Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Confused Ape]

Let Ehrman and other divinity scholars sit in their ivory towers and chase after The Historical Jesus through their dusty scrolls. I shall not disturb their devotion or book writing tickets any more.

But I would like to ask them just one question.

"What, if anything, can we actually know about this man?"

I've never heard any definition of The Historical Jesus which is any more detailed than "um, you know, he was named Yeshua and well, you know, he was a religious leader of some kind and stuff." Oh, well, then! Since Yeshua was a common name and apocalyptic doom crier messiah wannabe a fairly common pastime, you'd likely find several over the course of the first century in Judea

This is why I'm puzzled by Christians who are disturbed because some atheists don't believe there was an historical Jesus. This vagueness doesn't prove that the Christian religion is true any more than -

The Jewish View Of Jesus

Stated simply, the Jewish view of Jesus of Nazareth is that he was an ordinary Jewish man and preacher living during the Roman occupation of the Holy Land in the first century C.E. The Romans executed him - and also executed many other nationalistic and religious Jews - for speaking out against Roman authority and abuses.

Jews do not believe that Jesus was divine, the Son of God, or the Messiah prophesied in Jewish scriptures. He is seen as a "false messiah," meaning someone who claimed (or whose followers claimed for him) the mantle of the Messiah but who ultimately did not meet the requirements laid out in Jewish beliefs.

Jesus of Nazareth was one of many Jews throughout history who attempted to directly or indirectly lay claim to being the Messiah. Given the difficult social climate under Roman occupation and persecution during the era in which Jesus lived, it is not hard to understand why so many Jews longed for a time of peace and freedom. The most famous of Jewish false messiahs in ancient times was Simon bar Kochba, who led the initially successful but ultimately disastrous revolt against the Romans in 132 C.E., which led to the near annihilation of Judaism in the Holy Land at the hands of the Romans. Bar Kochba claimed to be the Messiah and was even anointed by the prominent Rabbi Akiva, but after bar Kochba died in the revolt the Jews of his time rejected him as another false messiah since he did not fulfill the requirements of the true Messiah.

This still doesn't prove that Jesus actually lived, of course, but I find it plausible enough to be possible. From the Roman point of view he'd have been just one more public nuisance. He didn't lead a revolt against their rule so he wasn't noteworthy enough to record.