The question is typically described as “the historicity of Jesus”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
There are similar debates for other famous ancient figures.
The general academic consensus on Jesus (and many similar figures) is that they did exist and many of the details have been fictionalized.
Physical proof? No. But if that’s the criterion for proof that someone existed, then that mean 90% of historical figures can’t be proven to have existed. We don’t have the remains of Alexander the Great or any artefacts we can be sure are his. We have no remnants of Plato, none of his original writings remain.
Did a person name Jesus live sometime during the first century AD? Scholars are fairly certain of that. We do have textual evidence other than the bible that points to his existence.
It is highly unlikely that he was anything like the person written about in the bible. He was likely one of many radical apocalyptic prophets of the time.
We don’t have too many details about his life but because of something called the criterion of embarrassment we have good reason to believe he was baptized by a man named John the Baptist and was later crucified. (i.e. most burgeoning religions seeking legitimacy don’t typically invent stories that are embarrassing to their deity)
then that mean 90% of historical figures can’t be proven to have existed
Well for most of those we tend to use independent verification for their existence. And in the case of jesus, we have literally zero Credible examples of independent verification.
If you mean Jesus as described word for word in the bible? Yes you are right. Such a mythical figure never existed.
A man name Jesus from the first century AD? Who preached in the Levant? Who was baptized by a man named John and was later crucified? There is good enough evidence of such a person existing. This isn’t even a debated question among new testament scholars anymore.
I see you are familiar with Bart Ehrman, Even he doesn’t dispute that a historical Jesus existed.
Here’s an even deeper dive from Bart Ehrman.
And in the case of jesus, we have literally zero independent verification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus
Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion, which suggests that Tacitus was repeating an urban myth whose source was likely the Christians themselves,[3]:344 especially since Tacitus was writing at a time when at least the three synoptic gospels are thought to already have been in circulation.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tacitus
According to Bart Ehrman, Josephus’ passage about Jesus was altered by a Christian scribe, including the reference to Jesus as the Messiah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
Scholars have differing opinions on the total or partial authenticity of the reference in the passage to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate.[15][30] The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic.
Respected Christian scholar R. T. France, for example, does not believe that the Tacitus passage provides sufficient independent testimony for the existence of Jesus [Franc.EvJ, 23] and agrees with G. A. Wells that the citation is of little value
A. The first line of the Tacitus passage says Chrestians, not Christians.
Suetonius says Chrestus was personally starting trouble in Rome during the reign of Claudius.
Suetonius is writing years after Tacitus yet doesn’t mention that Chrestus died.
So Chrestus can’t be Jesus because it’s the wrong decade, wrong continent and missing a death.
B. The second line in Tacitus that mentions Christ and his death was never noticed until after the mid-fourth century. So this second line is fake.
P.S. Even if the second line was somehow authentic, the information would have come from Christians. This would be the equivalent of deriving Abraham’s biography by talking to Muslims.
This is why Bart Ehrman specifically dismisses Tacitus and Josephus. As do most other biblical scholars.
In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens, if this is all you got, you are holding an empty bag.
Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion
Why? If it was a popular myth, why assume he wouldn’t try to confirm/deny it
According to Bart Ehrman, Josephus’ passage about Jesus was altered by a Christian scribe, including the reference to Jesus as the Messiah
So? I’m not presenting evidence for him being a Messiah. I am saying there is some independent evidence of him existing.
B. The second line in Tacitus that mentions Christ and his death was never noticed until after the mid-fourth century. So this second line is fake.
I agree that is bizarre, but not proof of it being fake. Though should be taken with a grain of salt.
This is why Bart Ehrman specifically dismisses Tacitus and Josephus. As do most other biblical scholars.
Who is Bart Ehrman and why relay his beliefs rather than speak for yourself?
We do have textual evidence other than the bible that points to his existence.
Idk why you would need textual evidence besides the Bible to be certain the guy existed. It’s not like these are magical books that sprung from the earth. They have historical reasons for existing and the most likely reason includes the existence of the dude.
Girl gets married
Girl gets shitfaced and sleeps with someone other than her husband
Girl is pregnant!
