It appears that there are a lot of you on this board who do not think that Jesus ever actually existed. Obviously there's no contemporary evidence which suggests or proves that he did. This however does not prove someone did not exist.

The evidence we DO have for the existence of Jesus (or Christianity) comes decades or centuries later in the form of his followers' writings. A majority of Biblical scholars apparently feel that the early apostles (Paul, Peter, etc.) did exist and this is apparently the "evidence" based on their witnesses that he did exist.

I tend to lean towards the fact that some Jesus person did live who ignited the Christian religion. The reason I think he probably lived is my opinion that stories, myths, rumors, etc. are usually based on something. The truth might get stretched over time but usually things of this magnitude don't just appear out of a vacuum. My guess is that there was some preacher Jew or Jewish revolutionary who was executed and had a very small following which mushroomed in the following centuries.

For those of you who solidly believe he did NOT exist, what are your reasons for it? And if so, how did the Jesus myth get started and by whom? Was it by Paul, Peter, James? Do you think the apostles existed or were they made up too?

(Obviously Jesus' existence doesn't prove his divinity nor any of the claims made about him, any more than the existence of Muhammed or Joseph Smith proves they were prophets, so lets not bother going down that road of debate)

The first writings about Jesus were by Paul. Paul's Jesus was supernatural, and was used to support Paul's dooms day cult. To me, Paul was the Joseph Smith of the first century, and Jesus was Paul's Moroni.

Emerging research shows that the presence of Jesus in human culture is wider than it has ever been. If you could reverse time, you would find less and less evidence of Jesus. At the estimated time of his life, you find no evidence at all. Every goddam loudmouth preacher, or Christ-crazed coworker combined with the landfill size pile of Jesus freak literature on top of every Bible, all of it was contained in a point the size of the period at the end of this sentence.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:41PM by donbagley.

Christianity is still being created. Like this rapture craze, for instance. That crap was thought up in the 20th century.

I still haven't decided if Jesus existed. At the very least, I think it is obvious that the Jesus of the New Testament is a composite figure based on various myths. Christianity was created. But whether at its core there was a Jesus who existed who was a Jew descended from David who was a revolutionary or not I'm not so sure...

I would recommend you read James Daniel Tabor who has written books such as The Jesus Dynasty for the evidence that someone like that existed.

On the other hand, I like Robert M. Price and Acharya S for books discussing that he probably didn't exist.

I guess because I'm now able to put Jesus into the same category as Hercules, or any other half god in history. There are a lot of them.

Why does Jesus get a pass and be a real person even though, as you mentioned, there are no contemporary sources?

Hinduism is much older than Christianity and it's still going strong. I don't imagine there was actually a human with an elephant's head who was the source of Ganesha, or any other Hindu deities.

The Egyptian religion lasted for thousands of years. Their gods and half-gods were very real to them too.

Jesus only stands out in our society because he's our god of choice. If we were born somewhere else, we might be more concerned about the real story of Krishna.

There were a lot of wannabe Messiahs around the supposed time of Jesus. I tend to believe that he is a compilation of them and of local legends.

I think that his story was just built up over time, added to and embellished. There has certainly been a lot of time to build it up to what it is today.

I sometimes wonder if the people of the day even meant the Biblical stories to be taken literally. Wouldn't it be interesting if the stories were meant to be more like Aesop's Fables - moral tales to teach to your children?

Greyfort Wrote:

> Why does Jesus get a pass and be a real person
> even though, as you mentioned, there are no
> contemporary sources?

Why are contemporary sources necessary?

Contemporary sources aren't necessary and there are plenty of ancient people with no contemporary sources including Alexander the Great. Besides Jesus was only a local celebrity in his lifetime and he lived in an area where most people were not literate.Even if some of his followers were literate and wrote things down,there is no reason to.believe it would have survoved. There were no printing presses. Mass produced books were expensive and hand copied and even then most ancient literature even, by famous authors, is long lost. That argument is ridiculous and meaningless.

I disagree that it would be ludicrous to expect contemporary sources given the myriad miracles Jesus supposedly wrought. The mere turning of water into wine during a wedding feast would have made it to the front pages of every important document of their day. Medical practitioners from the Middle East would have descended onto Lazarus' little town to study the newly re-animated human.

