Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Was Jesus Christ a Real Life Person that existed on Earth? Or is he just a made up Story/Book Character? ?

9 Answers

Relevance
  • 1 month ago
    Favorite Answer

    The historical evidence is that he was a real person.

    We have four accounts of his life.  Three by contemporaries that knew him, and the fourth by a scholar who researched his life and only included events for which he was able to interview people with first hand knowledge.  Three of the biographies were in common usage and quoted in others writings within 20 years of his ministry.  Possible as early as with 8 years for earliest account.

    We also have the Babylonian Talmud, which is collection of writings produced between 150 BC and 70 AD by the Pharisees.  This includes contemporary accounts of Jesus from some of the same Pharisees who appear as his opponents in the Bible.  they state that he was a teacher, healer and miracle worker (through black magic).  And that after he was executed by the Romans, his body disappeared from its tomb with his disciples claiming that he had risen from the dead.  Why would opponents of Jesus have said that about him if he was not real?  Wouldn't they have pointed that out in their writings?  Duh!!

    Beyond the written event, there is also other historical evidence.  Usually with a historical event, you not only have written accounts, but you can see that event reflected in the changes in people around the event.  

    In the case of Jesus, you have a persecution that the Jewish leaders in Israel brought against the Jewish believers in Jesus between 48 AD and 52 AD.  The man who would become the apostle Paul was one of the leaders of these persecution.  History shows that close 1 million Jews were persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, exiled and even executed for their faith in Jesus. This was just 15 to 18 years after the ministry of Jesus ended.  So the majority of those people would have been alive and living in the area where Jesus supposed taught.  They would have known if he was real or not.  Yet they refused to renounce faith in him.  Many resettled in Egypt were they founded the Coptic church, which is the oldest "denomination" in the Christina faith.  Others spread across the Roman Empire taking their faith within them so that with another 10 years the Romans historians were writing about the followers of Jesus and their effect on the Roman world.

    That is just some of the evidence that were such a person.  Dozens of different sources between 45 AD and 120 AD write about Jesus.  

    No serious scholar denies that there was a historical "Jesus".  They can debate whether his life and teachings have come down to us accurately.

  • 1 month ago

    He is a real person who really existed.  If people had decided to make up a story about him, they would have made the story much more like what the Jews expected in their Liberator.

  • Oleg
    Lv 7
    1 month ago

    Yes, a real historical person, see the britannica entry on Jesus describing all the historical sources describing His existence.

    britannica.com/biography/Jesus/The-Jewish-religion-in-the-1st-century#ref222994

  • Anonymous
    1 month ago

    Josephus, a secular historian, wrote that Jesus Christ existed.

    The 4 gospel writers testified that Jesus existed and did many miracles.

  • 1 month ago

    Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56-120 A.D.), a well-known Roman historian, was writing around 115 A.D. concerning the Great Fire of Rome which occurred in 64 A.D. It was rumored that Nero actually started the fire. Tacitus said, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus [Christ], 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…” (Annales, Historiae 15.44).

    In about 110 A.D. Plinius Secundus (or Pliny the Younger, c. 61-113 A.D.) was sent by the Roman emperor Trajan to govern the region of Bithynia. From that region, Pliny corresponded with the emperor. In speaking of the Christians, in one letter, he said, “They also declare that the sum total of their guilt or error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds...” (Epistulae X.96). He used the term “Christ” three times in his letter to refer to the originator of Christianity.

    Lucian of Samosata (c.120-180 A.D.) was a writer and rhetorician in the second century. In his work, The Passing of Peregrinus (or The Death of Peregrin), we find this: “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rights, and who was crucified on that account.” And after some more discussion on the Christians, it says, “...and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are all converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.”

    There was a historian named Thallus who wrote a history (in the first century) of the eastern Mediterranean world. And although Thallus’ work has been lost, he was quoted from time to time by other ancient writers. In about 220 A.D. a Christian historian named Julius Africanus (c. 160-240 A.D.) spoke of a reference in Thallus’ work of the darkness during the crucifixion of Jesus (which of course, we read about in the gospels). He said, “Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun—unreasonably, as it seems to me. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the Passover...” (A History of the World). And he went on to talk some more about that. But, Thallus’ first-century writing takes for granted that there really was a Jesus who was crucified and that there was darkness during that event.

    Even Bart Ehrman, an agnostic who is a great critic of Christianity, wrote a book in 2013 called "Did Jesus Exist?" where he strongly defends the existence of Jesus.

  • 1 month ago

    Most scholars think Jesus existed, despite what some people in this section allege.  Whether He was/is the Christ is another question.  The second issue is controversial.

  • 1 month ago

    The adventures of Jesus in Holyland is no more factual than the adventures of Noddy in Toyland..

  • 1 month ago

    There is plenty of evidence that Jesus actually DID exist.

  • Anonymous
    1 month ago

    Most of the reputable historians say he existed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.