Girl makes up some dumb shit to avoid jealous rage
Shit gets waaaaay out of hand.
There are many Jesus’s in the world.
As far as I know, we simply don’t have directly contemporary, first-hand evidence of him. Even the most ‘contemporary’ accounts of him that still exist were written at least 50 years after he would have died, and those are quite cursory. Perhaps primary sources were lost–or intentionally destroyed when they didn’t align with beliefs–or perhaps they never existed. There’s not even much evidence for Pontius Pilate (I think one source mentioning that he was recalled to Rome and executed for incompetence?), and there should be, given that he was a Roman official.
People that study the history of the bible–as in, the historical bible, not the bible as a religious text–tend to believe that a historical Jesus existed, even if they don’t believe that he was divine.
IMO, the most likely explanation is that Jesus was yet another in a long-line of false messiahs, and was summarily executed by Rome for trying to start yet another rebellion. Since cult members tend to be unable to reconcile reality with their beliefs, they could have reframed their beliefs to say that he was a spiritual messiah, rather than a physical messiah.
There are lots of people now today who claim to be god, claim to be jesus, claim to have magic powers. so it would appear this is just normal human behavior and has been for a very long time. But the main reason people continue to believe these ancient holy books and all the stories in them is literally because they are protected from inquiry. So Jeff down the street claims to be jesus? We can go test him and try to falsify his claims. But some guy 2000 years ago, ya its not possible to check that one out. And That is why they persist, its by design.
Let me see if I can explain what I mean.
A historical Jesus might have had a small cult following, enough that the Romans couldn’t ignore him. He would have been talking about Jewish liberation from the Roman rulers, and how he was called by god. And then boom, he gets executed. His followers probably believed that he was actually the son of god, sent to liberate them. But now he’s dead. How do they reconcile the belief with the reality? So they retcon everything; he was a spiritual messiah, and he’ll eventually return and free the Jews, once the people are spiritually prepared.
You can see traces of this in the way that the four gospels don’t agree with each other, but they all include bits of prophecies from earlier scripture about the messiah. They were written with the intent of making Jesus appear to fit in to older prophecies about who the messiah would be, since he ended up not being the liberator that they had been expecting.
You can see similar behaviors in cults now. It’s clearly visible with Q; Trump was supposed to be their messiah, but he hasn’t managed to make any of their prophetic beliefs come true. So they’ve invented reasons why Trump’s holy will has been thwarted, and changed their history, rather than accepting that he was a false messiah.
You just gotta have faith!
Then why is it that the message was so powerful that the Roman empire abolished its idol worship and chose Christianity? Especially as Jesus a.s. was supposed to be a rebel against the empire?
Do you think people 2000 years ago were all stupid?
Do you think people 2000 years ago were all stupid?
If they behaved as you described, then yes.
Happened overnight too. /S
This isn’t an accurate account of history.
If you’ve studied any of the Roman empire in antiquity you’re actively acting in bad faith.
If not, why are you making things up? Why are you actively lying?
Constantine is reported as making it the state religion 300+ years after the alleged existence of yeshua.
Why do you accuse me of something i never said?
A message being powerful is not in contradiction to it taking time to establish. If you look at the timeline you will see that it grew exponentially. and that the critical point was in the fourth century, after which it became the dominant religion in many parts of the empire.
That is how exponential growth works.
Bad faith debating.
The message of Christianity is excellent for subjugating populations, giving them purpose & hope, keeping people busy & out of trouble. I think that all sounds very appealing to rulers.
And the roman empire was not able to do that already? From my understanding mythologically/spiritually the Roman empire was perfectly settled with what it had before in terms of political power. Incidentally the roman empire declined and fell apart in the centuries after accepting Christianity.
And before the Roman empire there were the Egyptians. They seemed to fare much better in terms of power with their idol worship than later when they embraced Abrahamic religions, yet they did.
Do you think people 2000 years ago were all stupid?
No stupider than people now. Christianity remains very popular.
I have said this many times-
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if there was a “real” Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that is worshiped is an impossibility. A fiction. His life is full of details that defy basic biological and physical laws. On top of that, nothing he supposedly said was written down at the time, so we have no idea if what is recorded to have been his sayings in the Bible are things he actually said.