I just said the the miracles didnt happen and similar stories were attached.to all sorts of famous people.Uneducated people tended to.believe this atuff and educated people ignored it.

charles, not logged in Wrote:

> The mere turning of
> water into wine during a wedding feast would have
> made it to the front pages of every important
> document of their day.

Why do you believe that "making the front pages" mattered then as it does now?

Newspapers didnt exist anyway and it would be taken as rumor if it happened.Besides,it didnt happen

Achyra S is a hack. James Tabor is more respectable but his works are full of unsubstantiated theories.He is interesting, but take him with a grain of salt. Forget Achrya. No scholars take her seriously.She pulls many of her unsubstantiated facts right out of her ass.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:32PM by bona dea.

I don't claim that Jesus never existed as a person, but there's a lot of evidence that leads to that possibility. I think the odds are less than 30% that he was ever a real person. The story closely matches at least 10 previous mythologies going back a couple of thousand years BCE. The trail of indicators is also backwards.. There are fewer stories and mentions of him near the time he was said to have existed than there are a century or three later, making it look like they were making it up and inflating the story as they went along. There are clear evidences that the Christian scholars inserted forgeries into Josephus and the gospels themselves. The gospels weren't written until decades after the crucifixion was said to have happened, and were in Greek instead of Hebrew for some odd reason. Each gospel clashes with the others on many points, and the ones that didn't get put into the bible were even worse. The story is really an echo of many previous stories and even follows the story of Moses as if to be an allegory of it. Too many odd things for me to believe it in any literal sense. When Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire, the powers that were went about burning all the pagan libraries to erase older myths that they copied. And like was mentioned, Paul never said anything about Jesus being an earthly person. To him, Christ was a supernatural being. It looks like early Christianity may have not even had the concept of Christ as ever having lived on earth at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:39PM by rationalist01.

For more info, go to YouTube and look for talks by Dr. Richard Carrier, Dr. Robert Price and Tom Harpur.

As others have pointed out there have been numerous religions long before Jebus was ever dreamed up.

The best evidence of a historical Jesus are the Gospels in the new testament, written decade after his suppose death and are full of magical beliefs in an attempt to boost his street credit among the Greeks and others as a sales technique.

The belief in a historical Jesus is nothing more then believing cherry picked passages out of a book of myth.

People are so goofy they will claim he did not walk on water, raise the dead or turn water to wine....but, but, but...he was still real. The myth has been so entrenched in their psyche and society they can not bear to accept....He was a myth

Why do I think Jesus didn't exist?

The New Testament has anachronisms with regards to the story of his birth, so the entire story is already suspect. The people that wrote about him never actually met him (huge red flag). Also, I don't believe that the other demi-gods we have stories about existed either.

Do I believe that the Jesus in the bible was based on a real person? Even if it was then his name certainly wasn't "Jesus", his father probably wasn't god, he didn't perform miracles, and he didn't die for the sins of the world... Even if there was an out of work carpenter roaming the desert preaching to people his teachings never made it into the bible, and his existence doesn't validate Christianity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:46PM by AKA Alma.

no evidence for jesus.

I tend to think that he was a real person, but obviously a lot of stuff was embellished, passed along/heard incorrectly, twisted to serve the teller's purpose, lost in translation, etc etc. Just look at today's new stories. Even with tv, camera, video etc stories are still reported incorrectly and passed around as if it's fact. Now think of someone who lived 2000 years ago and how much the info became distorted passed down over thousands of years.

Perhaps he was a philosopher, perhaps (and likely) he was a composite of several people, maybe he was a story that got out of hand.

I don't believe any of the usual Christian stuff about him - redeeming mankind by his death, or his resurrection, miracles etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:51PM by twistedsister.

Got any references? The Library of Alexandria was burned by a mob which was partly Christian. Details are scarce and contradictory about what happened and why. Besides an enraged mob does not equal the powers that be. Not to say no pagan literature was destroyed but it was not as widespread or planned as you suggest. Another point is that the pagan literature we do have was preserved by Christian monks. That is a fact. Without themchurch we would have much less.Thisisforrationalist.A lot.of.posts arw in.between



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 09:48PM by bona dea.

