What do we really know about Jesus?

[Voland0]

Given the few post you have made so far I have to conclude you may possible have your head up your butt.

Really? You want to go to insults? Or, perhaps, you are projecting?

Time will tell. For a hint see my basic beliefs line.

Of what value is your "basic beliefs line" when you post that the "Bible is literally true"?

Perhaps evidence that your head is not the one up one's butt by retracting that evaluation explicitly.

 

[Valjean]

There have been a number of movies on Wyatt Erarp and the OK Corral and Billy The Kid. I recntly wtched an old Billy The Kid movie with Paul Newman as the kid.

There are corroborate derails of his existence and what he did. People have written books and delved into the history around the figure. Nobody realy knows who he was and where he came from. !9th century pop fiction books were written and later movies created narrtives around the known facts.

At least there are first-person accounts of Wyatt Earp, Billy and the events at the OK corral, and from disinterested parties, as well. It's my understanding that there are none for Jesus, only second hand reports or reports about his followers and their beliefs, ie: hearsay.

 

[steve_bank]

Given the few post you have made so far I have to conclude you may possible have your head up your butt.

Really? You want to go to insults? Or, perhaps, you are projecting?

Time will tell. For a hint see my basic beliefs line.

Of what value is your "basic beliefs line" when you post that the "Bible is literally true"?

Perhaps evidence that your head is not the one up one's butt by retracting that evaluation explicitly.

Sarcasm.

I have been called a thing or two in my life, but never a literal Christian. Perish the thought.

Yes, the bible is myth mixed with ancient Jewish history and culture. I would not call the OT fiction as if it were written like a modern fiction.

The Greek Herodotus an historian was called Herodotus The liar. He wrote histories which often contained hearsay events elsewhere in the world he pretested as first hand observation.

In the 50s I grew up with The George Washington and the cherry tree story which probably never happened.

Hinduism is rich with mythology and is perhaps the oldest recorded mythology, far more elegant than the bible.

Mythology is always part of cultural cohesion and stability. We Americans have our own embedded myths, albeit cultural not relgious.

Consider how the Jews maintained their culture distributed around the world leading to the creation of modern Israel. They believe im a continua thread going back to ancient Hebrews, the power of mythology.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Given the few post you have made so far I have to conclude you may possible have your head up your butt. Time will tell. For a hint see my basic beliefs line.

We can talk about what we know about Jesus without insulting each other.

 

[abaddon]

When you have "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true.", it seems as though *you* are such a literalist. Perhaps I've not seen enough of your posts, and am misinterpreting. Feel free to clarify.

In a steve_bank post, the several sentences convey an overall 'gist'. You miss the implicit gist if you isolate any one phrase.

The sentence "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true" connects to the sentence just before it: "I sample Christian TV channels from time to time."

So it is not a claim about the Bible. It's a claim about what Christians say on TV.

 

[Voland0]

When you have "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true.", it seems as though *you* are such a literalist. Perhaps I've not seen enough of your posts, and am misinterpreting. Feel free to clarify.

In a steve_bank post, the several sentences convey an overall 'gist'. You miss the implicit gist if you isolate any one phrase.

The sentence "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true" connects to the sentence just before it: "I sample Christian TV channels from time to time."

So it is not a claim about the Bible. It's a claim about what Christians say on TV.

I suspected that, and made allowance by "Perhaps... clarify". My poor, slow understanding could have been helped by "They say...".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I made up something I call the Rambo Theory of Jesus. I came up with it when they added Rambo to the latest Mortal Kombat game and I got to violently murder people as Rambo with Stallone doing the voice work to talk shit to them before hacking them up - it's fun and you should check it out if you don't play. They also have Robocop and Terminator - it as a whole 80s action thing they were doing for DLC characters and I'm a fan of the genre.

