Did Jesus exist?

[GrandizerII]

I don't know how the gospels can be considered to be written historically when they contain obviously fake, made up elements that any sceptic atheist would instantly dismiss.

And I don't find it convincing that because it's written in a certain style (if I conceded the point), it's probably true.

So your logic is basically: if a story contains obviously legendary elements, then the story could not have contained historical figures in it?

Alexander the Great was born of a snake according to one ancient biography of him. Does this mean the biography could not have contained historical truths about Alexander, and that Alexander the Great could not have been true because of the legendary elements in the biography?

[Homeless Nutter]

Poor, relative to today, yes. Not incredibly poor, though. And certainly, relatively good evidence for those times.

No - poor by the standard of a political organization, which controlled the flow of information in large part of the world for millenia and actively destroyed historical documentation, that disagreed with its interest. I'm talking, of course, about RCC. The few bits of "pulp fiction" they chose to represent the origin of their ideology are laughable.

And why compare to Batman? Why not to Sai Baba? [...]

It doesn't matter. With some luck - if long enough time passes, it could be either. Which is the point - if Jesus did exists, he needn't have bothered his a*se.

But the books of the Bible weren't brought together from day one of being written, were they? So each should be treated by default as an independent work unless shown to be otherwise.

And they have been shown to be based on one another. We also have many "heretical" gospels - even now, after all the christian book burning - that show often very drastically different accounts of events. So why should I assume that the christian committee, few hundred years after the fact, chose the only books that were "historical" and not simply the few that were convenient for the church and "happened" to be based off of one another? Because "scholars"? Bah. Biblical scholars are paid to study the bible. If they concluded, that it's all horse-sh*t, they'd be out of a job...


The problem with Jesus, is that he's conveniently "low key". Like god of the gaps, that retreats whenever we obtain actual knowledge, so does the significance of Jesus. He used to be "King of the Jews". Now, that we have no independent, credible accounts of his existence - he's just some dude in the desert, that nobody important ever thought to write about, so we're supposed to allow for a lower treshold of evidence...

[The Grand Nudger]

The stories are complementary and -generally- consistent because they were chosen to be so.  Pick any attribute of the historical jesi you have in mind and I will find apocrypha that disagrees.  

The criterion of embarrassment is a joke.  It's a joke when they argue for magical jesus with it, it's a joke when they argue for historical jesus with it.  It just can't tell you what you want to know.

The weakness of the case for some other historical figure(or a large group of them) does not make a case for historical jesus.

I understand that people are approaching this from the "how else do we explain christianity" ledge...but that's just the die for lie song and dance worded another way.  All that is needed for jesus stories, all that is needed for jesus stories to agree with each other, and all that is needed for people to believe in jesus stories..............are jesus stories.  Not historical jesi.  I know it's unflattering, you want to believe it took more for people to believe, that theres a satisfying explanation for the rise of christianity.  It doesn't, and there isn't.

 Look at all the christians around you.  The stories are all they know, and they believe.

[robvalue]

I don't care about other historical figures, I haven't studied them.

I don't consider an account to be very reliable when it has made up elements in it. I think this is a pretty sensible attitude. I'm not saying nothing else in it happened, just that I'm certainly not going to take their word for it. I would hope other historical figures have more behind them than just stories like these. If they don't, well, I wouldn't believe they necessarily existed either.

If the default historical position is to believe everything you read unless it can be proved wrong, then history is a bit bollocks.

I think I'll leave this now, I've said everything I can usefully say.

[FebruaryOfReason]

If Jesus existed, he was very good at slicing bread and fishes into really thin slices...

[The Grand Nudger]

That's one of the best stories in the NT, right there.  There isn't a single bit of jesus in it, detail and all, that isn't theology.   It's a masterful example of mythmaking.

[robvalue]

It seems like the mythicists position is being widely misunderstood, intentionally or otherwise. I can see it becoming the prevailing one though, in the near future. If it isn't already, among non-Christian scholars. I don't have any figures.

[Cephus]

It would have to be virtually all of the events grossly exaggerated because all of the supernatural stuff is complete and total bunk.  But still, that means nothing because for theists, it is the supernatural crap that they care about and any real person, however accurately the Bible describes them, is not the Jesus that these people have religious faith in.

So again, it's all a waste of time.  The Jesus of Christianity is not the Jesus of history, no matter what that happens to be.

No, not all grossly exaggerated.

My position, which is no different from the position mainstream scholarship holds (outside of Christian circles, that is), is that:

Jesus was from Nazareth (no gross exaggerations there)
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist
Jesus had disciples who believed he was the Messiah
Jesus preached to many and was seen as a miracle healer by easily suggestible people
Jesus was crucified

None of those events were legendary in nature, they could have happened. So Jesus could have been historical in at least some of these scenes in the Bible.

That Sai Baba had many of his events exaggerated does not mean that Sai Baba never existed or that the real Sai Baba was so hidden by the Sai Baba of the legends that they're two almost completely different people. Same with Jesus.

But those are not the fundamental things that Christians believe.  None of those things make a bit of difference.  Without being the Son of God, without rising from the dead, without actually performing miracles and dying on the cross for the redemption of humanity, you're just talking about a guy.  Christians aren't talking about just a guy.  The elements you've pulled out of the story are irrelevant to the things that Christians find important about the story.

So it's all just a waste of time.

[Minimalist]

There was no unified Bible anyway until way later on.

And that, right there, is the fucking problem.  It does not matter when a story originated.  What matters is the last time it was edited.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

That's one of the best stories in the NT, right there.  There isn't a single bit of jesus in it, detail and all, that isn't theology.   It's a masterful example of mythmaking.

The story about the loaves and fish is a story about the power of sharing.  If people aren't misers and share with others everyone can have enough and maybe have some left over.  It's a parable starring the Jesus character.  It also reinforces the idea expressed in the Gospels about giving to those who ask.  http://www.bricktestament.com/the_teachi...05_41.html