Are there people who really believe the historical Jesus didn't exist?

I think there are hardly any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus. There are one or two. A man call G.A. Wells is the only one who made much of it recently. From time to time you get someone like J.M. Allegro, who a generation ago wrote a book on the basis of the Dead Sea Scrolls saying that Christianity was all about a cult of sacred mushroom. No Jewish, Christian, atheist, or agnostic have ever taken seriously since. It is quite clear that in fact Jesus is very, very well documented character of real history.

Dr. Sam Beckett: You're demanding the wrong, but valid evidence. The objective is to prove the Gospels are reliable sources for the existence of Jesus. And I think I can do that for you.

Dreamstuff Entity: Were talking about ancient historical figures, not figures like Napoleon and George Washington.

The standard scholarly dating, even in very liberal circles, is Mark in the 70s, Matthew in the 80s, John in the 90s. But listen: That's still within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who would have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around. Consequently, these late dates for the gospels really aren't all that late. In fact, we can make a comparison that's very instructive. Do you want me to make an instructive comparison?

YES: Sure, there are some self-proclaimed experts on the Internet who claimed Jesus never existed, but these aren't scholars with academic credentials. Only a very small handful of legitimate scholars, such as the skeptic Robert Price, suggests they wouldn't be surprised if Jesus never existed, but even Price falls short of asserting Jesus never lived.

Skeptic: That argument has been refuted by nearly a generation ago. Give me time. By the way, nice copy and paste.

The birth on December 25 is not a parallel. Because we don't know when Jesus was born. The earliest date celebrated by Christians was January 6. In fact, it's still celebrated by many churches in the East. Of course, December 25 is very close to the winter solstice. This was the date chosen by the emperor Aurelian for the dedication of his temple to Sol Invictus, the god called "Unconquerable Sun." If you want to know when the date became Christmas for Christians, then email me.

Horus did not have 12 disciples. According to the Horus accounts, Horus had four semi-gods that were followers and some indications of 16 human followers and an unknown number of blacksmiths that went into battle with him.

Horus was born during month of Khoiak, not December 25. Your assertions are inaccurate.

There are no accounts of Horus being a teacher at the age of 12.

Horus was not “baptized.” The only account of Horus that involves water is one story where Horus is torn to pieces, with Iris requesting the crocodile god to fish him out of the water he was placed into.

There's no resurrection of Dionysus.

Horus did not die by crucifixion. There are various accounts of Horus’ death, but none of them involve crucifixion.

Horus was not resurrected. There is no account of Horus coming out of the grave with the body he went in with. Some accounts have Horus, or Osiris, being brought back to life by Isis and going to be the lord of the underworld.

Horus is not a “savior” in any shape or form; he did not die for anyone.

Isis was not a virgin; she was the widow of Osiris and conceived Horus with Osiris.

There is no record of three kings visiting Horus at his birth. The Bible never states the actual number of magi that came to see Christ.

The supposed 'ressurection' of Attis doesn't appear until after AD 150, more than a century later than Jesus.

YY4Me: How can you say Nazareth didn't even exist during the first century? Jerusalem fell in A.D. 70. priests were no longer needed in the temple because it had been destroyed, so they were sent out to various other locations, even up into Galilee. Archaeologists have found a list in Aramaic describing the twenty-four courses, or families, of priest who were relocated, and one of them was registered as having been moved to Nazareth.

That shows that this tiny village must have been there at the time. In addition, he said there have been archaeological digs that have uncovered first-century tombs in the vicinity of Nazareth, which would establish the village's limits because by Jewish law burials had to place outside the town proper. Two tombs contained objects such as pottery lamps, glass vessels, and vases from the first, third, or fourth centuries. Email me for more information.

There is evidence for Jesus outside the Gospels.

In 'The Antiquities' Josephus describes how a high priest named Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus, who is mentioned in the New Testament, in order to have James killed: "He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned."

I know of no scholar who has successfully disputed this passage. L. H. Feldman noted that if this had been a later Christian addition to the text, it would have likely been more laudatory of James. So here you have reference to the brother of Jesus, who had apparently been converted by the appearances of the risen Christ, if you compare John 7:5 and 1 Corinthians 15:7, and corroboration of the fact that some people considered Jesus to be Christ, which means 'the Anointed One' or 'Messiah.'

