Why do atheists even bother about debating Jesus?

[Confused Ape]

If there was a real Jesus somewhere he may not have been that remarkable by the standards of the time.

I've been googling for the Jewish views of Jesus and this one by a Rabbi is fairly typical.

Jesus The Jew

To most Jews of Jesus’ age (although not necessarily to Jesus himself) ‘salvation’ meant ‘regime change’. Those advocating regime change were often called Messiah’s by the Jews. The Romans crucified those who advocated such change. It was their customary death penalty; thousands of Jews were put to death in that manner for a host of reasons.

The Romans were particularly concerned about crowd control during the pilgrimage festivals when many hundreds of thousands of Jews descended on Jerusalem. Many were opposed to Roman rule and crowds tended to encourage and escalate the opposition. The Sadducees cooperated with the Romans to suppress any opposition. The High Priest (Caiaphas) was a Roman appointee, not from the priestly family of Zadok (appointed by King David - 2 Sam. 8:17). When Jesus overturned the tables at the Temple the Sadducees had him arrested. Pontius Pilate the Roman Prefect was led to believe he claimed to be a Messiah; a pretender to the throne of Caesar. There were at the time Jewish pretenders claiming to be the King of Israel. At his trial before Pilate Jesus probably spoke of God and his being God’s agent. Pilate and Jesus could hardly understand each other. Pilate had Jesus crucified as a royal pretender.

So what did Messiah mean at the time?

Messiah Judaism

The literal translation of the Hebrew word moshiach (messiah) is “anointed,” which refers to a ritual of consecrating someone or something by putting holy oil upon it.[1 Sam. 10:1-2] It is used throughout the Hebrew Bible in reference to a wide variety of individuals and objects; for example, a Jewish king,[1 Kings 1:39] Jewish priests,[Lev. 4:3] and prophets,[Isa. 61:1] the Jewish Temple and its utensils,[Ex. 40:9-11] unleavened bread,[Num. 6:15] and a non-Jewish king (Cyrus king of Persia).[Isa. 45:1]

So, the Romans were up to their ears in pretenders to the throne and men who could have been called messiahs in the mundane meaning of the word. From that point of view Jesus would have been forgotten if some of his followers hadn't claimed to see him after he'd been executed and this leading to Christianity.

It's not like Jesus's followers thinking they'd seen him is particularly unusual, either. After A Loved One Dies, Most People See Ghosts

The dead stay with us, that much is clear. They remain in our hearts and minds, of course, but for many people they also linger in our senses—as sights, sounds, smells, touches or presences. Grief hallucinations are a normal reaction to bereavement but are rarely discussed, because people fear they might be considered insane or mentally destabilised by their loss. As a society we tend to associate hallucinations with things like drugs and mental illness, but we now know that hallucinations are common in sober healthy people and that they are more likely during times of stress.

The notion of a wandering preacher in pre-70 AD Judaea would have been an insult to the institution of the temple.

Not according to Jewish scholars. They don't find anything odd about the idea of Jesus being a wandering preacher. What they're objecting to is Christians claiming that he was THE Jewish Messiah and he went around teaching something that wasn't Judaism. They've been looking at what Jesus is supposed to have taught in the Gospels and can't find anything which wasn't Jewish for first century Judaism.

From the article.

As a Jewish Rabbi, I understand Jesus’ Jewishness. This article treats the Historical Jesus and not the Jesus of Christian Faith who is ‘the Way and the Truth and the Life’. That is not part of my or Jesus’ tradition. Those definitions of faith to Jews are the Tnakh (Old Testament) and its oral commentary which continues until today. What is acceptable in my tradition is Jesus as a potential Jewish Messiah who was crucified in 30 CE. From my perspective and analysis of the scriptures and other texts I view Jesus as a charismatic radical Jewish Rabbi. In some ways he is comparable to the radical Prophet Jeremiah almost killed by the Jews several times, the Priests from Qumran who rejected the Temple and its Priesthood, Rabbi Hillel the Elder, the greatest sage of his day who during Jesus’ lifetime was considered a dangerous radical and Honi Ha’magil (the Circle Maker) a charismatic and miracle worker who called God ‘Abba’ – Father - and who made demands of his Abba.

That view of Jesus having existed in the heavenly realms is the one described in the Pauline Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The idea of a Jesus having lived on Earth as a human just is not those writings.

That's the conclusion that people would come to from studying what the Gnostic Christians and Paul said. Jewish scholars aren't sure that Jesus existed but have no problems when it comes to thinking that he might have been just one more Jewish male who annoyed the Romans.

Given the resources of the church (from the 4th century onwards) you would expect such evidence to be around, the church would have used it's resources to preserve such evidence. However it is not there, which is in my view quite fishy.

The Roman Christian faction was promoting the belief that Jesus was some kind of divine being etc. Once they took control of Christianity they called other Christian sects heretics and did everything they could to eradicate them. Any evidence that Jesus was just an ordinary human would have ended up on a bonfire because it would have made nonsense of the belief that was being promoted.

Nothing that Judaism says actually proves that Jesus existed, of course, but Jewish scholars don't think it's impossible when he's looked at from a Jewish perspective.