Basically, Rambo is based on a real person. He was a handyman who used to do odd jobs for the father of the author of the book First Blood and was a WWII vet who never really got over his PTSD from the war. The author found him interesting and, in the wake of all the vets coming back from Vietnam, he wrote a story about the things this guy had told him about wandering around, getting hassled by the cops and never really being able to fit back into regular society. He updated the war to the current one and then added some more generic problems experienced by other soldiers to flesh it out as opposed to just sticking to the actual experiences of the guy he knew. It wasn't all that interesting a story, so he then invented a bit of him getting into a fight with some dirty cops and using his special forces skills he'd learnt in the war to escape from jail fight them in the woods so there was a but more colour to help with the sales.

This then got optioned into a movie and that focused much more on the latter part with the whole PTSD thing which the original idea for the story was all about as just a bit of background character building as a set up to the action. Then all the sequels, video games and all the rest continued to focus even more on that part.

Now, just a few decades after the very real person did the very real things which everything was based on, the general concept of Rambo in popular culture is of this invincible super soldier who has a bit of PTSD which he stoically deals with and the only purpose of that is to have the character stand out slightly from the other invincible super soldier who didn't have this hook to become as popular. When you think of the name Rambo, the character whom you think of is completely unrelated to the person who very recently had a story written about his life.

I think it's the same for Jesus. There probably was some guy, or group of guys, who went around preaching and saying some nice things, gathering some crowds and getting hassled by the local authorities. When people were talking about them, they merged a few of them together to flesh out the story they were telling. They then added other things to make it more interesting or to serve whatever political or social agenda the various speakers were into. Then, a few decades later when people started compiling these stories because the character had gotten more popular, you had yourself a tale about a guy who was completely unrelated to the actual person or persons people had begun telling stories about very recently.

 

[steve_bank]

When I was watching Rambo in our communuty room with a VN combat vet he got bent out of shape and called that Rambo image a joke.

 

[steve_bank]

When you have "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true.", it seems as though *you* are such a literalist. Perhaps I've not seen enough of your posts, and am misinterpreting. Feel free to clarify.

In a steve_bank post, the several sentences convey an overall 'gist'. You miss the implicit gist if you isolate any one phrase.

The sentence "Sciencec, archeology, and history conclusivley show the bible is literally true" connects to the sentence just before it: "I sample Christian TV channels from time to time."

So it is not a claim about the Bible. It's a claim about what Christians say on TV.

I suspected that, and made allowance by "Perhaps... clarify". My poor, slow understanding could have been helped by "They say...".

I shalll endeavor to make things as simpleand obvious as possible and connect the dots.....yes more sarcasm.

Like oters on the forum who have been having at it with theists of all kinds I may not have heard it all and I am still surprised once in a while by a new theist twist, the general debates tend towards a set of fundamental arguments onboth sides.

I suggest you just post away and see what happens without judging. Any claim or statement by anyone on anything is fair game for criiticism and even a little ridicule. You an ot control the flow of a thread and control how people post.

Us atheists can be as hard on eachther atitmes as we are on theists.

 

[Swammerdami]

Jesus never showed up in history. Despite many centuries of searching, there is no evidence that historical Jesus existed.

Josephus wrote on Jesus about 60 years after the crucifixion. Scholars agree that, although later edited, most of the writings of   Josephus on Jesus were indeed written by Josephus himself.

Most scholars agree that the phrasings of the paragraphs about Jesus are NOT how Christians would have written if the entire paragraphs were interpolations. Do the nay-sayers claim that the Christian editors cleverly phrased their paragraphs to have this property?

The earliest manuscripts of substantial parts of the new testament we know of are copies that were produced somewhere between 325 and 360 CE. Given the politicking and skulduggery that reached its first peak with the First Council of Nicaea, that provides plenty of time for excisions, interpolations and plain forgeries.

The earliest fragment of the NT we know of, poetically named P137, is provisionally dated in the 150-250 CE. It is a business card sized papyrus containing a few letters of Mark 1:7-9 on one side and 16-18 on the other.

