heroic fiction of 1 A.D. and the writers of the time wouldn't have taken that tack. There are actually a number of examples of heroic fiction regarding the Messiah dating from that era -- and they pretty much all involve mythological heros establishing a kingdom on Earth.

Good people -- people beloved of God -- people whose moral message one should follow -- were not crucified in first century Palestine. Or at least that was the general understanding, and if you're going to create something out of whole cloth, you would have to follow the general understanding.

Thanks. I don't know enough about it to know if you are right, but that kind of makes sense

Really? Tell me how many well-fleshed out stories there are about public events in the past ten years a) that people believe, and b) don't have a substantial basis in reality?

...snip...

It's different now. No one remembers 30A.D., and fifty years from now, no one will remember the 1940 elections. Maybe then you'll be able to tell Roth's Plot as though it were non-fiction, and people will believe you. Maybe you will be able to re-write the book to carry the message you want it to carry. But you can't do it today.

Your last paragraph just made my point for me, I think. Only today (and in the future) you would have a much harder time of it because of our vastly superior communication and information infrastructure compared to 30AD.

--Edit: and, if I judge your example correctly, it was presented as a hypothetical, whereas the Jesus stories were likely presented as fact.

 

[drkitten]

Your last paragraph just made my point for me, I think. Only today (and in the future) you would have a much harder time of it because of our vastly superior communication and information infrastructure compared to 30AD.

Um,.... no.

Certainly, if I wanted to create a religion today, putting its primary spokesman two thousand years ago in an ill-documented part of Gallilee would be a brilliant move on my part, since no one would be able to check and to prove me wrong. Making its primary spokesman become King of England in 1965 would be, well, stupid. Too many English remember 1965.

But the same problem holds with making up the Christ story out of whole cloth. Modern scholarship holds (and I will provisionally accept) that the earliest gospel is the Gospel of Mark, which was first written about 65 CE, but is the culmination and result of earlier oral traditions, and possibly some other writings that had not survived.

In 65 CE, there would have been people still alive who remembered the events in the spring of 30 CE, people who would still have been able to say, when the Christian proslytizers came around, "No, that didn't happen. I was there, darn it!" A twenty-year old wedding guest at the feast of Cana would only have been in his fifties when Mark was written, and might well be telling his grandchildren about it. Even if I'm off by twenty years, our hypothetical wedding guest would only be in his seventies, which would have been old, but not unheard of. And still be able to contradict the story if Joshua bin Joseph had not actually been crucified, or if there had been no public proclamations of people claiming to be King of the Jews in his lifetime, or something like that. Mark couldn't have contradicted oral tradition, or he wouldn't have been believed. But oral tradition couldn't have contradicted what people actually knew from their own experience, for the same reason.

I'm limited in the kind of stories that I can make up and have believed by what people already know. Only when people no longer know the truth from personal experience does it become practical to make up a lie and have it widely believed.

So perhaps our datings are wrong. Perhaps Mark was actually written in 165CE, and no one was around to correct him. In that case, the argument-from-noncontradiction has a lot less weight. But at the same time, a lot of good scholarship has gone into the 65CE dating, so I don't want to throw it out without hard evidence.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

There's a maxim in Jewish law that is relevant here : "The mouth which bound is the mouth which loosed." Freely interpreted (for I'm hardly a Judaic scholar), this means that the credibility of a presented fact is increased when negative facts come with it. A classic case is if a woman claims to be divorced (absent other evidence), you might as well believe her -- because with no other evidence, if she had wanted to claim to be single, she could have.

Another example, from jewishencyclopedia.com, reads :



If I were going to make up a legend of the Messiah, I wouldn't have had him crucified. Especially in first century Palestine, crucifixion was a horrible, horrible, death, reserved only for very heinous traitors, and it greatly detracts from the story to have to admit that the central figure was such a person. (Imagine trying to start a religion today that hinged around a convicted pedophile.) Even if I were to start telling legends about the Messiah, I'd probably conveniently omit the "crucifixion" part and just mention how he was "put to death" by the Romans, without mentioning the details.

The only reason for my to mention the crucifixion at all is because I have to -- and the only reason for that is if everyone else who is hearing the tale already knows about the crucifixion from other sources.

So it may well be betting odds that someone fitting Jesus' general description existed and was crucified --- because we can infer too many witnesses to brush that under the table.

While you have made some very interesting observations, you seem to be suggesting that " the story is so outlandish it must be true " .. ( in essence )

That doesn't seem like a very scholarly approach to me ..

I have never heard the suggestion that crucifixion was .. " reserved only for very heinous traitors.. "

In fact, the Bible stories say a couple of common thieves were crucified with Jesus..

