What is the best evidence for the historical reality of Jesus Christ?

[BurtWorm]

(I've yet to see any.)

[meegbear]

1. From The Straight Dope

<snip>
If what you're looking for is proof positive that Jesus Christ lived and breathed--e.g., library card, baby pictures, etc.--you're out of luck. The big guy left no written records, and no accounts of his life were written while he was still alive. The earliest Gospels date from maybe 70 AD, 40 years after his demise.

Still, barring an actual conspiracy, 40 years is too short a time for an entirely mythical Christ to have been fabricated out of (heh-heh) whole cloth. (See below.) Certainly the non-Christians who wrote about him in the years following his putative death did not doubt he had once lived. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals around 110 AD, mentions one "Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius." The Jewish historian Josephus remarks on the stoning of "James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ." The Talmud, a collection of Jewish writings, also refers to Christ, although it says he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panther. Doubts about the historicity of Christ did not surface until the 18th century. In short, whether or not JC was truly the Son of God, he was probably the son of somebody.
<snip>

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html

[stopbush]

6. Or, you could go here:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

"The problem for this notion is that absolutely nothing at all corroborates the sacred biography and yet this 'greatest story' is peppered with numerous anachronisms, contradictions and absurdities. For example, at the time that Joseph and the pregnant Mary are said to have gone off to Bethlehem for a supposed Roman census, Galilee (unlike Judaea) was not a Roman province and therefore ma and pa would have had no reason to make the journey. Even if Galilee had been imperial territory, history knows of no ‘universal census’ ordered by Augustus (nor any other emperor) – and Roman taxes were based on property ownership not on a head count. Then again, we now know that Nazareth did not exist before the second century.

"It is mentioned not at all in the Old Testament nor by Josephus, who waged war across the length and breadth of Galilee (a territory about the size of Greater London) and yet Josephus records the names of dozens of other towns. In fact most of the ‘Jesus-action’ takes place in towns of equally doubtful provenance, in hamlets so small only partisan Christians know of their existence (yet well attested pagan cities, with extant ruins, failed to make the Jesus itinerary).

What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings – all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages."

More about Nazareth here: http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html

[BurtWorm]

8. How long did it take Mormonism to establish its mythology?

You'll find a a lot of what the Straight Dope asserts to be debunked here:

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2006/debunkingJesus.php

The Associated Press chose to omit the fact that scholars have largely discounted the Josephus paragaph as a later interpolation. The passage, although widely quoted by believers today, did not show up in the writings of Josephus until centuries after his death, at the beginning of the fourth century. Thoroughly dishonest church historian Eusebius is credited as the real author. The passage is grossly out of context, a clear hint that it was inserted at a later time.

All scholars agree that Josephus, a Jew who never converted to Christianity, would not have called Jesus "the Christ" or "the truth," so the passage must have been doctored by a later Christian--evidence, by the way, that some early believers were in the habit of altering texts to the advantage of their theological agenda. The phrase "to this day" that appears in the interpolation, reveals it was written at a later time. Everyone agrees there was no "tribe of Christians" during the time of Josephus--Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century.

If Jesus were truly important to history, then Josephus should have told us something about him. Yet he is completely silent about the supposed miracles and deeds of Jesus. He does not quote Jesus. He adds nothing to the Gospel narratives and tells us nothing that would not have been known by Christians in either the first or fourth centuries. In all of Josephus' voluminous writings, there is nothing about Jesus or Christianity anywhere outside of the tiny paragraph cited so blithely by Associated Press.

...


Tacitus, another second-century Roman writer who alleged that Christ had been executed by sentence of Pontius Pilate, is likewise cited by Righi. Written some time after C.E. 117, Tacitus' claim is more of the same late, second-hand "history." There is no mention of the name "Jesus," only "the sect known as Christians" living in Rome being persecuted, and "their founder, one Christus." Tacitus claims no first-hand knowledge of Christianity. No historical evidence exists that Nero persecuted Christians--Nero did persecute Jews, so perhaps Tacitus was confused. There was certainly not a "great crowd" of Christians in Rome around C.E. 60, as Tacitus put it, and most damning, the term "Christian" was not even in use in the first century. No one in the second century ever quoted this passage of Tacitus. In fact, it appears almost word-for-word in the fourth-century writings of Sulpicius Severus, where it is mixed with other obvious myths. Citing Tacitus, therefore, is highly suspect and adds virtually nothing to the evidence for a historical Jesus."

[LouisianaLiberal]

17. Tacitus's reference to Christians

does not show up until the fourteenth century (possibly fifteenth century - I have to look this up).

It is clear that it was added at that time. Also, the reference in Josephus appears to have been placed where it was without context. If you read the whole passage it really makes no sense.

[BurtWorm]

23. I put the whole Testimonium Flavianum in post 18# below.

(Welcome to DU, belatedly.)

:toast:

[China_cat]

62. Tacitus relies solely on Josephus

for his references.

[bee]

9. "barring an actual conspiracy"

which at that time, probably wouldnt have been all that difficult to pull off.