Do the 325 AD and 150 AD copies agree with each other? The early Gospels were quoted (e.g. by Christian bishops) so there are many copies, even if the earliest manuscript extant is from the 4th century. Is there real concern that the Gospels were subjected to major changes in the 3rd century? Changes so major as to affect the very historicity of Jesus himself?

Tacitus wrote on Nero's persecution of Christians 56 years after that persecution, about the same delay as seen with Josephus. This source, if believed, tells us that Christ worshipers were plentiful and threatening in Rome at a time when the fictionality of Jesus would probably have been apparent if he was fictional.

Tacitus' Annals were written in 116 AD but the oldest extant manuscript is much later. IIUC some anti-historicists suggest that Tacitus' writings were also altered by Christians, as Josephus' allegedly were. But do we really assume that old texts underwent major modifications before their first extant copy? The oldest copy of Archimedes' writings is the famous parchment palimpsest copied in the 10th century. Do we really beloeve this might have been written by an unknown mathematician who lived 1200 years after the time of Archimedes?

 

[steve_bank]

So the sort answer appears to be we really know nothing about the Jesus of the gospels.

 

[skepticalbip]

So the sort answer appears to be we really know nothing about the Jesus of the gospels.

We know a fair bit about the gospel Jesus just as we know a fair bit about the storied Paul Bunyan. What we don't know about is the people the stories of both are based on or even if there was such people.

 

[Hermit]

The earliest manuscripts of substantial parts of the new testament we know of are copies that were produced somewhere between 325 and 360 CE. Given the politicking and skulduggery that reached its first peak with the First Council of Nicaea, that provides plenty of time for excisions, interpolations and plain forgeries.

The earliest fragment of the NT we know of, poetically named P137, is provisionally dated in the 150-250 CE. It is a business card sized papyrus containing a few letters of Mark 1:7-9 on one side and 16-18 on the other.

Do the 325 AD and 150 AD copies agree with each other? The early Gospels were quoted (e.g. by Christian bishops) so there are many copies, even if the earliest manuscript extant is from the 4th century. Is there real concern that the Gospels were subjected to major changes in the 3rd century? Changes so major as to affect the very historicity of Jesus himself?

Tacitus wrote on Nero's persecution of Christians 56 years after that persecution, about the same delay as seen with Josephus. This source, if believed, tells us that Christ worshipers were plentiful and threatening in Rome at a time when the fictionality of Jesus would probably have been apparent if he was fictional.

Tacitus' Annals were written in 116 AD but the oldest extant manuscript is much later. IIUC some anti-historicists suggest that Tacitus' writings were also altered by Christians, as Josephus' allegedly were. But do we really assume that old texts underwent major modifications before their first extant copy? The oldest copy of Archimedes' writings is the famous parchment palimpsest copied in the 10th century. Do we really beloeve this might have been written by an unknown mathematician who lived 1200 years after the time of Archimedes?

I will not be drawn into a debate concerning the existence of Jesus Christ. Read my post again with the view to finding out if I wrote anything asserting that a historical Jesus did not exist. Some key sentences:

It is the uncertainty about the extent to which the mythical person(s) resemble the the real ones they are said to be based on that makes the debate about a historical or mythical Jesus barren. We simply lack contemporary codices.

We just don't have the necessary autographs for a profitable debate until the hypothesised Q source turns up.

12 years ago someone started a thread titled Historical Jesus at rationalskepticism.org. 43,000+ posts later it is still active today, and I contributed to it in much the same vein as I did here just now. In order to provide a little more detail about where I'm coming from, here are a couple of my posts:

Imo, he probably existed, on balance of reasonable possibilities.

Yes, Jesus probably existed... in the same way that William Tell, Robin Hood, King Arthur and even James Bond, who was an amalgam of several people Ian Fleming personally knew, did. The fabrications that grew around all of them made their actual existence irrelevant, though. For all intents and purposes they metamorphosed into becoming mythical figures serving ideological purposes.