I always relate it to Ian Fleming having a schoolchum who’s father’s name was Ernst Stavro Bloefeld. So was there a real Ernst Stavro Bloefeld? Yes. Was he a supervillain fighting the world’s greatest secret agent? No.
I don’t think this answer is really in the spirit of “no stupid questions”.
Ok, if you want me to sum up in a way that addresses it: Because the Jesus OP is very likely thinking of is fictional, there is no real physical proof of his existence.
It doesn’t matter.
I’d say the “Real Historical Jesus” matters at least as much as a Real Historical Julius Caeser or a Real Historical Abraham Lincoln.
I always relate it to Ian Fleming having a schoolchum who’s father’s name was Ernst Stavro Bloefeld.
That’s different in so far as Fleming was simply borrowing a name for a totally independent character. But Fleming was, himself, a Naval Commander and intelligence officer who leveraged his own biography to inform James Bond’s personal traits. What’s more, he borrowed heavily from the reports and anecdotes of other intelligence officials both during and after WW2 to inform the behaviors and attitudes of his side characters in his original novels.
It actually is pretty interesting to talk about “The Real James Bond” from a historical standpoint, because British intelligence services were pivotal in maintaining the imperial and international financial controls necessary to run a globe-spanning empire.
In the same vein, you might be curious to read about “The Real Julius Caeser” after working through the Shakespearean play or “The Real Abraham Lincoln” after getting through the stories where he’s a Vampire Hunter. These biographies inform all sorts of cultural and economic norms of the era. And reading about historical individuals can be both entertaining and illuminating, particularly when you begin to consider how your own world ended up as it is today.
“Why is Christianity a globe-spanning religious movement going back 2000 years?” is a question worth interrogating. And you can’t really interrogate that question without asking who this Jesus guy was or how he got so popular.
There’s nothing to read about when it comes to any real Joshua, son of Joseph the Carpenter of Nazareth because nothing has been written about such a person.
Quite a bit has been written on the possible siblings of Jesus.
Written while Jesus was still alive? If so, please present said writings. If not, that doesn’t really change my point.
Written while Jesus was still alive?
You could disprove the existence of Socrates with this line of reasoning.
We aren’t out here trying to prove Socrates existed.
Are we talking about whether or not a historical person the Jesus of the Bible is based on existed or are we talking about whether or not there were any contemporary accounts? Because those are two very different things.
As I suggested in the beginning, whether or not a “real” Jesus existed is not really relevant, because if we did, we know nothing about him except what was written a long time after he would have died, which we can’t trust. Which is the same reason not to trust Plato’s dialogues even if Socrates existed. Plato wrote them long after Socrates died.
if we did, we know nothing about him except what was written a long time after he would have died
Hardly the first instance of a historical figure with unreliable historical accounts. You could make the same criticism of Egyptian pharaohs. They were deified in their eras, too. Their monuments were not completed until many of them were long dead. I guess we should just ignore them and pretend they had no impact on the course of history.
Listened through a history of rome podcast and learned an interesting thing where win was basically like a concentrate so you would mix it with water to drink. Aka. water -> wine.
Using reasoning like this to remove the supernatural from the Bible rather defeats the entire point, doesn’t it? If Jesus just made Gatorade like anyone else would, that’s a rather unremarkable thing to describe. Hardly worth committing to writing.
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I am sure there are countless mundane tasks that are pretty unremarkable.
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Does the Bible really have a point? I guess other than brainwashing masses?
That’s what I’m saying. There’s no record of him wiping his ass or playing cards. If it’s in the book it must be intended to present something exceptional. Explain his actions as something mundane and there isn’t really any reason to write it down.
But equally, the fantastic supernatural elements make the whole thing into a fairy tale to be completely disregarded as a dubious source of folk wisdom at best by any thinking person.
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It was common practice to dilute wine.
Isn’t that just port then?
I hope not, because port is my wine of choice and I would be like, “fuck you, Jesus. I wanted to drink that!”
His life is full of details that defy basic biological and physical laws.