[On the Road]

2. The Best One is That Paul Says He Knew Jesus' Brother

He refers to James in several places, the most solid being Galatians, the authenticity of which is pretty much undisputed. While Josephus's references to Jesus are questionable, his reference to Jesus' brother is less so. Josephus also recounts how the emperor Domitian rounded up Jesus' great grandnephews as sons of David and potential revolutionaries, but released them when he saw they were simple peasants who claimed that their Kingdom was not of this world.

There are some people who claim that "brother" is used metaphorically, but I've never seen any supporting arguments for that beyond the desire to show that Jesus did not exist. Even if James was a cousin or half-brother, as Catholics claim, he was still the relative of a real person.

[Inland]

3. The gospels are some evidence

probably the best evidence available.

[China_cat]

4. Which is circular reasoning

using the bible to 'prove' the bible (or any part of it) is 'true'.

[SlipperySlope]

10. Is it circular reasoning?

Is it circular reasoning to use the writings of Socrates to prove that Socrates existed?

When dealing with events that happened over 1,000 years ago, we are lucky to have anything more than a few written scraps surviving.

[China_cat]

12. Yes, if that's the ONLY thing you have to go by.

There are other writings about Socrates, governments records of Socrates, recordings from others who knew him, etc.

In the case of Jesus, there is ONLY the bible. Strangest part of it is that the Romans, who were inveterate record keepers...even down to inventories and laundry lists...don't seem to have kept any 'paper' on this supposedly important character.

And please don't cite Josephus. That's been proven to be a forgery.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. You overstate your case, I think.

My understanding is that there are some stylistic inconsistencies between the passage where Josephus refers to Jesus and the rest of his work, but I think that "proven to be a forgery" is far more confident-sounding than the evidence justifies, I believe.

[BurtWorm]

18. Not to mention the pious reference to Jesus as "Christ" (Messiah)

which Josephus, who was a Jew not a Christian, would never have written.

The Testimonium Flavianum:

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

Obvious to see why most scholars would be embarrassed to pretend this is not an interpolation by a pious Christian scribe. (My senile Lutheran grandmother couldn't have sounded more gullible.)

[China_cat]

32. No, I don't think so.

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/josephus.html
http://home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/appendixd4.html
http://www.thenazareneway.com/Forgery%20in%20Christianity/forgery_in_christianity_chapter_3.htm
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/josephus-etal.html
http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm

And, of course, there is this, Bishop Eusebius, was known for saying that it was permissible for Christians to lie in order to further the Kingdom of God. This behavior is justified directly in the New Testament, where Paul writes in the 3rd Chapter of Romans: "For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?"

[SlipperySlope]

20. He wasn't important to the Romans

Why would the Romans have kept records on Jesus?

Do we have complete surviving records today documenting every prisoner they ever punished or executed?

Jesus was nothing to the Romans; just a troublemaker. He was only important to his followers, and his importance multiplied manyfold AFTER his death.

[BurtWorm]

25. Some would say he was quite a bit more important to the Romans

than to the Jews. In any case, the Jews don't refer to him either. How do you explain that gap?

[Inland]

26. I don't get the "that gap" reference.

I guess you are trying to draw an inference from something somehow missing. But to draw that inference, first you have to know what would be expected. I don't think there's anything missing. I think that there's pretty what one would expect from the life and death of someone who was either a nobody or a minor league troublemaker in a backward corner of the Roman empire two thousand years ago, except for the gospels, for what they are worth.

[BurtWorm]

30. Jesus Christ King of the Jews was a nobody? A minor league troublemaker?

The Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, pathway to Persia, a backward corner of the Roman Empire?

[Inland]

36. Jesus Christ was King of the Jews? Really? Do tell.

Too, too funny. Dude, that was supposedly a mocking reference in the gospel that-is-not-evidence, not the fact of the matter. Did you know who the King of the Jews really was at that time? I'll give you a hint: it's in the gospels.

[BurtWorm]

49. What is the Messiah, dude?

What do you think Jesus means when he says he is "the Christ?"

Answer to your question: I know Herod was supposedly king when Jesus was allegedly born, according to the Gospels. In all honesty, I don't know who was supposedly king when he was allegedly crucified.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

52. Another Herod, according to the Gospels.

[Inland]

53. Dude, you said Jesus was King of the Jews

Not that JESUS THOUGHT he was king of the jews, and even THAT would be WRONG, just as the concept of Jesus referring to HIMSELF as "THE CHRIST" would be wrong, if you were referring to the gospels.

Seriously, you think that there oughta be a record of a guy because he SAYS he's king of the jews but isn't?

Too, too funny. And in fact, you know who was King of the Jews when Jesus was killed. I'll give you a hint: it's in the gospels.

[BurtWorm]

57. What is the "Christ?"

Anointed to what purpose? Tallahassee Grannie answered your question for me. (Thanks, TG).