It's all very well saying "he probably existed, on balance of reasonable possibilities", but ethically one ought to give a probability or a range of probabilities and an explanation why and how one one came to that decision.

You first. What probability or a range of probabilities do you apportion to the existence of a historical Jesus, and why?

Don't expect me to follow, though. In Lataster's words, "Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved." and in my opinion it would be unethical to give a quantified probability or even just a range of probabilities when there is no empirical evidence on the ground of which such calculation can be made. In my view the discussion cannot go beyond a handwavy "on balance of reasonable possibilities Jesus probably existed/did not exist". My approach to the issue - that some person probably existed, around whom so much invention aggregated that the actually existing person becomes supremely irrelevant. I have no evidence for this because there is no evidence. At best we have many words - often contradictory, none of them particularly reliable - that can be given various interpretations and to which can be attributed varying levels of significance and can lead to no more than educated guesses. So, spare me the "ethical" demand for quantified probability.

Given the appropriate circumstances, you too can be the core of a future messiah. Gossip grows spontaneously everywhere. Left unchecked it grows faster than weeds. A couple of months after I bought a house in a town 1700 kilometres from the city I lived in the previous 30-odd years and where absolutely nobody except my partner knew me, I met the previous owner again. He told me how he admired my skill in share trading that enabled me to buy the house with cash. This came as a surprise to me because the money came from 15 years of driving a truck as a subcontractor and acquiring a tiny, run-down terrace with the help of a huge mortgage in a Bohemian suburb of Sydney. Nine years after I went into hock over the purchase the mortgage was paid off, and the suburb had become fashionable with solicitors, doctors, owners of small businesses and other yuppies. When I sold the terrace I was utterly amazed at the ROI.

I have no idea where or how the story about my alleged stock market activity arose, but there it was. Perhaps I should have exploited my nascent reputation as a financial wizard and opened a finance consulting business. With a bit of luck I might have become the money messiah of this little town, then Australia and finally the world. 10 years after my death people will remember how Saint Hermit had saved the world from utter financial ruin. Before the end of the 21st century I will have become a god with many wise pronouncements and miracles to my name. And a second coming.

None of this leads me to the conclusion that what Tacitus wrote in Annals book 15, chapter 44 is essentially wrong, an interpolation by later Christian scribes, let alone in toto a pious fraud. Nero did indeed put the blame of the great fire of Rome on the city's Christian population who were followers of a man called Christ, a man who "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus". From that point of view Jesus Christ is indeed a historical figure. My point is that so little of what he said or did can be reliably substantiated that he ought to be more appropriately regarded as mythical as the characters I listed earlier - there is a tiny, insignificant kernel of truth about them, surrounded by masses of fabrication.

 

[Tharmas]

A few months ago I wrote the following in the thread "Historical Jesus", which largely agrees with Hermit's position. I don't find any compelling reason to change my mind.

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed, along with their foundational documents such as the Gospel of Mark and Paul's genuine epistles. Tacitus in the second century may have been an accurate reporter, but as the British Catholic and ordained deacon Allen Brent argues, Tacitus may have had an axe to grind with regards Nero., and is not necessarily the most trustworthy source.

Finally, I don't accept the argument that those Christians of Nero's day were close enough in time to the supposed Passion events to have known if Jesus were fictional. Such an argument assumes that followers of the Christian cult, as it then was, were rational actors who investigated the events for themselves. In a preliterate society knowledge was transmitted largely through rumor and story-telling. Even today, with live television, eyewitness news, investigative reporting etc., there are sizable chunks of the population who sincerely believe that the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was a false flag operation carried out by the CIA, the earth is really flat, Elvis is still alive, Paul McCartney is dead, and many other conterfactual ideas. Just a few months ago a group of believers gathered in Dallas to await the return of JFK to annoint Donald Trump as the true president of the USA.

 

[Swammerdami]

We know that by about 50 AD, Christians were very active and plentiful. Paul tells us so; and we know that by the early 60's Christians in Rome were active and plentiful enough that Emperor Nero regarded them as a threat. In those days there was no Instagram or Twitter to spread stories quickly: we can assume that Christians were becoming active no later than the early 40's, or within a decade of the alleged crucifixion.

