How strong is the evidence that Jesus existed?

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But why do you think Jesus was based on a real person? Was everything said about him just a tall tale? Nazareth was a tall tale? His crucifixion, even he was supposed to be the messiah, was a tall tale? His failure to do miracles was a tall tale?

I don't exactly think Jesus is like King Arthur or King David in that there might have been a human Jesus behind the Bible Jesus but that was lost in all those myths and legends about him. This implies a separate Jesus from the Bible one.

I believe the Bible Jesus that we read about in the Bible existed but that the accounts related to this character himself were exaggerated and loaded with theological agendas.

It wasn't early enough to be accepted as part of the canon, and it was a bit too legendary even by Gospel standards. Same with Gospel of Peter, etc.

Actually, according to scholars like Bart Ehrman, Jesus was anything but an anarchist. He was an apocalypticist who demanded that the law be obeyed and that each live their lives in preparation for the coming kingdom of God ... which never came.

IT'S COMING!! ! WAIT UNTIL 2012!! !

Reserve a date, say Jan 2, 2013 and we will discuss it further.

ruveyn

I was pointing out the growing rational that the story of jesus (and countless other religous figures like Horus the egyptian sun god) is actually a retelling of an older story about the sun. Jesus is only the latest in a long line of religious characters to have been born of a virgin, executed on a cross, dead for 3 days, and ressurrected on Dec 25.

The sun, during its death at the winter solstice, resides in the constellation called "the southern cross". These stories go back further into the past than christianity.

And while you rightly state their is no evidence that these two stories are related (other than in the key points of the story), there is no evidence that jesus was a man either, or that a man called jesus existed.

Will our descendents in thousands of years come across Harry Potter and claim they have evidence of a boy wizzard existing in the past?

Wouldn't that really also work for Islam, and thus fail to be valid?

Additionally, from what I understand, the growth rate is much larger in the areas where no memory would have existed. This can be seen in the anachronisms of Mark, where Mark mentions various things like Mar 10:12 "and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." (which is a cultural anachronism because of how Jews only allowed men to divorce, while Romans allowed women to divorce) , or the geographic errors: Mar 7:31 "Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis."



As can be noted on the map, Sidon is in the opposite direction of Galilee, so saying that Jesus went from Tyre and then took the Sidon route to Galilee makes no sense. The issue is that Mark is likely the first Gospel, with Luke and Matthew taking heavily from Mark.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2cQtw3SVY[/youtube]

And if Mark has problems that no person in the location would make, and other accounts borrow from this account, we have good reason to think that much of what was going on was outside of the middle-eastern area. I mean, "everybody in the middle east converted" just doesn't make sense of many elements of the situation as a lot of growth was really in Roman society.

This isn't to say that mythicism isn't implausible, but I don't think that we have to accept your statement.

Ok, evidence please. I've read Egyptian mythology myself and don't remember ever reading that Horus was the Egyptian sun god born of a virgin, baptized, having 12 exclusive followers, crucified, and rising from the dead in 3 days since crucifixion.

So please point me to the bit where it says all this in any ancient Egyptian myth.



Where does it say in the Bible that Jesus was resurrected on December 25?

And as far as I know, Jesus is the only character (whether historical or mythological) that I know who was (from antiquity) said to have been born of a virgin, executed on a cross, dead for "3 days", and resurrected after that.

The claims you're making seem to come from this nutty pseudo-"scholar" called Acharya S.



Ok, post some evidence so I may be convinced. Until then, this is rubbish to me.



There is no powerful evidence, but there is evidence in favor of Jesus' existence (weak as it may be). It makes more sense to accept Jesus' historical existence than to accept his non-existence. And I think I tried to demonstrate this in my prior posts.

So really, it's you who lacks the evidence for the claims you're making. What key points of the Jesus story come from prior myths, I wonder?



I don't think this question deserves an answer because the Harry Potter books are not written as stories meant to portray and promote a real historical figure.

So i guess the mainstream academic opinion is that the evidence Jesus existed as an ordinary human being, while not compelling or amazingly solid, is stronger than the evidence he was a fictional character?

Precisely. The opinion is based on consistent use of certain methodological criteria to determine which is more likely plausible and stuff like that.

The criterion of dissimilarity is probably the most useful criterion when it comes to figuring whether it was likely that Jesus existed or not.

Until mythicists can come up with consistent and more parsimonious answers for the questions (some of which I proposed above) related to Jesus as the Messiah, then historicism is the better bet.

anyhoo what would the actual sole existence of a figure called jesus prove?
nothing, there is no telling how people twisted the stories inbetwen.