If you doubt Jesus called himself The Christ according to the gospels, what does the following exhange (form Mark, Chapter 14) mean?:

14:61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

[Inland]

59. Come on, buddy, just admit you tripped.

We were talking about reasons why there would or would not be a record of Jesus. You said he was king of the jews, now backpeddaling to say HE said he was God's Anointed, which has NOTHING TO DO ABOUT WHETHER ANYONE WOULD HAVE RECORDED HIS EXISTENCE.

I mean, there's people claiming all sorts of shit, but nobody makes a huge record of it. I heard somebody claimed Jesus was King of the Jews, but in six months I won't be able to prove it, not thinking enough of it to make a permanent record.

And it's pretty funny that the people who THOUGHT Jesus was god DID make a record, namely, the gospels. The very type of record that one would expect from people who believed, and discarded by you, because it was from people who believed.

Too, too funny. Typical R&T thread beginning with a "question".

[BurtWorm]

63. Let me see if I understand your claim.

The gospels are the best record we have that Jesus lived. But you have to be able to know how to read them to get the picture of who Jesus "really" was. Even though the gospels seem to portray Jesus's claim to be the Christ to be a big deal to the Romans and Judeans, we moderns are privileged to understand that it wasn't REALLY a big deal to anybody but the Christians. Thanks to all this distance from the actual events, we moderns are privileged to be able to understand from the gospels that Jesus was a "nobody" whose life and death were utterly insignificant to anyone but a small group of the faithful in his era.

And that's the "best" evidence we have that Jesus really lived.

:eyes:

[Inland]

67. Let me see if I understand you: you didn't trip up.

I mean, that's pretty much what it's all about now, isn't it?

Typical R&T thread: disingenous question, evasiveness and mischaracterization.

If you want to know what I meant, I said it in several posts clearly enough. Other people seem to have understood them. No need for you to give a characterization to avoid addressing my points.

[BurtWorm]

73. That's what it's all about as far as YOU'RE concerned, clearly.

I'm interested in understanding why you think the Gospels are evidence if you don't present anything from them AS evidence.

[Inland]

75. Then read my posts. It's all in there. nt

[SlipperySlope]

35. I agree with this poster.

This sums up a lot of what I was trying to say.

Jesus was basically a "nobody" except to his followers. No reason for anybody else to take much notice of him.

[BurtWorm]

51. How much of their story of him is factual, would you say?

He certainly is not a nobody in their gospels. He's a major world-historical figure.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

54. I don't know about that

The Jesus of the Gospels did some amazing things, but he was not known at all to the Gentiles yet. Just the 12 and some assorted folks in Jerusalem who shook things up by greeting him when he came there to die. Now he is a world historical figure, but not then. He was a nobody carpenter with 12 followers who was executed.

[PublicWrath]

80. 12 followers? I don't think one can take that for granted.

Could it be that detail was only written in to convey the idea that Jesus is the new temple and the apostles had started new spiritual "tribes" among the gentiles? And such a notion would have the advantage of being particularly attractive to pagans for quite different reasons.

(For the origins of the OT symbolism of "12", -tribes, sons of Jacob, jewels on the High Priest's breastplate, etc., please consult any work at all on ancient astronomy.)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

87. I can't get into that

I have no knowledge of it. I know that the 12 are mentioned in the Bible, and some play roles. Your conjecture could be true. Or not.

The numbers aspect is interesting, along with 3 and 40.

[BurtWorm]

90. Do we believe Paul's claim that he was charged with persecuting

Christians when he had his conversion on the road to Damascus? How long after the execution was that? I thought it was something like 30-35 years, if the execution really happened. So if Jesus was a nobody carpenter with just 12 followers ca. 33 AD, how is it that 30 years later Paul (or Saul) is charged with persecuting Christians, and then visiting them all over the Mediterranean?

Something is really fishy with this story, so to speak.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

105. My interpretation of this

is that the word of his resurrection spread like wildfire and the apostles were likewise inflamed and did a heck of a job in getting the word out. I don't worry so much about proof because I have been blessed with an innate faith, but this makes sense to me. If I saw somebody after they died in those circumstances I would be pretty vocal about it.

[SlipperySlope]

33. I'm not that "some"

You are asking me to represent a position that is not mine. I'm not the "some" who says he was important to either the Jews or the Romans.

I'm the one who is saying that I can accept what is written as sufficient evidence that a man named Jesus lived, preached, and died. I'm not supporting anything about performing miracles, being the son of god, raising from the dead, and so on. Those could all very well be elaborations that came later.

Please don't mistake me being open to the idea that a man once said some positive things, with me being some sort of defender of the faith.

[BurtWorm]

43. But you are a defender of his historicity, which is also a kind of faith

Words are attributed to fictional characters all the time, but we don't argue about whether Sherlock Holmes or Peter Pan were real men. Non-Christians who believe in the historicity of Jesus are really assuming that Christians are in good faith, not just to Christianity but to historic reality, when they assert that Jesus was a real man. But Non-Christians should really examine that claim if they're interested in, not just spiritual or supernatural truth, but natural, scientific, historic truth.