You're a stalwart apologist, apparently Catholic. I admire your willingness to stand up for your beliefs, but I don't think you look at it from an unbiased point of view. I was a believer too, but I also have tried through the years to be as scholarly as I could because I think reason trumps faith. Yes, some pagan stuff was preserved by the church, but mainly to show how wicked it was..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 10:02PM by rationalist01.

I am neither an apologist or religious. I am an historian who.actually knows quite a bit on the subject since I.have a degree and a large personal library on the subject. I very much resent being called an apologist by people who take a.position that is.contrary to about 99.9 per cent of historians. My view is the view of almost all experts including those who are atheists. Mythicists are a freaking joke to real scholars and real scholars are not apologists or even religiois. Got it yet?

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Below my original post I mentioned three scholars who think Jesus is probably a myth. I don't think those three are in any way not credible. They have vast knowledge on the subject too, and I see no reason not to give them credibility.

Out of humdreds they are the only ones and they are far from.respected by others. Carrier doesnt even have a job in a college or university. He gets his paycheck from an atheist blog dedicated to proving Jesus was a myth. Yeah,he is an unbiased source-about as unbiased as Billy Graham! Try reading Ehrman for instance.

Do you even know what an apologist is? Just curious.

Yes I do know. I can also recognize historians and hacks when I see them. Can you? Just curious.

Real historians have citations. Do you?

Start with Ehrman. When you have some idea of what you are talking about,I'll discuss it with you. The info is there,read it.

Contemporary sources would certainly add credibility. Given the things that Jesus supposedly did during his ministry, you'd think that someone outside of the Bible would mention them.

If he really drew crowds and a big following, surely some official would be keeping an eye on them during his actual lifetime.

Greyfort,it is perfectly possible to believe Jesus lived without believing the tall tales which were commonly added to famous people of the time such as Alexander,Julius Caesar and Augustus. The scholars I am referring to do not believe Jesus was born of a virgin,changed water into wine, raised the dead etc

Almost all literary critics feel that J.K. Rowling did exist. Therefore, Harry Potter must have existed. The stories, myths, rumors about magic and witches are usually based on something. The truth might get stretched over time but surely there is a Hogwarts and a boy named Harry Potter must have attended it. What could be one's reasons for NOT believing Harry Potter existed? Obviously, Harry Potter existed because no one can prove he did not.

I know it is. I just don't. I really don't care either way. But I just look at other myths and I don't see why the Jesus story should be any different.

The same reason I do not believe Moroni did not exist. Nobody has proven to me that they have.

During that time, there were quite a few "baptist cults" that were prevalent - John the Baptist being one of the most popular.

There were a lot of "faith healers" who were also apocalyptic preachers who were shrieking about the Coming of the Son of Man.

While there aren't any contemporary writings of Jeshua of Nazarene - several decades after his death - a group is trying desperately to stretch his legitimacy into the Son of Man and John the Baptist type followings that already gained traction.

Decades after that, this changes into Jesus being the Son of Man.

Decades after that, the Son of Man is the Redeemer of the World.

While I don't think that this "proves" anything definitively by any means - it seems more plausible to me that there was an apocalyptic preacher who gained some followers - enough to try desperately to give him more and more legitimacy as time went on.

And his legend grew with that.

Someone up the thread gave a parallel to Joseph Smith.

I actually think that Jesus was like Joseph Smith. He gained some followers and died because he did some shit.

But his followers took up the cause, and as time went on the legend grew, and eventually Joseph Smith is the Holy Ghost given an earthly body, and is spiritually second only to Christ.

Of course, we get to have the luxury of mass literacy - so we have lots of writings that can easily show the opposite.

1st Century A.D. Judea didn't have that luxury.

Who did zombie Joseph appear to?

There's a great mythical account of that.

It appears that there are a lot of you on this board who do not think that Moroni ever actually existed. Obviously there's no contemporary evidence which suggests or proves that he did. This however does not prove someone did not exist.

The evidence we DO have for the existence of Moroni (or The LDS) comes decades or centuries later in the form of his followers' writings. A majority of LDS scholars apparently feel that the early apostles (Joseph, Brigham, etc.) did exist and this is apparently the "evidence" based on their witnesses that he did exist.

