Was Jesus a fabrication of the Romans?

[Beta Ray Bill]

I was just at
http://www.examiner.com/article/was-jesu...the-masses

it is a story that Joseph Atwill claims that the Roman Empire created the fictional story of Jesus Christ in order to provide the Jews (and I guess potentially the Gentiles) a messiah and give a more loving version of their god, so they would be more pacified and controllable.

"When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

This is an intriguing theory, but I have a couple problems with it:
1) Were the Jews really that much of a threat? I'm no history expert, but I've never heard of overehelming Jewish missionary work. And they were crushed quite easily when they got annoying.
2) Why are there over 40 Gospels? Wouldn't it have been more useful to the Romans to write one version and stick to that?
3) what about Paul's writings? He was the first writer, but he told almost nothing of the life of Jesus. What purpose would his writings serve (especially since some of them were written in prison)?

This sounds like another Zeitgeist to me. Sounds good, but it just isn't plausible.

[downbeatplumb]

This is an intriguing theory, but I have a couple problems with it:
1) Were the Jews really that much of a threat? I'm no history expert, but I've never heard of overehelming Jewish missionary work. And they were crushed quite easily when they got annoying.

The jews had some major uprisings that had to be brutally suppressed.

Below is a link to the works by Josephus on the jewish war.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2850/2850-h/2850-h.htm

2) Why are there over 40 Gospels? Wouldn't it have been more useful to the Romans to write one version and stick to that?

Good point, if it had had one point of origin it would be consistent and was a mish mash.

3) what about Paul's writings? He was the first writer, but he told almost nothing of the life of Jesus. What purpose would his writings serve (especially since some of them were written in prison)?

This sounds like another Zeitgeist to me. Sounds good, but it just isn't plausible.

I agree seems like bull to me. The main point against it is that it really didn't work at what was supposed to be its main role of making less jewish jews. Hardly any jews actually became christians.

[Anomalocaris]

Two words:

No Evidence. There is as little evidence that the Roman invented Jesus as there is evidence for Jesus having actually existed rather than having been invented.

I don't deny there can be a third possibility, which is Romans may not have invented the myth of Jesus, but may have used subterfuge to consciously influence the development of the pre-existing myth in order to use the cult for Roman ends during some stage of early Christain era.

[DeistPaladin]

I've posted before that I've now embraced The Jesus Moot theory.

The only detailed sources we have are the Gospels, which are crap, folklore at best.

Jesus never wrote anything down about his own teachings. All we have are hearsay accounts that contradict each other even in canonical Gospels (most notably between John and the Synoptics). Then there are all the heterodox Christianities which only underscores that this Jesus didn't make much clear to his followers.

All the claims about the success, fame and controversy of his ministry seem unlikely since lesser religious cult leaders, like John the Baptist, got more mention from historians of the time. Nobody seemed to think Jesus was worth a mention for almost 200 years. Ergo, he couldn't have been much more than one of many messiah-wannabes who lived at that time.

So if you don't think he was a miracle-worker, we don't know for certain what his teachings were and we have no reliable accounts of his ministry, what's left?

Some guy named Yeshua who was a religious leader of some kind?

Ehrman can get back to me when he finds anything more.

[Minimalist]

http://atheistforums.org/thread-21310-po...#pid521172

[Rev. Rye]

And, once again, he was only able to get his book published on CreateSpace. If he did find proof that Jesus was made up by the Romans, this would be the archeological find of the century; surely he'd at least get a publisher that wasn't Amazon's vanity publishing arm if he had done that.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Sorry for the re-post, Min. I don't read every thread. Wish there was a way to "delete", ya know?

[Aractus]

This is an intriguing theory, but I have a couple problems with it:
1) Were the Jews really that much of a threat? I'm no history expert, but I've never heard of overehelming Jewish missionary work. And they were crushed quite easily when they got annoying.
2) Why are there over 40 Gospels? Wouldn't it have been more useful to the Romans to write one version and stick to that?
3) what about Paul's writings? He was the first writer, but he told almost nothing of the life of Jesus. What purpose would his writings serve (especially since some of them were written in prison)?

This sounds like another Zeitgeist to me. Sounds good, but it just isn't plausible.

No one takes Atwill seriously, he isn't even a real scholar to begin with.

Firstly I'll address the point that he makes that Jesus didn't exist as a historical person, this can be answered by any historian who studies the period, here is Bart Ehrman on that very subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w

I could have chosen to use a Christian instead, however Ehrman does just as good a job on this one.

[Minimalist]

But Ehrman's "evidence" is the same old shit which only convinces believers.

He spent his entire career trashing the very books he now cites as "evidence." Not very compelling.

[Simon Moon]

Richard Carrier does a great point by point dismantling of Atwill's premise here -

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4664


Carrier has a PhD.d. in ancient history. Atwill is an Internet millionare.