For many Christians, Jesus's real humanity is crucial to their faith. Why? Because it was crucial to Roman Church, that's why. The Roman Church had to have absolutely no misunderstanding about it among the flock that Jesus was a real man and, therefore, the real God. They also had to have no misunderstanding about the reality of the transubstantiation of wine and wafers into actual blood and flesh during communion.

The best explanation for the gospels, it seems to me, given that they are the "best" (meaning, actually, about the only) evidence for Jesus's "life," is that they are a spiritual story--in other words, a mythology.

[Inland]

46. I thought we were discussing evidence, not faith at all.

The evidence doesn't disappear simply because it's crucial to a religion, no matter how much one doesn't like the religion.

[BurtWorm]

65. We are discussing evidence for the reality of Jesus.

What always confuses the issue is the fact that Christianity demands faith in the flesh-and-blood reality of Jesus, with or without evidence. But just because Roman-influenced Christianity demands faith in a real Jesus doesn't mean the rest of us have to have faith in a real Jesus. The rest of us are entitled to evidence. For which there is none.

[Inland]

68. No, there's the gospels.

That's evidence. You just don't care to address it, because it is from the people who thought jesus was god, who you don't respect. That's your deal, but it doesn't change what is or is not evidence.

[BurtWorm]

71. Why are the gospels, with all their contradictions and tall tales,

evidence that a real person named Jesus lived? Is Genesis evidence that a real Adam and Eve lived?

[Inland]

74. Yes. It's evidence.

Not particularly compelling evidence. But it's evidence.

You know what else is not particularly good evidence? Bringing up another story and implying that because one is false, both are false. That's really silly shit, have nothing to do with what is or is not evidence.

[BurtWorm]

77. So maybe we actually agree

that if the Bible is the "best evidence," there really is piss poor evidence for a historical Christ.

:toast:

[Inland]

79. It's really the ONLY evidence.

Because there's nothing more that one would expect, so no inference can be made from the lack of better.

It's both the evidence for, and evidence against, for whatever it's worth.

[BurtWorm]

81. Let me ask you: Does it matter if there was or wasn't a real Jesus?

Does it matter if people might believe erroneously that the mythic hero of a 2,000 year old belief system was an actual person? Does it matter if non-Christians believe that the main figure of Christian mythology is a real person if it isn't objectively true?

I'll answer the question for myself: It may matter less if Christians believe Jesus was a real person, but I think it ought to matter very much to non-Christians if they value truth. Non-Christians should not just take Jesus's "historicity" at face value.

[Inland]

82. Not to me.

What other people have invested in the concept, I couldn't say. Traditional christianity is premised on Jesus being both god and man, so if someone could somehow prove there was no such person, then there would have to be some major retooling.

[BurtWorm]

86. But that's the crux (no pun intended) of the issue for me.

Roman-based Christianity is indeed premised on the flesh-and-blood reality of Jesus. They made belief in Jesus's actual humanity central to the faith, such that those who denied it were considered blasphemors and, at various moments in history, subject to being put to death. On the other hand, Eastern Christians never made quite that big a deal over the reality of Jesus. Gnostics weren't even interested in the historical reality of him.

But even today in the West, many non-Christians are only too ready to defend the idea of the historic Jesus. I've had many conversations with Jews, atheists, secular humanists, etc., on this subject, and the majority of them, while impatient to hear evidence that Jesus was not historical, are thrilled to have the opportunity to expound on their own Jesus stories: he was a great teacher, he was a working class hero, he was a revolutionary, he was a Buddhist...

What crap.

[Inland]

96. See, you start with the result you want, not the evidence.

You start by who is defending it and why. I don't.

[BurtWorm]

99. I started with curiosity about an argument I didn't buy

and wound up convinced by it. For most of my life--until about five years ago--I had no reason to suspect there wasn't a historic Jesus, no reason because I really didn't care one way or the other. I also liked the idea of a hep cat revolutionary man-of-the-people Jesus. I once argued with an atheist a few years before my eyes opened, believing that denial of the reality of Jesus was less a defensible position than an over-the-top attitude. When I finally got around to looking into the Jesus-as-myth point of view, I was amazed at how flimsy the case for the real Jesus is, and how thoroughly debunked it has been.

So if you mean that my original post started with the result of my own quest, rather than as a desire for evidence to contradict my present assumptions, then perhaps you're right. I am curious to see if there is any evidence I've never heard of. Not this round.

I also want to develop my thinking about why (or whether) the historicity of Jesus matters. I can ask that in a separate thread, though, and we can get nowhere discussing all this again. ;-)

PS: Correction: muriel's reference to the Vermes book is something I've never encountered before.

[okasha]

108. The Iliad and Troy

For approximately 2500 years, the only evidence that Troy existed was the Iliad, the Odyssey and works derived from them. Now, those are stories involving several divine-human halfbreeds and whole tribes of gods and goddesses who interfere in human history in sometimes rather embarassing ways. It was the considered opinion of the experts that there was no such place as Troy, never had been, never had been a Trojan war, etc., etc., and poor old blind Homer was a liar with 20/20 uncorrected vision.