Firstly let me make my position clear. I have no belief in any of the world religions whether current or past. There is far too much interpretative accounts of who or what any religious figures were. However, there are common factors involved. One such is the idea of a death-rebirth/ressurection property that many religions promote. Jesus is not the only character to have this property.

Secondly, there is no evidence that horus was a real person, only a story, there is no evidence jesus was a real person, only a story.

Astrological tales predate civilisation. Our ancestors, who had to master agriculture in order to achieve civilisation, needed to know the suns annual cycle. Seeing as the vast majority of land is more than 30 degress north of the equator tells us that the vast majority of people in history experienced the seasonal changes and the obvious cycle of the sun. The evidence that the sun "dies" in winter is apparent to anyone who can look at it. The solstice occurs just prior to christmas day, where it appears the sun has died for approximately 3 days, and then rises one degree further north, which shows it is returning, and will bring new life which will feed humanity. So it can be said the sun is humanities saviour. During this time the sun resides in the constelation known as the Southern Cross. This is observable to anyone in the northern hemisphere.

To me this is a remarkable correlation with the story of the supposed birth of Jesus. Together with the 3 stars of Orions belt, the bright star Sirius and the location on the horizon of the midwinter sunrise, adds more credibility to the notion that the story of jesus's birth is actually a retelling of this older story about the suns midwinter death.

Seeing as there is no evidence one way or another for jesus we are free to interpret this as we see fit. And I have chosed to interpret it as a fictitious story that is based on the actual events of the suns annual cycle as seen from anywhere north of the Sahara desert.

Also bear in mind that if there was any evidence that jesus existed every single christian in the world would carry a copy of this evidence and there would be no need for debates such as this one.

Wrong question. I don't think about what it can prove. It's simply about the desire to go with what the evidence seems to point to.

But the stories of Jesus are sort of original and not derived from prior myths. That's what you don't seem to be getting.



We have evidence Jesus may have been a real person. Mythicism simply doesn't make sense compared to Jesus historicism.



Nothing but pure ad hoc.



More ad hoc. It seems evidence means nothing to you. You're more interested in claims that intrigue you, it seems.

Besides, correlation is not causation.



Yes, you're free to interpret it the way you want. But your interpretation is not based on evidence from what I'm seeing. Just interesting claims.



There is evidence that he likely did exist, though. Mythicist Jesus doesn't make much sense compared to historical Jesus.

Plus, Christians are more interested in proving that the supernatural Jesus existed rather than a normal human Jesus because Christians are aware a lot of skeptics don't deny Jesus' existence anyway.

If Jesus existed then he existed as a flesh and bone man just like the rest of us. He was not the messiah, not born of a virgin, didn't walk on water, or turn water to wine. he may have been nailed to a cross but he was not ressurected.

From the sound of it jesus would have been a radical who defied the Jewish norms of the time and the rulers probably got sick of him and had him killed. Then years later his followers put him on a pedastall and started writing of him as though he was some mythical hero.

I think the Sun correlation is there and was used by Romans to convert large populations of pagans throughout Europe by instilling the jesus story into their version of christianity.

I think there are no interpretations based on evidence about any religion.

Yes very interesting I would say, and grounded in plain observable facts. The same observable facts that were available to our ancestors of the last 50 ,000 years, during which time we masterred agriculture and built civilisations and then made up religions. Humanity has been telling stories for as long as we could speak and were able to provide enough food in order to sit down and speculate for an hour or so. Stories are the main medium for passing on information to each other, down through generations.

There can be little doubt that our ancestors, back in times before civilisation, told stories about the constellations, the sun and the moon and the planets. In a time before other distractions the sky would have been the main fascination point of our ancestors. Do not tell me that you have never gazed up at the night sky and been captivated by what you saw on a clear night. Don't tell me you have never noticed the seasonal change in the angle of the sun (unless you live around the equator). These are the things that our ancestors first came to know, the first stories, that would have passed from generation to generation. There are cave paintings that date back 10s of thousands of years showing the sun, the moon, the constellations etc.

While all this may be simply interesting and ad hoc, it shows an obvious progression in the light of religion. It is human nature to rehash old stories and present them anew. It happens all the time. So in my mind religion and religious figures are based largely on older mythical stories, which are based on older mythical stories and so on......

Last edited by Robdemanc on 04 Dec 2011, 8:58 am, edited 1 time in total.