Any Historical Sources That Dispute The Existence Of Jesus?

[Xavier]

Are there any early sources that dispute the existence of Jesus from the early period of Christianity from say around the 3rd to 5th century?

I'm not aware of any but I don't know a great deal about the subject.

[JoeUnseen]

There is a book: Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All by David Fitzgerald.

On Amazon

And David Fitzgerald gave a talk about this topic at Skepticon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvleOBYTrDE

Good stuff.

[Minimalist]

No.

Roman sources do not even begin to notice xtians until the 2d century.

It is not until Celsus in the late 2d century that discussions about doctrine are undertaken.

The only reason we have any idea what Celsus said is because the xtian writer, Origen, copied large portions of Celsus' work in an attempt to refute them in the 3d century. Celsus' book was burned by xtian thugs but the portions that Origen copied escaped the flames of xtian stupidity. Origen was himself later declared to be a heretic because of the changing of the supposedly "unchanging" church doctrine. Fortunately the thugs did not think to go back and burn his books.

[Xavier]

No.

Roman sources do not even begin to notice xtians until the 2d century.

I know that but but you'd think some non Christian writers would have written evaluating the historicity of Jesus in the 4th and 5th century when it became the main religion of the empire.

[Jackalope]

No.

Roman sources do not even begin to notice xtians until the 2d century.

I know that but but you'd think some non Christian writers would have written evaluating the historicity of Jesus in the 4th and 5th century when it became the main religion of the empire.

You also might suspect that any such writings would be considered heretical and destroyed.

[Welsh cake]

Are there any early sources that dispute the existence of Jesus

A shred of historical evidence that he ever existed would be nice.

Proponents of the Biblical Jesus Christ myth who performed laws-of-physics-violating-miracles need confirmers, not refuters, for their claims remember.

[Forsaken]

the bible itself! (Although it can not be considered a source, being a fairy tale).
If you read that damn book carefully, you will find that it first shits, eats its own shit, regurgitates that shit and finally rolls in it. No wonder you will find many christians doing the exact same thing...

[Zavdiel]

Are there any early sources that dispute the existence of Jesus from the early period of Christianity from say around the 3rd to 5th century?

I'm not aware of any but I don't know a great deal about the subject.

In a word, no. The closest you can get are Docetic writers who said that Jesus appeared to have material existence, but was in fact a purely "spiritual" being. The Docetists made this philosophical move in order to reconcile belief in Jesus with their Gnostic outlook (simply put, that materiality is evil, and people's "immaterial souls" needed to be saved from it).

What you find instead in non-Christian (even anti-Christian) sources are arguments or comments about Jesus that presuppose his existence. For example, one of Celsus' arguments (since he was mentioned in another post) against the virgin birth was that Jesus' father was actually a soldier called Panthera. Origen quotes Celsus on this in this passage from Contra Celsum:

But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that "when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera;" and let us see whether those who have blindly concocted these fables about the adultery of the Virgin with Panthera, and her rejection by the carpenter, did not invent these stories to overturn His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost: for they could have falsified the history in a different manner, on account of its extremely miraculous character, and not have admitted, as it were against their will, that Jesus was born of no ordinary human marriage. It was to be expected, indeed, that those who would not believe the miraculous birth of Jesus would invent some falsehood. And their not doing this in a credible manner, but (their) preserving the fact that it was not by Joseph that the Virgin conceived Jesus, rendered the falsehood very palpable to those who can understand and detect such inventions.[1]

But this argument only makes sense if it is an alternative explanation of a really-existing Jesus - it makes no sense to argue against the virgin birth of a non-existent figure. The lack of ancient sources positively asserting or presupposing the non-existence of Jesus means that any defense of that belief today necessarily has to be, at most, based on an argument from silence (and very often, it has to be said, such defenses do not even rise to the level of argumentation). The obvious existence and coherence of ancient sources from both Christian and non-Christian sources making historical claims about Jesus, means that an argument from silence requires reasons to doubt the reliability of all these sources (whether textually or historically) before it can even get off the ground. The only way, it seems to me, to even be rationally agnostic about the existence of Jesus is to accept criteria for ancient historiography which cannot themselves be rationally held.

[1] Origen, Contra Celsum, Chapter XXXII. Notably, Origen argues on historical grounds - not theological or philosophical ones - reasons to accept the virgin birth.

[DeistPaladin]

The Bible

1John 4:1-3
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

2John 1:7
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

The fact that there were many Christians who thought of Jesus as a spiritual apparition rather than as a real flesh-and-blood person is attested by the fact that refuting this position required not just one canonical letter but two.

What I find really interesting about these passages is they implore the reader to believe that Jesus was a flesh and blood person not based on recent history but on faith.

[The Grand Nudger]

The Iliad presupposes the existence of Athena, so what? What a long winded way to say "I have no evidence".