To those who dispute the Testimonium Flavianum, then consider this. Here is the Greek version: "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not cease. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life. For the prophets of God had prophesied these and myriads of other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still up to now, not disappeared."

Scholarship has gone three trends about it. For instance, the first line says, "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man." That phrase is not normally used of Jesus by Christians, so it seems authentic for Josephus. But the next phrase says, "if indeed one ought to call him a man." This implies Jesus was more than human, which appears to be an interpolation. It goes on to say, "For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many Greeks." That seems to be quite in accord with the vocabulary Josephus uses elsewhere, and it's generally considered authentic. But then there's this unambiguous statement, "He was the Christ." That seems to be an interpolation because Josephus says in reference to James that Jesus was "called the Christ." It's unlikely Josephus would have flatly said Jesus was the Messiah here, when elsewhere he merely said he was considered to be the Messiah by his followers. The next part of the passage, which talks about Jesus' trail and crucifixion and the fact that his followers still loved him, is unexceptional and considered genuine. Then there's this phrase: "On the third day he appeared to them restored to life." Again, this is a clear declaration of belief in the Resurrection, and thus it's unlikely that Josephus wrote it.

So these three elements seem to have been interpolations. The bottom line is that the passage in Josephus probably was originally written bout Jesus, although without these three points I mentioned. But even so, Josephus corroborates important information about Jesus: That he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem and that he was a wise teacher who had established a wide and lasting following, despite the fact that he had been crucified under Pilate at the instigation of some of the Jewish leaders.

Tacitus recorded what is probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament. In A.D. 115 he explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64. “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.... Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: Then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, no so much of the crime of firing the city, as hatred against mankind."

Edit: The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred after Alexander's death in 323 B.C., yet historians consider them to be generally trustworthy. Yes, legendary material about Alexander did develop over time, but it was only in the centuries after these two writers. In other words, the first five hundred years kept Alexander's story pretty much intact; legendary material began to emerge over the next five hundred years. So whether the gospels were written sixty years or thirty years after the life of Jesus,

Historians are divided at the subject of whether or not or no longer there ever lived a ancient individual that served seeing that the foundation for the Jesus delusion, however textual and archaeological evidence for a old Jesus is sparse at excellent and questionable at worst. The 4 Gospels had been written decades after the alleged crucifixion, and are at least a million/three-hand cash owed. The one (only some) textual mentions of Jesus as an present man or woman external of the Bible are of doubtful authenticity. The individual who's so much frequently recounted is the paintings of Josephus, nevertheless the passage that discusses Jesus as an man or woman is widely suspected to had been introduced through anybody else after the actual fact. Further, the specified loss of factor out of a quantity of great events defined inside the Jesus narrative (Herod's mass execution of toddlers, the giant amassing for the Sermon at the Mount, the crucifixion itself) by way of any of the numerous famous pupils and writers of the time forged further doubt at the historicity of the Jesus tale. It's most likely *possible* that a individual named Yeshua bar Yosef traveled circular Judea preaching within the early first century CE, nevertheless there may be inadequate textual or archaeological proof to support even that such a lot of a declare, permit on my possess the crucifixion and different predominant parties of the Jesus narrative. It turns out some distance additional no doubt that the Jesus myth is comfortably a syncretic mixture of Jewish belief with the numerous mystery cults of early Imperial Rome, with their demise and resurrected god-men supplying salvation and permanent existence. There is surely plenty of textual and archaeological proof that those unique ideals existed and predated the upward push of Christianity.

Yes. There are people who reject the reality of the Holocaust and of the moon landing in 1969. Their incredulity counts for nothing.

What matters in historical research is the triangulating evidence and the type of testimony. The historical Jesus was written about not just by his friends, but by his enemies, including Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Pliny the Younger (see link below).

The type of historical testimony to Jesus is also telling. Jesus is attested to by witnesses who would be given little credibility in the ancient world, including women. Many mundane and even embarrassing details are given (e.g., that Jesus worked few miracles in his own home town), which would be uncharacteristic in mythology. In addition, the witnesses give embarrassing details about themselves, such as Peter's three denials. In mythical writing, such details are not present.

