I usually bring this up when answering questions, but I'll put it as a question myself. Atheists on the board often claim that Jesus Christ never even existed. How does one account for the beginnings of the Christian movement with the premise that Jesus Christ did not exist? I'd like to see answers as detailed as possible in this forum, explaining how one justifies one's position from the existing source evidence.
2011-01-03T05:58:33Z
Just for clarification: I thoroughly understand skepticism about whether the gospel accounts of Christ are reliable and accurate, that Christ may not have been exactly as portrayed in them. What puzzles me is the claim that he didn't exist at all. I am looking for an explanation of how a group of obscure Jews would have come up with such a movement without an original founder to get them started.
Freddie2011-01-03T06:12:25Z
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The reason why many claim that he did not exist is because the Gospel writers were not his contemporaries, they all date from after his death, and there is no contemporary account of him. There are no Roman records, no Jewish records and no first hand accounts of the miracles. As an historical person he does not exist. That does not mean that he didn't, just that there are no records of him. Some Christians state that both Josephus and Tacitus recorded his life in some of their writings, however, Josephus is regarded as a medieval pious forgery, and Tacitus mentions Christians, not Christ. Added to this is the fact that both were not born until after his supposed death.
The reason that the early Church gained a large following is that people follow religions, do you believe in Rastafarianism? Why not? There are photographs, films and sound recordings of the Rastafarian Messiah. For Rastas that is enough evidence to believe, for non-believers in this religion, it is not. Also for the Romans religion was intrinsically bound with politics, control the religion, and you control the people - that is why Constantine the Great made Christianity (one of the) state religion(s).
Emperor Constantinople started Cristianity as a religion. He used it as a tool to control people and gain power and for thousands of years it has been very succesful at manipulating and controlling people. Jesus Christ did exist but he was just a wandering preacher (madman?) who Constantinople used as the figurehead for a new religion 3 centuries after Jesus died. And all this is historical documented fact.
if you believe the bible is a complete work of fiction then i can understand why people think he didnt exist at all. im surprised you didnt think about that.... and also its been rewritten easily over 200 times since its creation sooooooo really how can you believe it? im not going to go into detail about it because it will take to long but maybe you should think more about what your saying before you stay something like that im not saying i dont think there was a man named jesus i just think he knew how to convince people with illusions...basically a magician
I read one book which claimed (not the central thesis of the book) that Christ bore a resemblance to the Greek Dionysus, "the only god to have a mortal parent".