Did Jesus exist?

[GrandizerII]

Nestor's position (and mine) is that the Jesus in the Bible is the historical Jesus but with some of his events being exaggerated by the authors (and a few events that didn't happen). Not that the Jesus in the Bible is a myth but based on some anonymous character in history. Again, sort of like Sai Baba, who was obviously a real person, but whose life was made a legend with lots of exaggerations.

It would have to be virtually all of the events grossly exaggerated because all of the supernatural stuff is complete and total bunk.  But still, that means nothing because for theists, it is the supernatural crap that they care about and any real person, however accurately the Bible describes them, is not the Jesus that these people have religious faith in.

So again, it's all a waste of time.  The Jesus of Christianity is not the Jesus of history, no matter what that happens to be.

No, not all grossly exaggerated.

My position, which is no different from the position mainstream scholarship holds (outside of Christian circles, that is), is that:

Jesus was from Nazareth (no gross exaggerations there)
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist
Jesus had disciples who believed he was the Messiah
Jesus preached to many and was seen as a miracle healer by easily suggestible people
Jesus was crucified

None of those events were legendary in nature, they could have happened. So Jesus could have been historical in at least some of these scenes in the Bible.

That Sai Baba had many of his events exaggerated does not mean that Sai Baba never existed or that the real Sai Baba was so hidden by the Sai Baba of the legends that they're two almost completely different people. Same with Jesus.