Did Jesus exist?

[Aegon]

Oh jeez, looks like I'm going against the grain again. 

It's just bizarre to me. You believe in global warming, don't you? Sure, there are a select few scientists that don't think man-made global warming is a thing. But there's a scientific consensus on it existing. It's the exact same situation here. There is a consensus among historians that Jesus existed. So why are you only listening to the select few historians who disagree? I mean, purely from a logical standpoint, there must have been an historical Jesus for 1) the Jews to doubt the divinity of and 2) for an entire goddamn religion to form. How could a religion form over absolutely nothing? Every religion in history has had its driving force. But anyway..

Aside from the gospels, you have Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus (and Lucian, who never seems to get mentioned in these debates.) Here's a comment from an historian on the matter. I think he says it pretty well:

On the global warming comparison, you're not even close. We have tons of independent evidence for anthropogenic global warming, we have testable theories and we have predictions that can also be tested. For Jesus we have one single piece of  evidence, written after the fact under the control of the claimants and known to be massively doctored. To claim the same evidential status for Jesus as agw is to poiso. The well agains agw.

History is not a hard science. That wasn't the point of my comparison. I was comparing how much of the scientific community agreed upon something versus how much of the historian community agreed upon something. When you speak in favor of climate change, you say 97 percent of the scientific community agrees it is real. The other 3 percent are crazy, or mistaking the data in order to push an agenda. And that's exactly the case here with any historians who claim there was no historical Jesus. No peer-reviewed journal would publish such bad history. That's why all the publications about Jesus not existing are only among popular literature. They're not taken seriously. And as for your "we only have one piece of evidence," no, we don't, that is incorrect.

Ps I also see your "reputable" historian friend includes the Testamonium Flavinium for evidence of Jesus. Given that the evidence pretty strongly suggests thqt it is a later interpolation into the text by Eusebius at c 325 CE I would suggest that by rights it should be ignored.

Actually the whole thing with Josephus brings up a major problem with the biblical field of historical study. If the only evidence we had for Octavian was a partisan biography full of magical fantastic events and a couple of small passages of authors eaqually removed from the events, of very doubtful authenthicity then no reputable historian of that period in Rome would accept him as historical. Yet that's the standard under which we are supposed to hold Jesus. With the same stanard I can prove that Fionn McCumhail tricked the Scottish giant by pretending to be a baby.

Hey, news flash: there are plenty of people in history who we accept as having existed that have EVEN LESS evidence in favor of their existence than Jesus did. A famous one? Plato! You think Plato was real, no? Well there's no hard evidence in favor of him being a real person. The only true, concrete evidence we have in favor of Plato existing is A) there was a large group of followers who spread his philosophy and B) there was an academy in his name. The biography of Plato is not considered reputable or reliable. Everything else about him has been established on part of speculation by historians. I know you must be thinking, "Aegon, I'm not stupid. Plato wrote a number of works. How is that not concrete evidence?" Because many of his works can't be proven to actually be written by him and very well may have been written by one or more of his followers. His works are heavily fictionalized. This seems familiar, huh? A philosopher who managed to amass a great number of followers with no solid evidence of him existing besides the followers themselves...

So with the same standard, Plato never existed. Be sure to tell the world your discovery! The philosophy academia is sure to be disappointed. 

I will always trust reputable historians and peer-reviewed scholarly work over people on the internet on things like this. But I thank you anyway

So you also believe that a million man army from Sudan invaded Judea. How many angels have you seen lately buzzing around with six wings?

Put on your historian hat for a second and realize that these stories can be used to pinpoint many true, historical things. Take the Greek tragedy Antigone for example. Do you think the play's events literally happened? No. But historians have actually used the play to make many different statements about the society in which the play took place. But you might say, "Yeah and none of the characters are real either, just like Jesus isn't real in the Gospels!" Okay, fine. Perhaps an even better example would be reading the creation myths and other similar myths from nearby cultures. What about the Epic of Gilgamesh? Obviously most of the events in that story are ridiculous are never happened. But it is agreed that Gilgamesh was a true, historical person, and all Ancient Near Eastern historians include him on their list of Sumerian kings. Are we going to argue about whether or not Gilgamesh was a real person? It is generally accepted that he was. Just like it is generally accepted that Jesus was, as historians apply the same logic to the Gospels. Yes, obviously mostly fiction. But you don't dismiss potential historical clues because of that. That's bad research.

I will always trust reputable historians and peer-reviewed scholarly work over people on the internet on things like this. But I thank you anyway

But apparently only if they agree with your predetermined notions.

I see no reason to respond to this considering you're doing the same thing, ignoring centuries of research because you read a popular literature book that none of the academic community takes seriously. It's not like I'm just one stubborn Jesus-lover. I look like I'm in the minority on here, but in actuality you are. 

Like I said above, history is not a hard science. You work with what you have. And by historians' standards, Jesus existed. Otherwise, plenty of other historical figures never existed either.