Googling about ' crucifixion ' turns up many sources that suggest it was a fairly common form of punishment by Romans for non-Romans..

 

[DaveW]

Um,.... no.

Certainly, if I wanted to create a religion today, putting its primary spokesman two thousand years ago in an ill-documented part of Gallilee would be a brilliant move on my part, since no one would be able to check and to prove me wrong. Making its primary spokesman become King of England in 1965 would be, well, stupid. Too many English remember 1965.

But the same problem holds with making up the Christ story out of whole cloth. Modern scholarship holds (and I will provisionally accept) that the earliest gospel is the Gospel of Mark, which was first written about 65 CE, but is the culmination and result of earlier oral traditions, and possibly some other writings that had not survived.

In 65 CE, there would have been people still alive who remembered the events in the spring of 30 CE, people who would still have been able to say, when the Christian proslytizers came around, "No, that didn't happen. I was there, darn it!" A twenty-year old wedding guest at the feast of Cana would only have been in his fifties when Mark was written, and might well be telling his grandchildren about it. Even if I'm off by twenty years, our hypothetical wedding guest would only be in his seventies, which would have been old, but not unheard of. And still be able to contradict the story if Joshua bin Joseph had not actually been crucified, or if there had been no public proclamations of people claiming to be King of the Jews in his lifetime, or something like that. Mark couldn't have contradicted oral tradition, or he wouldn't have been believed. But oral tradition couldn't have contradicted what people actually knew from their own experience, for the same reason.

I'm limited in the kind of stories that I can make up and have believed by what people already know. Only when people no longer know the truth from personal experience does it become practical to make up a lie and have it widely believed.

So perhaps our datings are wrong. Perhaps Mark was actually written in 165CE, and no one was around to correct him. In that case, the argument-from-noncontradiction has a lot less weight. But at the same time, a lot of good scholarship has gone into the 65CE dating, so I don't want to throw it out without hard evidence.

So if it was wholly made up, noone could discredit it. Apparently you don't get my point, and I really don't want to derail this thread any longer. My point is that saying "I can't see how all these stories could have been made without a real central figure to pin them on" is merely an argument from incredulity or ignorance or something of the sort. Obviously, if other data backs up his being a real person, then great, no argument from me.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

In 65 CE, there would have been people still alive who remembered the events in the spring of 30 CE, people who would still have been able to say, when the Christian proslytizers came around, "No, that didn't happen. I was there, darn it!"

This would require a lot of people who saw what happened to have read Mark, and there is no reason to believe that happened either...

If a lot of people saw it happen, that would be all the more reason to have more than four stories, that really don't agree with each other on a lot of ( important ) points.


Edited..

I see I confused the ' proslytizers ' with Mark.. But my point remains the same, in that we have no reason to believe there were a lot of ' Christian proslytizers ' in 65CE...

 

[RussDill]

Something people aren't mentioning is that people might have known the story of Jesus was not about a real man (Like that of Job), and therefore, had no reason to say "that never happened".

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel3.html

Writings of a christian, around 150AD

"And some say that the objects of their worship include a man who suffered death as a criminal, as well as the wretched wood of his cross; these are fitting altars for such depraved people, and they worship what they deserve."

...

"Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies,"

...

"These, and such as these infamous things, we are not at liberty even to hear; it is even disgraceful with any more words to defend ourselves from such charges. For you pretend that those things are done by chaste and modest persons, which we should not believe to be done at all, unless you proved that they were true concerning yourselves. For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God."

Aparently, around 150AD, there were christians who believe the whole Logos story was not actually about a man who lived and died on earth, and there were christians who believed it was about a man who lived and died on earth.

Seems to me that somewhere along the line, oops, christians forgot that Jesus was a myth.

 

[Iacchus]

Picking up from the "The Writings of Jesus" thread,
what evidence is there that Jesus actually existed?

What evidence is there of God? If we were able to determine this, through examining ourselves perhaps? that would make the existence of Jesus slightly more palpable don't you think? In which case the existence of Jesus really becomes a moot point, because He was only here to testify that God, the Father, exists.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Re: Re: Did Jesus Exist?

What evidence is there of God?

None.


If we were able to determine this, through examining ourselves perhaps? that would make the existence of Jesus slightly more palpable don't you think?

Nope.


In which case the existence of Jesus really becomes a moot point, because He was only here to testify that God, the Father, exists.

I would say God needs a better public relations system in place.

 

[kuroyume0161]

Court, can we have Iacchus' testimony struck from the records?

Did you have anything 'palpable' to say on the topic, Iacchus?

