JESUS <3

[ignoramus]

Cherry picking again?
He either existed as described by the bible or he didn't.
We, as humans can extrapolate all we want, it doesn't add any extra credibility whatsoever...

[Catholic_Lady]

Cherry picking again?
He either existed as described by the bible or he didn't.
We, as humans can extrapolate all we want, it doesn't add any extra credibility whatsoever...

Hm? I think you misunderstood.

I think He is who is is described as in the bible. But usually when people ask if you believe that Jesus was a historical figure, they're just asking if you believe He was a real person.

[Anomalocaris]

I think such parts of the story of Jesus that could have had some grain of truth in some actual person were probably not all based on the same person. Some of these persons could have lived within a century of 1CE, or AD if you prefer. But some parts possible were borrowed tales about people who actually live hundreds or even thousands of years before 1CE, and whose already mythified tale passed into the ears of those transmitting christain oral tradition during 1st or 2nd century CE, and were accreted onto corpus of tales about their idol by these oral story tellers to embellish the foundation myths of their cult.

But it is possible, I think it likely, that largest fraction of such parts of Jesus story that had grains of truth in lives of real person had their grain of truth in the same person, and we might as well call that person the historic jesus.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I have another question, since it seems the majority of you don't think Jesus was any type of real person, does it bother you that much of the world uses His (supposed) birth to tell time?

I'm talking about the fact that we're in the year 2015... and anything before that is referred to as Before Christ? (BC)

Different civilizations use their own myths to tell time today.  What year is it in North Korea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_calendar

And we know about the Jewish and Islamic calendars.  It's like the minute hands on clocks.  They weren't needed until railroads were invented.  A standard calendar is a nifty way to know when things happened and when future events will occur.  It's great for planning purposes.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

We've been over this several times.  No one was named "Jesus" 2000 years ago because the letter "J" didn't exist until around the year 1600.  You call call such a guy just about anything else but he sure as hell wasn't named "Jesus" at that time.  When the writers of the fairy tale blow their own butts out of the water pver such a simple fact as that why would any rationalperson believe anything that they made up about a magical Jewish zombie when the word "Jew" didn't exist until then?

I'm sure everyone knew what I meant.

Sure, we know what you meant but since the fairy tale is completely inaccurate on so many levels the whole thing becomes a big joke.  If the original character is named "Buzz Saw" then it should always be "Buzz Saw" and not changed to an alias like "Bent Twig".  The fact that the writers changed all of the names of the major characters from what they should have been if those characters had been real people just proves that the fairy tale is a big joke and is not meant to be taken seriously.  

So the result is that "Jesus" is a completely imaginary character since there was never a person named "Jesus" until sometime in the 1600s.  Is it accurate to call George Washington "Xenia Fluff"?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I have another question, since it seems the majority of you don't think Jesus was any type of real person, does it bother you that much of the world uses His (supposed) birth to tell time?

I'm talking about the fact that we're in the year 2015... and anything before that is referred to as Before Christ? (BC)

Any date is someone's supposed date of birth.

Actually, respectable people say BCE, before common era.

I actually prefer A.D. & B.C.  rather than the asinine "common era".  What makes it "common"?  If this is the "common era" what was it before, the "uncommon era", the "pitiful era", or the "rare era"?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Does "historical" = " actually as described".
If the only jesus was the wizard in the bible, then ........you tell us?

Haha. I think historical just means that he was a real person. Not specifying whether He actually was who He claimed to be.

The "Jesus" character in the Gospels is most likely a combination of the three main Jewish rebel leaders against the Romans.  They were real people.  The "Jesus" character concocted by the lunatic Paul was strictly imaginary.  He created him as a vehicle to spread his cult as a counter to the Way cult, which he was dedicated to destroy.  So the exploits of the rebel leaders were written as religious stories under the banner of Paul's imaginary "Jesus" character instead of the actual political stories that they were.

[Catholic_Lady]

I have another question, since it seems the majority of you don't think Jesus was any type of real person, does it bother you that much of the world uses His (supposed) birth to tell time?

I'm talking about the fact that we're in the year 2015... and anything before that is referred to as Before Christ? (BC)

Different civilizations use their own myths to tell time today.  What year is it in North Korea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_calendar

And we know about the Jewish and Islamic calendars.  It's like the minute hands on clocks.  They weren't needed until railroads were invented.  A standard calendar is a nifty way to know when things happened and when future events will occur.  It's great for planning purposes.

That's why I specifically and carefully said "much of the world", not all of it.

[Minimalist]

Cherry picking again?
He either existed as described by the bible or he didn't.
We, as humans can extrapolate all we want, it doesn't add any extra credibility whatsoever...

Hm? I think you misunderstood.

I think He is who is is described as in the bible. But usually when people ask if you believe that Jesus was a historical figure, they're just asking if you believe He was a real person.

You are so tantalizingly close to "getting it."  You see, the Mythical Jesus is a very simple concept.  He's just like every other god, you know, the ones you don't believe in.  But when you start asking questions about the Historical Jesus you find that this supposed "consensus" that nuts like Randy trumpet evaporates in a heart beat.  Only the fundie nuts think it means a miracle-working, back-from-the-dead godboy.  More serious scholars keep making excuses for the drivel that appears in the NT but they certainly don't buy the miracle crap.  And what is jesusism without the miracles?

[robvalue]

Hard to answer. The jesus character in the bible is mythical, this is not an account of a real person. The only question is whether there was a real person on which it was very loosely based.

The problem isn't finding such a person, but rather that it could have been hundreds of people, and trying to separate them is pretty much impossible. The story is so far removed from reality that to say it's "based on" a particular person rather than another at that time is pretty arbitrary and meaningless.

Personally I think the jesus character is say 1% a mixture of several people around at the time, and 99% fictional.

I'm not sure what answer this creates in your poll I'm sure there were plenty of people around that time who fitted the very basic description of "a Jesus". Even the most basic information about any of these Jesuses is hard to come by and verify. If one person could fit the description, then plenty more who were similar would have existed too.