Are many, or even most, people gullible, easy to fall for a crackpot hoax? You betcha! It might have been almost as bad in mid-1st century Judea as in post-rational America. But here's the key point that gets overlooked:

There would have been some, probably many, people alive during the time of Jesus' alleged ministry and alleged crucifixion who were also witness to early Christian activity, and were aware that the new cult was based on a non-existent person. They would have told others. Even believers would have been aware of this nay-saying. And yet . . .

Despite that the Gospels go to lengths in attempting to refute some detractors (Could the "resurrected" body have been a different person from Jesus? The mythical Thomas feels the wound with his own hand. Et cetera) there is no indication whatsoever that any contemporaries thought Jesus was fictional.

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed, along with their foundational documents such as the Gospel of Mark and Paul's genuine epistles. Tacitus in the second century may have been an accurate reporter, but as the British Catholic and ordained deacon Allen Brent argues, Tacitus may have had an axe to grind with regards Nero., and is not necessarily the most trustworthy source.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
. . .
Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned:

I've struck out all but the clauses a consensus believes to be authentic. But strike out the ENTIRE first paragraph, and we're still left to conclude that Josephus thought Jesus existed.

Finally, I don't accept the argument that those Christians of Nero's day were close enough in time to the supposed Passion events to have known if Jesus were fictional. Such an argument assumes that followers of the Christian cult, as it then was, were rational actors who investigated the events for themselves. In a preliterate society knowledge was transmitted largely through rumor and story-telling. Even today, with live television, eyewitness news, investigative reporting etc., there are sizable chunks of the population who sincerely believe that the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was a false flag operation carried out by the CIA, the earth is really flat, Elvis is still alive, Paul McCartney is dead, and many other conterfactual ideas. Just a few months ago a group of believers gathered in Dallas to await the return of JFK to annoint Donald Trump as the true president of the USA.

Please see my comments above. We can stipulate that many people are gullible. But the non-historic case requires an absence of NON-gullible people.

Romans and others were trying to suppress this new cult. If there was any reason to think Jesus was fictional, that would have been on the top of the list of ways to discourage belief. As far as anyone knows, "Jesus is fictional" was an argument never made at that time.

 

[Hermit]

We know that by about 50 AD, Christians were very active and plentiful. Paul tells us so; and we know that by the early 60's Christians in Rome were active and plentiful enough that Emperor Nero regarded them as a threat. In those days there was no Instagram or Twitter to spread stories quickly: we can assume that Christians were becoming active no later than the early 40's, or within a decade of the alleged crucifixion.

Are many, or even most, people gullible, easy to fall for a crackpot hoax? You betcha! It might have been almost as bad in mid-1st century Judea as in post-rational America. But here's the key point that gets overlooked:

There would have been some, probably many, people alive during the time of Jesus' alleged ministry and alleged crucifixion who were also witness to early Christian activity, and were aware that the new cult was based on a non-existent person. They would have told others. Even believers would have been aware of this nay-saying. And yet . . .

Despite that the Gospels go to lengths in attempting to refute some detractors (Could the "resurrected" body have been a different person from Jesus? The mythical Thomas feels the wound with his own hand. Et cetera) there is no indication whatsoever that any contemporaries thought Jesus was fictional.

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed, along with their foundational documents such as the Gospel of Mark and Paul's genuine epistles. Tacitus in the second century may have been an accurate reporter, but as the British Catholic and ordained deacon Allen Brent argues, Tacitus may have had an axe to grind with regards Nero., and is not necessarily the most trustworthy source.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
. . .
Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned:

I've struck out all but the clauses a consensus believes to be authentic. But strike out the ENTIRE first paragraph, and we're still left to conclude that Josephus thought Jesus existed.

