question for all

[polar bear]

Probably the stupidest questions I have read trying to prove the way we believe history.

1. There were many people named jesus and I am sure a few made it into the history books

2. There were many men named George Washington, but only one was the USA's first president

3. Washington died about 230 years ago

4. a man named jesus (of which I presume you are talking about) died over 2000 years ago.

5. We have multiple eye witness accounts of Washington, not just from his inside group of men or revisionist historians

The historicity of a man named jesus is a lot different than the historicity of the biblical jesus, try re-pharsing your dumb ass question

[Napoléon]

So I would like to pose two questions to any who wish to answer.

1.  Do you believe the person of Jesus Christ existed in history?  Why (whether yes or no)?

2.  Do you believe that George Washington was President of the United States?  Why (whether yes or no)?

@ OP

What's the motive behind asking these two particular questions?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

1.  I find it possible, but unlikely.  The evidence for an historic Jesus is exclusively based on hearsay by people with a specific agenda to promote.  This makes the 'evidence' highly suspect.

2.  Yes, of course.  Not only is the evidence for George Washington irrefutable (extant letters written by him and to him, detailed accounts of him that tally with other accounts - some written by people who knew him intimately, some by people who never met him), but history would have unfolded quite differently without an historic Washington, whereas the history of Christianity would have unfolded much the same whether the person known as 'Jesus of Nazareth' was historic or mythic.

But I get what you're trying to do here.  You wish to make the argument that the case for an historic Jesus is on par with the case for an historic Washington.  Not to be harsh, but this is a stupifyingly idiotic position to take.  You put me in mind of the time a theist made the claim, 'We have as much evidence for Jesus as we have for Abraham Lincoln.'  My response was that if she could produce photos of Jesus, she'd make a bloody fortune.

Boru

[Minimalist]

1.  No.  Because there is no evidence beyond the pious bleating of believers who wish it were so.

2.  Yes.  Because there is a metric fuckton of evidence.

[Lemonvariable72]

So I would like to pose two questions to any who wish to answer.

1. Do you believe the person of Jesus Christ existed in history? Why (whether yes or no)?

2. Do you believe that George Washington was President of the United States? Why (whether yes or no)?

Since min here has basically stated my position for me I must ask, do you have any letters written by Jesus? Or too Jesus? No, then they aren't even close to equilevant

[IATIA]

So I would like to pose two questions to any who wish to answer.

1.  Do you believe the person of Jesus Christ existed in history?  Why (whether yes or no)?

2.  Do you believe that George Washington was President of the United States?  Why (whether yes or no)?

1. I have no real reason to disbelieve and do not care one way or the other, but I do not believe in the miracles and resurrection.
   
   
2. I have no real reason to disbelieve, but he did not cut down a cherry tree.
   

'His' 'Story' is fallible in an asundry of ways.

[Jenny A]

So I would like to pose two questions to any who wish to answer.

1.  Do you believe the person of Jesus Christ existed in history?  Why (whether yes or no)?

2.  Do you believe that George Washington was President of the United States?  Why (whether yes or no)?

The primary sources written by George Washington both in the form of letters, bills, even advertisements written by Washington are plentiful, and letters and documents to by and about him.  There are about 65,000 documents in the George Washington papers at the Library of Congress.  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html More at Jefferson's residence.  List of Primary Sources at Mt. Vernon  Many, many of those documents confirm his time in office as president.

There was nothing supernatural about his life, though as far as I know he may have believed in ghosts or horoscopes.
But we don't know everything about George Washington.  His childhood is much less less documented and there is a bit of a controversy of a cherry tree. http://carlanthonyonline.com/2012/02/20/...tree-tale/

If you really want to play the we-think-so-and-so-was-real-so-why-are-you-biased-against-my-Jesus game, you picked the wrong counterpart in George Washington who was an important man in the 18th Century. No one in the 1st Century AD, left us a record like Washington's, and it would be very odd if they had.  It would be even odder if a poor probably illiterate Jew had.   Tiberius (AD 14-37) would be better if you want to play the source comparison game.  The primary sources for him are The Annals of Tacitus, written about 109 AD, later even that the Gospels written about Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_%28Tacitus%29  The difference between Tacitus and the anonymous writers of the Gospels being that Tacitus had access to and made extensive use of the Roman records.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus   And while not entirely neutral (no one is) Tacitus was not attempting to describe a god on earth though in a couple places Tiberius was worshiped as one.  None-the-less, super-naturalness was not one of the main qualities of Tiberius.  

So on to Jesus.  We have the four canonized gospels plus three others and the letters of Paul and not much else.  Paul says very little about Jesus' life.  He knows Jesus through the supernatural as he tell us himself, or rather as he tells converts in churches he left behind.  He does say he met some the disciples though.  The gospels are not really histories.  They are not scholarly works explaining sources or weighing evidence in the way the Tacitus' Annals are.  Nor are they remotely neutral.  They are documents meant to convert or to sustain the converted.  And unlike Tacitus, they often conflict with other known history for the period.

So did Jesus exist?  I think he probably did.  But I think we can know much less about him then we know about Tiberius.  Given the almost immediate casting a recasting of his message evident in the gospels and the Letters of Paul, and the faking of letters of Paul it's clear that his message was immediately in dispute.  Figuring about what Jesus actually said and did, is very difficult indeed.

[Alex K]

As others have hinted at, what criteria does a historical person have to fulfil to count as Jesus Christ for your purposes?

[Jenny A]

As others have hinted at, what criteria does a historical person have to fulfil to count as Jesus Christ for your purposes?

It's imbedded in the OP's original post.  Was Washington President?  Did Jesus exist?  A more neutral pairing would be:

Was Washington President?

Did Jesus rise from the dead.

The answers to those two questions are pretty easy.  Yes; extraordinarily unlikely (so unlikely as to count as no for all practical purposes).

[robvalue]

1. The character in the book? No. Someone he could have been very loosely based on? Probably hundreds of people.

2. Probably. I don't know stuff.