Then along came a German grocer named Schliemann, motivated by (dare one say it) faith in the text. And behold, he dug up not one Troy but a series of nine cities, one of which dated to the approximate era of the "mythical" Trojan war and showed signs of conquest by an outside force. Considerably later, references to a "Wilusa" in northwestern Anatolia were discovered in Hittite records, and a king named Alexandus as its ruler. "Wilios" just happens to be the Homeric name for Troy, and Paris is also known as Alexandros. There was also reference in the records to a dust-up with folk known as the Ahhiyawans, which corresponds nicely to Homer's Akhaians. Zeus et alia aside, it's apparent that Homer did form his work around an historical event some four hundred years in his own past, despite the lack of written records in Greek, and that he got the basic outline and a number of details right.

The moral of this tale is that you cannot discount an ancient text in whole because it contains in part clearly mythical elements or elements that do not correspond to our twenty-first century standards of historical writing. That applies to the New Testament as much as it does to the Iliad.

[BurtWorm]

109. The problem with your analogy is that there were other witnesses

to the events that the gospels claim to have taken place in Jerusalem ca 35 AD, but they're silent about these events. You're able to cite other histories and archaelogy that purportedly corroborates the story Homer told. Where are the other histories and archaeology that corroborate what's in the gospels?

As a non-Christian, I always have to go back to the basic question of what we know about Jesus. As Inland has pointed out, all we know of him is what's in the gospels. There are no ossuaries where his bones lie. No house or grounds where he grew up. No books he wrote with his own hand. All we have are a few mutually contradictory stories about someone who is not recognizably human. So why presume he's based on a human?

[muriel_volestrangler]

83. For once, I'm going to agree with Inland

The gospels are indeed evidence, though not 'proof'. They are generally dated to have been written within living memory of the times they describe, and to make up a story that could have had lots of witnesses saying "there was never such an execution in Jerusalem then" would seem needlessly risky, if you could have predated it by a few decades and avoided that sort of thing. Or, as pointed out in this DU post from yesterday, why do the gospels go through hoops to have a Galilean born in Bethlehem? If you're just inventing a descendant of David, why not keep it simple and have him genuiniely come from Bethlehem, as required by the earlier Jewish prophesies? You can subscribe to a 'big lie' theory, I suppose, that people will swallow a larger lie when they'd reject a small one, but it does complicate things.

Extraordinary claims may require extarordinary evidence, but humdrum claims such as "there was a preacher named Jesus in 1st century Judea" don't need a great standard.

[Inland]

85. Now, you've agreed with me more than once! Don't deny it!

I was going to say something somewhat similar, but like this: couldn't you invent a story that's better than this one? I would think so, leaving one to conclude that there's a kernel of historical truth that people were "working with" as best they could. That is, indeed, the humdrum claim that leaves no further extrapolation.

[BurtWorm]

89. But how many preachers named Tom, Dick or Harry

have Gospels written with them starring as Son of God, miracle worker, conqueror of death?

[muriel_volestrangler]

92. Yes - they're not good evidence for miracles etc.

because being able to do things like that get you more noticed by others; and those count as "extraordinary claims". But there are claims of other Jewish miracle workers from around that time; they just haven't had the extended publicity Jesus got.

I recently read an interesting book "The Changing Faces of Jesus" by Geza Vermes, who's a biblical scholar from Oxford University (trained as a Catholic priest, but then converted to his Jewish roots). His thesis, which should be read with his background in mind, is that the first stories about Jesus portray him as a teacher and miracle worker, along the lines of various Jewish prophets, and then the stories about being the annointed of God got added. That doesn't make him actually divine, just "the most important man", and potentially the judge of everyone when the kingdom of God arrives on Earth - and still part of Jewish thought. Paul then exported the ideas to non-Jewish communities, adding in the idea of his resurrection, rather than just being a big miracle (and a foretaste of the bodily resurection of everyone, an idea making the rounds of Judaism then), being part of the 'redemption' of mankind. This starts to promote him to at least semi-divine - and the bits of the first 3 gospels that are stylistically out of place (long bits about the kingdom of God, and what happened after the crucifixion) are part of this development. Finally, John gets all mystical, and promotes him to fully divine. The influence of ideas from outside Judaism, whether Greek or Eastern, seems to have made the difference in what happened to the story of Jesus.

[BurtWorm]

93. Even if he's right, he still starts with stories and ideas that develop,

not a real person. What happens to the story of Jesus doesn't happen to actual figures of history. Or does it?

(Does Vermes (or anyone) have evidence of stories of Jesus written in Hebrew or Aramaic, by the way? It strikes me as significant that Greek seems to be the language of the earliest Christianity.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

97. Sure, but it's evidence for a 'historic reality' of some sort

With a person in the middle of it.