Which is perfectly sensible given that he was given the power to perform wonders by god to establish that he is indeed a messenger of god. The entire point of wonders is them defying the otherwise imposed limits of the physical world. Because the only one who can grant this power is the source of the physical limits themselves and that is god.
This is logically consistent under the axiom that god exists. Which is what the scriptures are all about.
You can set the axiom that god does not exist. But as there is no proof of that, it is equally axiomatic. So given that your logic works on an unproven assumption you should not use it to criticize a different logic based on another assumption.
You go that way, I’ll goto Jesus!
Pra ba jeeba
Nobody got my joke.
a schoolchum whose* father’s name
There most likely were a bunch of people called Yeshua back then.
No, and that is to even be expected.
He was a prophet whose movement had around 120 or so core disciples along with his apostles, plus thousands who followed him about and considered him a healer and revolutionary teacher.
There are people who have done similar things that are completely lost to history other than small records that vaguely outline the controversy surrounding them… We shouldn’t really expect more in terms of proof…
But what is unique is the fact that we have an extremely well preserved corpus of text surrounding him. We also have some good idea that a lot of his followers were prosecuted and killed, and never recanted in the process, which might incline you to believe in the radical truth that they lived by.
Of course I am biased - I am a Christian - but it really does just seem pointlessly antagonistic to dismiss His Existence at all.
No, there’s barely any physical evidence that anyone a few hundred years ago existed.
But if writing is enough, there are some. Tacitus basically said: “Nero blamed the Christians, followers of that Guy called Jesus who Pilatus executed a few decades ago.”
Wikipedia at least says both his Baptism and crucifixion are not disputed by historians.
It seems like the consensus is that the stories probably stem from a real guy because that’s deemed more likely than no person existing as a basis for the story, but no, there is not material evidence for jesus christ’s existence
Jesus never led an army or ruled a country, so we cannot have coins bearing His face or remnants of an army, etc. However, there is plenty of physical proof of the early Church. There is evidence of pilgrimages to Bethlehem early on and Jerusalem as well, such as the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is a plausible candidate for Jesus’ actual tomb.
No. He is not a historical figure like, say, Muhammad or Caesar.
Everyone who downvoted, please provide evidence
Please provide evidence for Caesar.
LOL please stay serious. Historic science is a thing, you know.
Historians pretty much agree that Jesus was a historical figure, even though heavily fictionalised.
There is The Great Isaiah Scroll from before Jesus which contains prophecies about Jesus
No.
There’s lots of ambiguous information. There is no firsthand, historically agreed upon data that supports his existence in the form we know him today. In other words, there was no magical guy doing magical things.
There is no Roman record of “nailed 3 prisoners to the posts today; Bill, Roger, and Jesus the magic guy who was a pain in the ass.”
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story. Arthur was possibly just a chieftain of a group who fought a couple of hefty battles and made a name for himself, but he ended up being an almost magical figure with wizards and witches in the story and - guess what, he will “rise again” from the dead when needed. And no, rising from the dead isn’t owned by Christian religious figures, Osiris of Egypt did it, Dionysius of the Greek Pantheon among many others. So maybe some dude, who probably wasn’t named Jesus, caused a stir and got a few people to take note. That grew over hundreds and even thousands of years to what we have now.
Want to know why King Arthur isn’t a competitor to Jesus? He a) doesn’t offer the opportunity to control people in this life for the hope of an afterlife, b) he isn’t profitable.
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century, with the Gospels and Paul’s letters being written decades apart, as well as Church Father’s writings being very consistent. Main differences has been the Roman Catholic Church developing their own doctrine such as Purgatory over time, while the Orthodox and the Protestants tend to reject such developments.
So if it is just a legend, something must have happened to cause a consistent story to develop fairly quickly in comparison to the likes of other legends.
What exactly changed, then?
You mean besides a couple dudes running around telling us to be cool to each other?
You didn’t even read the wiki entry, did you.
I did, and it’s already knowledge we know about the early church
You said:
An interesting thing about what we have now in Christianity though is that it basically spawned as-is in the first century
The article says:
Little is fully known of Christianity in its first 150 years; sources are few.