Finally, I don't accept the argument that those Christians of Nero's day were close enough in time to the supposed Passion events to have known if Jesus were fictional. Such an argument assumes that followers of the Christian cult, as it then was, were rational actors who investigated the events for themselves. In a preliterate society knowledge was transmitted largely through rumor and story-telling. Even today, with live television, eyewitness news, investigative reporting etc., there are sizable chunks of the population who sincerely believe that the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was a false flag operation carried out by the CIA, the earth is really flat, Elvis is still alive, Paul McCartney is dead, and many other conterfactual ideas. Just a few months ago a group of believers gathered in Dallas to await the return of JFK to annoint Donald Trump as the true president of the USA.

Please see my comments above. We can stipulate that many people are gullible. But the non-historic case requires an absence of NON-gullible people.

Romans and others were trying to suppress this new cult. If there was any reason to think Jesus was fictional, that would have been on the top of the list of ways to discourage belief. As far as anyone knows, "Jesus is fictional" was an argument never made at that time.

All well and good, but the question is:

What do we really know about Jesus?​

 

[Swammerdami]

All well and good, but the question is:

What do we really know about Jesus?​

That may be your question. I was responding to questionable comments like

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed

 

[Hermit]

All well and good, but the question is:

What do we really know about Jesus?​

That may be your question. I was responding to questionable comments like

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed

Consider the possibility that you have misread Tharmas' comment. Try this:

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Reply to TomC, #25

But we know a little about the historical Jesus for sure: He shows up in history, first, at the north end of the Sea of Galilee, near the town of Capernaum, some time around 30 AD, and he attracted attention from several people, maybe dozens, and became recognized as important for some reason which the experts cannot agree on; he traveled to Jerusalem, accompanied by some Galileans, came into conflict of some kind, was arrested and put to death by order of Pontius Pilate.

Jesus never showed up in history. Despite many centuries of searching, there is no evidence that historical Jesus existed.

By that reasoning, most ancient historical characters in our history books did not really exist.

What "searching"? How could anyone "search" for him without any indication earlier of his existence? What prompted the "searching" over "many centuries"? It's only the 1st-century writings saying he existed which caused anyone later to wonder if he existed -- or, one could argue, it was the claims of later Christians who believed the 1st-century writings. What is the "evidence" for anyone existing in history other than the writings of the time which say they existed?

You could say of MOST ancient historical characters that there's no evidence of their existence, or no evidence that they really showed up in history -- if you discount the writings attesting to their existence in history.

He exists in Scripture, that's for sure. I'm personally pretty sure He did exist, although bore little resemblance to the Legend.

It's normal for real persons in history to be passed on to us in "legend" which contains both fact and fiction. Many of them bore little resemblance to the legend, but there is some resemblance. And we today can separate the fact from fiction. Leading to the question: What can we know for sure? And what we can know for sure is: the Galilee location, travel to Jerusalem accompanied by some Galileans, arrest and crucifixion there.

Then, to get more answers, we need to ask why anyone was attracted to him, why he was arrested and executed, why many believed he rose back to life, why they formed a new religion, or new cults worshiping him as a god/Messiah/Savior, and why these cults spread.

Why is no one answering these questions?

A big part of the reason that I doubt Jesus bore much resemblance to Christ is exactly that. Utter lack of historical mention.

No, that's not the reason, because there is more historical mention of him than there is for most other ancient historical figures. It's actually the EXTRA historical mention of him which causes the doubts, because the writers telling about him give conflicting versions. No one can explain why we have so many accounts of him from different writers, or what drew their attention to him to cause so much mention of him in so many writings.

Because of these excess writings about him there is much confusion, and yet from them we can figure out a few basic facts, even among all the doubt. Because they do agree on some basic points, and the credibility of the writings is greater where they agree on what happened, even if there's great doubt about the conflicting or contradictory elements.

If a popular Preacher were arrested and publicly executed, then reappeared, I'd expect huge tumultuous events. Riots in the streets, that sort of thing.