I tend to lean towards the fact that some Moroni angle did live who ignited the LDS religion. The reason I think he probably lived is my opinion that stories, myths, rumors, etc. are usually based on something. The truth might get stretched over time but usually things of this magnitude don't just appear out of a vacuum. My guess is that there was some Con artist or Story telling huckster made up the story by stringing other stories together.

For those of you who solidly believe he did NOT exist, what are your reasons for it? And if so, how did the Moroni myth get started and by whom? Was it by Joseph, or was some other author plagiarized? Do you think the apostles existed or were they made up too?

(Obviously Moroni's existence doesn't prove his divinity nor any of the claims made about him, any more than the existence of Muhammed or Paul proves they were prophets, so lets not bother going down that road of debate)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 11:23PM by MJ.

Haha good one, I get your point.

I admit I'm not a historian or a religious scholar, but (correct me if I'm wrong - I hated reading the BOM and slept through seminary) the difference is Moroni is only mentioned in the BOM, which was written by one person. There seems to be several different people, at a minimum, who mentioned/wrote of this Jesus guy. I know that still doesn't prove he's real, but that's a difference in your analogy. Like I said, correct me if I'm wrong, my church/BOM history is sketchy.

Moroni has been written about in newspapers, tourist guides, Historical accounts of TSCC.

True and Moroni was a secondary character while Jesus founded a movement that became the n world's largest religion.. There is plenty of solid evidence that the only source for him,the BOM, is total fiction. Then there is JS and his visions. Pretty thin stuff.

Read Joesephus Flavius's account of Jesus which he wrote 93 AD, just 60 years after the death of Jesus. Some critics argue that it his account was inserted by some christian cleric a couple of hundred years later. But it's an interesting account.

Personally, I believe in Jesus, and I have a profound believe and love of God. However I do not think that the Mormon church has all the answers which is why I left the Church not so long ago.

Read Bart Ehrman's books. They explain everything.

I don't believe Jesus ever existed simply because there is no evidence to suggest that he did.

In the future if 99.9% of historians believe in A historical Superman due to the numerous writing across many authors for decades....

Still does not make a historical Superman...REAL!

If 99.9% of historian believe a lie...that does not make it true no matter how many degrees they have or books they have written.

It is a logical fallacy to keep decrying something is true because most historians say it is. It is the evidence that proves something accurate....not the beliefs of those advancing it.

Put up or shut up.... All we need is evidence there was a historical Jesus



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 11:08PM by whatiswanted.

Bona can't even provide evidence for the claim that 99.9% of historians agree that Jesus was real. And even if they did agree on that, which I don't think they do, it's still an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy.

Bullshit. Do some reading. Bart Ehrman is a good place to start. When you have done a little homework,we can debate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 11:18PM by bona dea.

Bullshit to which part? That appeal to authority is a logical fallacy? Or that you never have any proof of anything? Because I still maintain that both are true.

BTW, we're going to have a hard timing carrying on a conversation if you keep editing your posts. How long should I give you before I reply?

Or maybe we can debate when you can learn to not be so condescending. You seem to assume that you are the only person in the room who has ever picked up a book, and that just makes you look silly.

If you have proof, let's see it. Otherwise, it appears that all you have are insults and condescending remarks directed at anyone who disagrees with you. That doesn't make for good debate, and it certainly doesn't constitute scholarly debate. I have a college education, and I know how to cite my sources. I've never seen any evidence that you know how to do that, unless one Bart Ehrman book is your only source of information.

If anyone ever provides actual proof that Jesus was a real person, I reserve the right to change my mind about his existence. However, you have made it clear that you are never going to be that person. Because quite frankly, you yelling at me that you have a degree and own a few books isn't going to convince me of much of anything, except maybe that you don't have anything of significance to share on the topic.

I see no reason to take most Christians' conceptions of him seriously mainly because they can't keep his story straight; so, I think their Jesus didn't exist.

There were men named Jesus but can we really get any of the stories in the bible to stick to any real person? I think the odds are against it.

I think all that can rationally be done is to take the stories as allegory and not insist they are real, and to give primacy to one's personal connection with god/gods/divine...if you want to believe in that.

It doesn't matter if Jesus existed. I don't think about Jesus. At all, ever, one way or another.