No, he doesn't think there are any relevant stories in Aramaic (I think ancient Hebrew wasn't used at all by that stage), though there is a reference to a collection of sayings of Jesus in Aramaic, but it's not at all clear if that wasn't just some translation from Greek. It's not that surprising for Greek to be the language things were written in at that time and place - some of the Apocrypha is also in Greek, eg Maccabees. Greek-speaking people had controlled the area from Alexander the Great for over 150 years, and Greek was an international language in the eastern Mediterranean.

[BurtWorm]

100. It's why I think of Christianity as a diaspora religion.

Based in places like Alexandria and Anatolia rather than Judea.

[PublicWrath]

103. BTW: there is a long and complex debate about "of Nazareth"

The accuracy of the translation "of Nazareth" has been assailed by many different writers. Most of my books are in storage, but I'll try to post an outline of the debate later. Fascinating stuff, however you judge the result.

[okasha]

107. Any records the Jews might have had

would have been kept by the Sanhedrin and would have been destroyed along with the rest of the Temple and the city in 70 CE. Any Roman records of what happened in Jerusalem between 35/6 and 70 CE --executions of petty criminals, rabble-rousers, tickets for illegal camel parking--would likely have suffered the same fate. Certainly they wouldn't have been packed up and sent back to Rome.

[BurtWorm]

110. How convenient.

:eyes:

[okasha]

111. How inconvenient.

Josephus tells us that a million people were killed in the siege of Jerusalem that culminated in its fall in CE 70. Among them were likely many if not most of the members of the Jerusalem church, the followers of James. He also tells us that the subsequent slaughter in the Gallilee was so terrible that bodies were left rotting on the shore of the lake. Again, many of the northern followers of Jesus would have been caught in the massacre. So you have perhaps a majority of the early Jewish Christians--the "Nazarenes"--killed in the uprising and most if not all their records destroyed and their collective memory obliterated.

The same thing happened with Judaism. The Temple records were lost, so that ritual had to be largely reconstructed from memory and sometimes speculation. With those records would have gone any account of the procedings of the Sanhedrin. That may be "how convenient," but it's also documented fact.

[BurtWorm]

112. The Jewish decimation, as you say, is documented fact.

The alleged Christian one is pure speculation.

[okasha]

113. Not really.

The Jerusalem Nazarenes are documented up to CE 62, with the death of James during a hiatus between Roman governors. The revolt, which had been fomenting for decades, broke out into the open in 66. Given that Jewish "Christianity" pretty much disappears from the record in that period between 62 and 70, it's a fair and logical conclusion that the war wiped it out. (It's hardly the only event of its kind; it's quite similar to what happened in Britain with the destruction of the Druids on Mona during Boudicca's uprising. I'm assuming you don't dispute that there were real Druids and real Druidism? Or that the British paganism that had to reconstruct itself after the queen's defeat was in many ways different from what it had previously been?)

But I digress. Without a rival--or balancing--authority rooted in Jewish theology, neoplatonic Paulism became the dominant strain that gave rise to Christianity as we know it, and the rest is history.

[BurtWorm]

114. Where are they documented?

How is what happened to the Druids relevant to the discussion? We know a fair amount about Britain under the Romans because the Romans recorded what they found AND those Britons left records of themselves in the earth.

[okasha]

115. It's relevant because it's a parallel situation.

A religion's ranking members get wiped out, and survivors have to reconstruct as best they can. We know a great deal about Judea and Gallilee under the Romans, too, because they recorded what they found, though there are some lacunae for the same period as the Jewish records. The Druids, on the other hand, did not leave records; they did not write down their teachings. I don't know what you're think of in terms of "records in the earth," but the megaliths, mounds, barrow graves and such are all pre-Celtic. While they may have been adopted by the Druids/Celts, they were constructed by an earlier people, possibly the so-called "Beaker" culture.

[BurtWorm]

119. In the case of the Druids, Beakers, Judean Jews, there's SOMETHING

physical to interpret. Not just a supposition based on a legend.

[Inland]

31. Where's the list of executions in Palestine for that era?

Funny, not around. Maybe it was lost, maybe the Romans never kept it, maybe they didn't kill anyone during that period. You just don't know anything about why there's no record.

Therefore the lack of a specific record of a Jesus Ben Joseph doesn't prove anything, given the lack of a general record of the period. Pretty much what one would expect in a half assed place of the world.

As for socrates, it's funny how people who hang out with the educated and powerful get recorded. I mean, Alcibiades hung out with Socrates. Nobody is surprised to see a record. It's the inference from the lack of a record. By your reasoning, there's no proof that classical Athens had more than a few dozen people, there only being that number noted.

[bee]

14. At least we have portraits dating from Socrates lifetime.

Id think someone might have taken the time to capture the likeness of the son of god. Before he died, I mean. Though I could be wrong. :shrug:

[SlipperySlope]

19. I didn't say I believed he was ths Son of God.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make.

My point is that I accept the written records as establishing him as a historical figure.

I don't accept the written records to imply anything more than that. No miracles, no resurrection, no Son of God. Just that there was a guy named Jesus who walked around in the desert and inspired some people who later went on to write (and embellish) his story.