---

RussDill, that was basically my point above without making cites. There seems to have been at least two 'branches' of christianity. One was built on a dying god-man and another on mystery cult principles (the Logos being the embodiment of the mystery).

Even the non-canonical texts (omitted from the Bible) which appear to fill in more of Jesus' life are easily seen as either expansions of earlier fables or added to justify one sect's doctrines over another's. The Gospel of Mary is the worst of them. It brings the full two sides together by introducing a mystery (to attract believers into the outer mystery and entice them into the inner with esoteric gobbledy-gook - as I read it anyway) through the acceptance of a real god-man, by that time already established as Jesus Christ (of Nazareth, of Galilee, the Nazorean, Son of God, and so forth).

 

[stamenflicker]

Seems to me that somewhere along the line, oops, christians forgot that Jesus was a myth.

This seems a bit unreasonable. Although you might find a few people crazy enough to die for the story of the Logos you mention, I doubt you'd have whole families lined up to become human torches for Nero's parties (much of that torture was prior to 150 years you mention).

It's one thing for a crazed loner to take some Heaven's Gate cool-aid. It seems to me anyway, quite another to have entire sections of a populace putting their life on the line (and the lives of their children) for just a story.

Not to mention, the Logos theology best articulated in John's gospel was adapted 40 to 50 years after the accepted first writings containing the "sayings of Jesus." Probably 50-60 years after the writings of Paul-- admittedly a persecutor of the Jewish sect who followed a proclaimed resurrected Messiah.

You'd have to at best say that the myth was well practiced and understood and adapted among certain Jews by 55 AD. Surely that alone would have by then led some skeptics into deeper consideration of the potentiality of Jesus' literal existence.

Stamen

 

[username]

In 65 CE, there would have been people still alive who remembered the events in the spring of 30 CE, people who would still have been able to say, when the Christian proslytizers came around, "No, that didn't happen. I was there, darn it!"

Maybe they were there and did say it didn't happen.

The Christian faith never did do well in the Jewish area, telling the stories among Romans who knew nothing of these Jewish figures wouldn't be subject to contradiction from eye witnesses. Within the Roman empire there appears to have been a thirst for something to believe in, I mean it is how the Roman Catholic church was able to become the behemoth it is today.

A twenty-year old wedding guest at the feast of Cana would only have been in his fifties when Mark was written, and might well be telling his grandchildren about it. Even if I'm off by twenty years, our hypothetical wedding guest would only be in his seventies, which would have been old, but not unheard of. And still be able to contradict the story if Joshua bin Joseph had not actually been crucified, or if there had been no public proclamations of people claiming to be King of the Jews in his lifetime, or something like that.

Well sure, but the claim is that Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding and he sat on a hill and produced baskets and basket fulls of fish and bread at another time. Was Jesus a magician? Either he really pulled off these miracles, was a good illusionist or the record of people saying "BS" simply isn't recorded or preserved.

Mark couldn't have contradicted oral tradition, or he wouldn't have been believed. But oral tradition couldn't have contradicted what people actually knew from their own experience, for the same reason.

Was Mark written by Mark?

I'm limited in the kind of stories that I can make up and have believed by what people already know. Only when people no longer know the truth from personal experience does it become practical to make up a lie and have it widely believed.

Thing is they didn't have 24x7 news channels and the internet in those days. Because of this ignorance and superstition were widespread. People were falling for one messiah after another in those times. Heck, they used to take people with epilepsy and cast demons out of them. I don't think yet another legend based around a magic working prophet would have been difficult to pull off. Had it not been for the Roman empire needing a unifying religion to control people with I don't think any of us would have ever even heard of Jesus.

 

[cedric_owl]

Some historical notes:

During Jesus' time many people claimed to be messiahs, and many of them were killed by the Romans. Stories portraying Jesus as some enormously influential figure at the time who terrified the establishment so much that they called for his death are ridiculous. In reality, Jesus would have been a minor, outspoken character no different from any number of other people punished by the Romans for their disobedience.

The resurrection story, to be blunt, is complete hooey. Most objective historians see it for what it probably is--an attempt by later Christians to co-opt local resurrection superstitions in order to convert the masses.

As for the miracles, who knows? From reading the bible, however, I must say that they often read as somewhat "tacked on." Even if Jesus were endowed with divine powers, I can't for the life of me understand what the point is of doing what basically amounts to nifty magic tricks.

In fact, the resurrection and the miracles have probably done more damage to Christian philosophy than anything else. If you believe that the Parables correctly represent the thinking of Jesus, as I tend to lean, then it's a tragedy that a lot of nonsense about walking on water and resurrection has transformed the thinking of a major world philospher into a bunch of meaningless, mystical mumbo-jumbo.