Did Jesus exist?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not even remotely about sharing.  That's as good a lesson to take from it as any, though, I suppose.  The stories are about a divine miracle, a theologically pregnant divine miracle.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It's not even remotely about sharing.  That's as good a lesson to take from it as any, though, I suppose.  The stories are about a divine miracle, a theologically pregnant divine miracle.

Don't forget about the Jewish custom of hospitality and of offering strangers food when they came visiting.  Just because the crowd was in the wilderness far from home did not excuse them from the obligation of hospitality.  They had also been told to love their neighbors.  Sharing food is one expression of loving one's neighbors.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I may have drawn the comparison here before, but it bears repeating:  Jesus of Nazareth (or Bethlehem, the records are muddled) was an historical personage in precisely the same way as was Arthur of Briton.  In the first case, it seems highly unlikely that there wasn't an itinerant preacher stirring up people in 1st century Palestine and getting in trouble with the local cops.  In the second, the idea of a Romanized British warlord going about thumping Saxon invaders seems reasonable enough.

But you've got about as much chance discovering anything about an historical Jesus by reading the Gospel narrative as you have of learning anything useful about 'King' Arthur by reading Geoffrey of Monmouth or Thomas Malory.

Boru

[Aegon]

32 pages later and people still don't understand what constitutes evidence in historiography...

Oh sorry, I was supposed to be done with this thread. I'll see my way back out.

[The Grand Nudger]

No ones having trouble accepting that Aegon.  If this is the evidence, then it isn't good enough to determine who or if jesus was.  You've accepted a reduced narrative no more or less fictive, no more or less historical than the mythical christ narrative out of which we diced it.

[robvalue]

What is and isn't good evidence is still a matter of opinion, to some degree. There's no objective test. History is always a matter of probabilities.

Historians are great for identifying such things as dates, authenticity, writing styles, and so on. They don't get to just point at a narrative and say "That happened". Their reasoning still has to be valid.

[Aegon]

@Rhythm

I think you/they are having trouble. You can't accept the idea that fact can come from an ancient fictitious account. But when given examples of other people generally accepted as existing by the exact same standard of evidence, it's met with "It doesn't matter, we're talking about Jesus." But it does matter, because it proves that we have the same standard of evidence as them yet they're accepted as existing. So what's different about Jesus? Absolutely nothing. Why are mythicists willing to agree other ancient historical figures existed but not Jesus? It's because he's supposed to be special, right? Ignore that. That's not important at all. Looking at it from a purely historical, objective standpoint, treating him like any other ancient historical figure, there's no reason to doubt his existence in general. That is all I'm saying.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is laughably fictional, but it's agreed Gilgamesh was an actual king. There are no contemporary sources about the Second Punic War, but we know most of what happened from later accounts and it's those later accounts that talk about Hannibal, but it's agreed Hannibal was the Carthage military leader. So...there are no true contemporary sources about Jesus, and the Gospels contain a large amount of fiction, but guess what? Just like Gilgamesh and just like Hannibal, it is agreed: Jesus was a real person.

I think you have more of a problem with the way historians analyze things. Fine. Be mad at historians. But don't shoot the messenger. I've said it time and time again, history is not a hard science. It seems I haven't said it enough.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

32 pages later and people still don't understand what constitutes evidence in historiography...

Oh sorry, I was supposed to be done with this thread. I'll see my way back out.

*shrug* I'm an historian by education and training (if not by profession).

I'm concerned with the evidence present in history, not historiography.

Boru

[Minimalist]

According to the Enc. Britannica:

Historiography, the writing of history, especially the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials in those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination.

And if you try to do that with this gospel shit the jesus freaks lose their minds!

[Brian37]

Was Jesus of Nazareth an historical person?  I voted for the first option, "Yes, absolutely."

No, he did not. The Romans were apt census takers, and there had been an upstart blaspheming their polytheistic traditions you would have seen out side the bible, during the alleged period the bible claims, evidence of his existence. No contemporary evidence exists outside the bible during the claimed existence. The gospels were written after the fact and the real authors are unknown, and are also second hand hearsay. Tactus and Josephus don't count.

Now having said that, even if we found the bones of a man named Jesus and extracted DNA and proved he existed, he still would have been a mere man who managed to convince others to start a new religion. There still is no such thing as magic babies with super powers, and humans do not survive the death story as the bible would have you believe.

A movement did happen otherwise Christianity would not exist today. But so what, all that means is a group of people got tired of the old ways and took stories from old traditions and started a new religion based on that. 

There are newer attempts by "archaeologists" whom are really not objective, but apologists, who point to grave sites with family names on them. But since Joseph and Mary were common names, that is meaningless, and still even if, that would not make the claim of a baby being born without a second set of DNA true, much less a being that goes through it's entire life preforming magic tricks.