[bee]

39. That wasnt the point I was trying to make at all.

Only that if there were people around him that did believe he was the son of god. Wouldnt they have wanted a record? A drawing? Something? I know I would. Personally, I dont know whether the man actually existed or not. Sorry for the confusion.

[Inland]

24. Jews at 30 A.D: Not big on portraiture. nt

[bee]

40. not even of their savior though? n/t

[Inland]

41. Important jews of the period had a nice statue or painting done

of themselves.

NOT!

[bee]

42. All Im saying is...

that it I believed that I was a personal friend of the son of god.. that I might attempt a drawing or something. Maybe Im the only one.

[Inland]

44. I think you are.

Moreover, I think that you're the only person who thinks it strange it hasn't turned up.

[bee]

48. sobeit.

but they did find the cloth he was wrapped in though, right? So I guess anything is possible.

[China_cat]

64. No, not for Jews (or Moslems, either)

Thing about 'graven' images was taken much more seriously then.

[bee]

88. Help me out.

So then... according to the Bible, creating an image of Jesus Christ is a sin?

(8)You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Deut. 5:8; RSV

edit: verse reference

[China_cat]

91. Yep.

And if you want to take it to the limit...which most fundamentalists of all stripes do...making a statue of a book with the 10 commandments on it is a sin, all religious artwork and nativity scenes that do not use live people. As is bin Laden's video taping. (It's a likeness, not really him.)

[bee]

94. This blows my mind.

all the crucifixes, all the images in all the churches, etc. wow. What about stars? oy. my head hurts. Thanks for the info. :)

[charlie]

95. Muslim fundies still try to adhere to the law

Which is why you see a whole lot more of those rococo abstract designs in the MidEast than depictive art.

[bee]

101. I guess that also explains the outrage over the infamous cartoon.

It fascinates me that the Muslims are so very strict about adhering to their word of god, while it seems like the bible is commonly thought of as being open to interpretation.

[charlie]

102. Actually they're cherry-picking the nasty bits

from the Quran the same way our fundies do. Middle eastern Muslim society hasn't always been so viciously austere.

[RethugAssKicker]

29. Portraits???.. Are you kidding me!

[bee]

45. Im not talking about hiring Van Gogh here.

a crude drawing would be nice.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

56. They believed:

"You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or in the earth below" (Exodus 20:4).

[bee]

58. ooohhhhh! I honestly wasn't aware. Thanks TG! :) n/t

edit: sp.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

60. Frankly,

I wasn't either. But I started thinking to myself, have I seen any Jewish paintings from that period. Now, obviously wood and canvas and papyrus would rot, but you'd think something would survive; so I went to some art history sources on the web and learned that they didn't get into painting, sculpting, mosaics..of likenesses for some time.

[bee]

61. Thats very, very interesting.

I guess I (wrongly) believed that art was a natural part of all cultures since the dawn of time. Thank you for taking the time to expand on it. Now it makes a lot more sense & I can cross it off my long, long list of things that confuse me. :) :hug:

[BurtWorm]

16. It's odder still that Jewish tradition is mostly silent about Jesus

until the Middle Ages, when the story is satirized. (Which of course doesn't prevent modern apologists from citing the satire as evidence that those Medieval Jews believed in the historical Jesus.)

[Inland]

22. Actually, you DON'T have socrates's writings.

You have Plato and some other references.

Socrates didn't write, as far as I know. But your point is the same.

[SlipperySlope]

37. Correction accepted

In a way, it makes the analogy even stronger.

[Inland]

21. Not at all.

The bible exists. Somebody wrote it, clearly with the intent to be representing actual events to some extent.

You are confusing evidence with being convinced. I'm just saying it's evidence. I'm not saying it's conclusive, convincing, or anything else. It's not really a controversial point.

[China_cat]

34. If the bible is evidence of things

in the bible then Ann Rice's books are evidence of vampires.

It's circular reasoning and it just doesn't hold up.

[Inland]

38. The bibles weren't written as fiction.

I don't think one can dismiss them as intended as fiction. Maybe you could dismiss them as intended to deceive, or writing down a deceptive oral tradition, but there's no evidence of that.

So there they are, for what they're worth.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

50. But the question was not about the Bible

it was whether or not there is proof that Jesus existed. The Bible gives evidence that he did. Now if you expand the question to whether or not the Bible is truth, then you would have a point. But that is not what the OP asked.

[BurtWorm]

66. That is correct, TG.

The question actually was, what is the best evidence Jesus was a real historical person.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

69. Then you would have to at least count

the Bible as evidence. And then move on to whether it is credible.

[BurtWorm]

76. Exactly. Is it credible?

What do you think? What does Inland think, I wonder? He says it's the best evidence, but he can't seem to pull anything out of it that looks like actual evidence. To me, gospels look nothing like biography and exactly like mythology.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

84. And there's the 64 thousand dollar question

Is the Bible credible. I have no earthly idea, pun intended. A bit of history, a lot of myth, constant changes. What is left? I don't know. I don't use the Bible as the main guide of my life, but I do enjoy reading it. I'm not sure why. It comforts me, I guess. Just linking to humans through thousands of years comforts me.