Cheers,

Bruce

None of those mention Jesus, the most meticulous record keepers of ancient times were the Romans and the Jews, yet all the events in the gospels including the cheering crowds, the miracles, the trial and Crucifixion, even the sky growing dark at midday, all completely escaped the notice of anyone there. Pontius Pilate's court records are still intact and even they make references to those events. Through in the internal contradictions of the Bible itself and no solid evidence of a historical Jesus remains, only things written on other continents a generation or more later by people who weren't there.

I do not think Jesus was a real person.

We do know that George Washington and Napoleon were real people not because of their great deeds but from the more mundane records of their life.

Jesus Christ exists only in the context of the bible, there are no other records confirming his existence. The Jewish leaders of the time of his supposed life make no mention of him. No poets or scholars or kingdoms were aware of him. The Romans have no record of ever trying him or putting him to death. Not a single person anywhere wrote even a single line about his deeds.

If Jesus was real absolutely no one outside those who wrote the scriptures long after he was supposed put to death knew anything at all about him.

Sure. Lots of people.

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''Whether Jesus ever actually existed has long been debated. The argument (very well documented) is that there is absolutely no corroborating evidence of his existence in documents other than highly suspect Christian sources." - Riane Eisler, "The Chalice & the Blade," p. 122

* * *

"The gospel story is an artificial, non-historical work. It has been fabricated from source materials that can be identified and traced to their incorporation in the gospels. There is not a particle of hard evidence that 'Jesus of Nazareth' ever existed." - Harold Leidner, "The Fabrication of the Christ Myth"

* * *

Did a historical Jesus exist?

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

The Myth of the Historical Jesus

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefuta...

Do Any First Century Historians Mention the Jesus of Christianity?

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/josephus.html

Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?

http://www.ffrf.org/about/bybarker/rise.php

Pagan origins of Jesus:

http://www.pocm.info/

http://geocities.com/christprise/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa3.htm

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/virgin.html#pa...

http://www.harrington-sites.com/motif.htm

Nazareth: The Town that Theology Built

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html

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Outside of the gospels, a few suppositions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Josephus, there are no historical references to Jesus. And Josephus' work may have later interpolations.

As an atheist, the man Jesus may certainly have existed. However, what does appear to be obvious was that he was not a sufficiently significant figure in his day to have any historical record of him.

So, he may have been a man, but clearly was not a god. or, at least not a very powerful one, as his following was very small.

the impact that his words and teachings made didn't really start until 300 years after his death.

Absolutely.

There is no evidence of Jesus having existed outside the New Testament.

We have abundant evidence of Napoleon and George Washington. Not only do we have likenesses of both. We also have CONTEMPORARY accounts by people who knew them both intimately. We have their family tree and descendants are known of both men.

We also have artifacts use or made by both men and their letters and speeches, often in their own handwriting.

Proving the existence of George Washington or Napoleon is trivial.

Just like proving that Jesus didn't not exist.

• No contemporary accounts of him.

• No likenesses of him.

• No artifacts from him.

• Nothing written by him.

• No Roman records of him (and Romans were fastidious record keepers)

• No place for him to live (Nazareth was not inhabited in the 1st century)

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

The case for the historicity of Jesus is non-existent.

[edit] Fedex: It is well known that the Testimonium Flavium, you mention is a 3rd century interpolation, probably by Eusebius. It is not a valid proof of the existence of your Christ. Neither is it contemporary.

A book about a president and a book about a man with magical powers to heal everyone, born from a virgin , who dies, comes back to life and somehow gets rid of everyone's sins seems to be in quite different categories to me.

Also considering no one has proof if the book was really written by whoever the writers are it could be a bunch of bull. My friends can write pretty cool things about me too and sale it on the street. That doesn't make me some crazy chick.

Have you ever meet or talked to Jesus in person?

Well, actually I don't believe in a historical Jesus. If you do research you find out that almost all the proof for a historical Jesus comes from the gospels, and many of the sources that "prove" Jesus' existence were written by Christians. Also, Christians later added in proof of Jesus' existence into historical writings of the time, and they can be proved as fake entries because they are out of context.