So you’re making a huge, sweeping statement that Christianity as we know it today is based on something…we don’t know much about? There are 6 major Christian denominations, not to mention hundreds of smaller ones. Which one is the “as-is” one? The one that is exactly “as-is” from CE 100?
You’re forgetting that denominations aren’t actually that different. They all ascribe to the fundamental beliefs in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We do have the Acts of The Apostles as well which documents the early church. The New Testament was written within 100 years of Jesus and all Christians still follow it
Lee Strobel (former athirst, investigative journalist) wrote a book titled The Case For Christ.
His goal was to write the difinive work on proving that Jesus wasn’t who the Christians claim him to be. It backfired on him and he became a Christian.(See below comment from @weststadtgesicht with a more accurate quote.)
If you’re wanting to read more on this topic, definitely read both sides and determine which has the stronger case. But the Strobel book seems to be well researched and well written, at least to me.
Where did you find that his goal was to prove Jesus wasn’t who Christians claim to be? From what I’ve read about Lee Strobel, he was sort of an atheist by default and converted when his wife did. He became a pastor and only wrote the Case for Christ more than a decade later
I have updated my comment to direct to a comment from @weststadtgesicht that is more accurate.
That’s not really how he himself describes it. His wife became a Christian and after going to church with her he wanted to investigate the backgrounds - he didn’t want to disprove Christianity and was quite open-minded instead:
She invited me to a church, where I heard the Gospel explained in a way I could understand it. While I didn’t believe it, I realized that if it were true, it would have big implications for my life. So I decided to use my journalism experience and legal expertise (at the time, I was legal editor of The Chicago Tribune) to investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity or any other faith system.
Some people say yes, some say no. Christians, agnostics, and atheists on all sides. I hope that answers your question.
That doesn’t work. Either there is physical proof or there is none. Afaik the latter is correct.
Ehhhhhh, you probably aren’t trying to be technical, but it’s worth noting that circumstancial evidence is definitely a thing; is evidence that suggests but doesn’t definitively state. As mentioned in this tread, Nero calls out pilate for executing Jesus. There’s also the often overlooked circumstancial evidence that there’s a whole ass religion to the guy, which sure there are other religions etc etc, but most of them don’t have a semi Devine being that you can point to specific dates and times…
I will continue on, I’m an atheist, so I’m not arguing for Christianity, so here’s obligatory circumstancial evidence against historical J.
Wasn’t a census when he was supposed to be born. No written accounts of Herod executing every baby boy in Judea. Etc etc lmgtfy if you need it
The Nero reference you are mentioning was written by Tacitus over a century after he was supposed to have lived. The fact of the matter js that there is no contemporary primary rvidence of hus exisrence.
Frankly, I have no primary evidence of your existence. I could be arguing with a bot right now and it wouldn’t be unbelievable. Primary evidence is a motherfucker, the guy we are talking about was probably illiterate, talking to more people who were illiterate, what kind of primary evidence could there be? Even if we had a body, could we really point to it and say with any real confidence that it was Jesus or just some other person that was crucified?
Honestly ask yourself, what would you accept as primary evidence?
He wants a time machine with Mel Gibsons camera crew to accompany him
To be fair, if someone said Jesus never existed, they clearly wouldn’t be Christian 🤣
It really isn’t so clearcut. You don’t need an actual Jesus for the words attributed to him to be true. “Jesus” works perfectly fine as a container for an idea.
Thing is, it goes against man’s desires. The other religions that took off generally allow men to take more than one wife, fight wars, etc. Christianity basically asks of one to be poor and selfless and pure
The context within which you are raised matters so much more than what’s written in your chosen scripture. That and self interest. Between those two, pretty much anyone can wrangle themselves into believing anything they want. The history of how we got here from there is similarly irrelevant.
There’s quite a bit of contrast between Christianity and Islam in terms of how scripture is presented, as Islam teaches that the Qur’an is literally the words of God. As for Judaism, it’s unfulfilled, and if the New Testament about Jesus is actually true to what happened, then the Jewish prophecies clearly point to Him. Other than that it’s a very elaborate scam made by well educated people which doesn’t really give them any benefit.
Comfort and well-being, or so they believe… for some reason. Personally I like knowing I only get one shot
They were all executed horribly