Maybe, if he had a large following accumulated over 20 or 30 years, like all other popular Preachers or Prophets had, and these rallied around him in support at the time of his execution. But what if his public activity all took place in 3 years or less, as in the case of Jesus, without the usual 20+ years of accumulating a popular following who would riot at the time he was put to death? Since there are no other cases even close to this, we have no idea what would have happened.

But there's nothing. Crickets.

Maybe, in 30-33 AD when it happened, after such a short public career, and he was seen by most as a criminal of some kind. But later there was something and not "crickets."

The accounts of the trial -- some kind of proceeding happened, even if it's obscured and was not an official "trial" -- agree that there was a crowd (or mob) who clamored for his crucifixion, not that he had "popular" sentiment from those present, other than the Galileans who had traveled with him, and these were hiding or had fled in fear of being arrested.

The evidence is that there was something UNpopular about him, despite the popular appeal of the healing miracles, and this unpopular element is what prevailed at the time of the crucifixion.

Until Saul comes along. Saul, who never actually met Jesus.

But being contemporary, his witness is significant. 20 years later he wrote of the night Jesus was arrested and said he rose back to life after being crucified and buried. This is good evidence, if there is no other account contradicting it and there are others confirming it.

Saul/Paul who makes Christianity into a blend of Jewish and Pagan religious beliefs.

But why did he need this Jesus figure in order to create his new religion? There were plenty of other prophets and teachers and social dissidents he could have chosen to be his risen Messiah character. Why didn't he choose John the Baptizer, also a popular martyr, who probably had wider recognition at the time than Jesus did?


When the relevant questions are addressed, the best explanation for all the evidence we have is that Jesus did perform the miracle healing acts and rose back to life after he was killed (unlike all the other Teachers and Prophets etc.), as all the evidence shows, and this best explains why new religious cults formed which made him into a god.

There's only one argument against this explanation: such events as miracle healings and resurrections from death cannot ever happen, regardless of the evidence.

So the evidence is that he demonstrated miracle power through his acts, explaining why he was made into a god, and yet this evidence must be rejected, because we must start out with the premise that no miracles can ever happen even when there is evidence that they did. This is the only argument against the Jesus resurrection.



A question which continues to be ignored, but which must be answered by anyone seriously addressing the topic is:

Why do we know anything at all about Jesus? I.e., why do we know even enough to ask a question about him? (compared to other historical figures, 99.99999999% of whom we know nothing about (because they did nothing worth writing about), even too little for us to be able to ask what we really know about them) ????

 

[Swammerdami]

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that whether he even existed or not would be an important part of any answer to the question
. . . . . . . What do we really know about Jesus?

Consider the possibility that you have misread Tharmas' comment. Try this:

As for Josephus, his brief mentions testify, not necessarily that a historical Jesus existed, but that Christians existed

Rather than indulging in some peculiar coloring-book approach to parsing ( ), why not deign to address a substantial point I raise?

We know that by about 50 AD, Christians were very active and plentiful. Paul tells us so; and we know that by the early 60's Christians in Rome were active and plentiful enough that Emperor Nero regarded them as a threat. In those days there was no Instagram or Twitter to spread stories quickly: we can assume that Christians were becoming active no later than the early 40's, or within a decade of the alleged crucifixion.

Are many, or even most, people gullible, easy to fall for a crackpot hoax? You betcha! It might have been almost as bad in mid-1st century Judea as in post-rational America. But here's the key point that gets overlooked:

There would have been some, probably many, people alive during the time of Jesus' alleged ministry and alleged crucifixion who were also witness to early Christian activity, and were aware that the new cult was based on a non-existent person. They would have told others. Even believers would have been aware of this nay-saying. And yet . . .

Despite that the Gospels go to lengths in attempting to refute some detractors (Could the "resurrected" body have been a different person from Jesus? The mythical Thomas feels the wound with his own hand. Et cetera) there is no indication whatsoever that any contemporaries thought Jesus was fictional.