My faith is internal, doesn't come from studying the Bible. It comes from asking questions and receiving answers, I guess. And unfortunately, you can't share that with anyone. Or rather, you shouldn't, because they won't understand and it isn't fair to them.

[MADem]

5. Hockey fans are frequently convinced

[4morewars]

13. Gretzky gets the rebound,

he shoots, he scores !

:headbang:

[SlipperySlope]

7. Same thing could be said about many figures...

You could ask the same thing of most historical figures from 2,000 to 10,000 years ago. For a lot of them, all we have is a written record.

I have no reason to doubt that a man named Jesus Christ walked the earth and preached to those who would listen. Beyond that, I don't know where the myth overtakes the man.

[bee]

11. "for a lot of them" examples for reference? Please? nt

[SlipperySlope]

27. Re: "for a lot of them" examples for reference? Please? nt

Socrates and Confucius would be good ones to start with.

Homer and Buddha come quickly to mind as well.

Short of royals and nobles, having more than a written record would be more exception than rule.

[Inland]

47. Please list all the people for whom there's no

contemporaneous written record.

Can't list them, can you?

Can we infer that they didn't exist?

No.

[BurtWorm]

70. Please list all the historic figures for whom there's no historic record.

By definition, a historic figure is someone whose life and actions are noted by history. (But note that history doesn't always tell the truth.)

If there is such a thing as objective truth, then either Jesus was a real person, as real as anyone alive today, or he wasn't. The Jesus in the Gospels is so unlike a real person in any era, it seems reasonable to doubt he was, in fact, a real person.

[Inland]

72. That's a tautology. The question is existence, not whether

Jesus is "historical figure". Therefore all you can do is say, hey, all historical figures have a history. And hon-historical figures don't. So?

A "history" has nothing to do with whether he actually existed in fact, and combine that with the breezy discounting of the gospels as history, you've pretty much tied yourself into a semantical dead end.

Go back to the question of whether there's evidence, and forget "history".

And I don't find it unreasonalbe to doubt if he was, in fact, a real person. But you said there' NO evidence. That's not the case. There is some.

[BurtWorm]

78. What is the evidence? You're pointing me to a romance and telling me

it's evidence someone named Jesus lived. What in the romance suggests the hero of it was a real person? Just the fact that he's a character in it?

[Proud_Democratt]

118. Leprechauns and fairies are historical figures....

but I haven't seen one.

[progressoid]

28. About the same as for King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

:shrug:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

55. I personally think that's a pretty solid analogy

I am teaching "The Celts" to middle schoolers this year and we've done a lot of reading about "the Real King Arthur." Lots of interesting clues, many manipulated throughout the ages for personal gain.

[Nikia]

98. There were other early writings about Jesus

Some of these writings that didn't make it into the Bible were found buried for the purpose of hiding them. The "True Church" didn't want competition so it went around destroying the other writings. Jerusalem was also destroyed. For those reasons, we could have lost a great deal of written information about Jesus, both accidently and purposelly.
Many of these writings were within a period of time that there could have been firsthand witnesses and most certainly second hand accounts, which would have had greater importance in an area that did not produce books and in which had many illiterate people.
Another point of evidence is that the Gospels and other writings have parts that wouldn't be in the Church's (Both the established and early persecuted churches) best interest. People don't lie to make themselves look bad. If things are included in a person's account that might make them or their group look bad, it is more likely to be the truth.

[PublicWrath]

106. but some would say that the presumptive dates of the Pauline epistles

(such few as are thought to be possibly authentic) trump all other writings in priority. And the Pauline epistles say precious little about a flesh and blood Jesus, only a theological Christ. Theologians and scholars have raised questions about this puzzling fact for a very long time and it is at the heart of a theory promoted by several writers who believe that Paul knew nothing about any actual person "Jesus" and preached a purely theological Christ, perhaps in the sense of the mystery cults of the day. Proponents of this view list many places in Paul's debates and discourses when he might have made his point handily with appeal to the life and times of Jesus, had he known anything about it.

In other words, perhaps Paul preached a savior whose death and resurrection takes place purely on a cosmic and eternal, rather than temporal, plane. As the reasoning goes, the abstraction was only fleshed out and historicized later.

I don't present this theory as a personal conviction, but since it has some respectable adherents,
I think it's worth noting.

[PublicWrath]

104. I think we can ALL agree on one thing:

Discussions like these are a whole lot more fun now that we've passed out of the age of blasphemy laws.. Just think about that for a moment.
Not that long ago, right here in America, people could be jailed for expressing opinions like many found on this very thread, or even raising the questions.

[Proud_Democratt]

117. Agreed

But you never know what could happen under the Bush administration!

[Proud_Democratt]

116. It could be..

all a lie. Maybe Christianity is based on a fictional character.