Reason Jesus must have been a real person

[The Grand Nudger]

"Paul" has all the problems "jesus" does.   

Nothing in those stories actually happened.   They're fables, myths, foundational legends for a nascent church.

[Fake Messiah]

if you are going to make up the virgin birth and correct lots of other issues (like Matthew did), why not fix Jesus' name as well? It really is supposed to be Immanuel.

Maybe because writer of "Matthew" was dumb as shit? Considering that in Isaiah 7:14 doesn't even say born from virgin but rather it was wrongly translated in Septuagint that "Matthew" was using. He was dumb enough not to know what it really says and also that the passage doesn't even speak about Jewish messiah.
Then again there are Christians even on this forum, who are quiet now, that claim that Immanuel is same as Jesus.

Another example is the story about Jesus being from Nazareth but being born in Bethlehem.

Actually Mark calls him "Jesus the Nazarene," while Matthew, John and Acts always call him "Jesus the Nazoraean."
It also seems "Mark" never intended to paint Nazareth as Jesus' hometown at all, like verses 2:1 and 9:33 he appears to have had Capernaum in mind as Jesus' home – a town which also had a handy messianic prophecy attached to it (Isaiah 8:21- 9:2), as Matthew tells us in his gospel (4:12-16).

myth of the Resurrection because there's no way an author would make women so important to the story (ie, Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb, etc).

Actually "Mark" ends on very sexist note. You must remember that "original" Mark ends with 16:8 meaning that women saw the empty tomb but "they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."
So, women panicked and ran away in terror! Ain't that just like a dame? Mark's gospel was written, at the very least, 40 years after the time it describes. Blaming those silly hysterical women conveniently explains why no one had ever heard the story before now, not even Paul - or any other Christian writer, apparently, since no one ever mentions this appearance to the women. So "Mark" is using M. Night Shyamalanian's twist of telling you now that Jesus rose.

With that keep in mind that none of the gospels agree on their names. Or how many of them there were. Or what happened at the tomb. Far from being a lock on the validity of the story, the "account," or rather, the conflicting "accounts," of the women at the tomb shows that nothing was easier to make up.

[robvalue]

Saying "Jesus is real" would be as meaningless as saying "Harry Potter is real", if it turned out the stories were inspired by some little kid called Harry Potter. Any grain of truth is so slight, so buried in myth and obvious fiction, that it's next to worthless.

The very best anyone could ever hope, in my opinion, is to pin down his place of birth, a couple of things he did, and his crucifixion. Personally I think even that is pushing the boat out way too far to expect any kind of accuracy regarding a single historical figure, and not some amalgamation of real and imaginary characters.

[Dancefortwo]

if you are going to make up the virgin birth and correct lots of other issues (like Matthew did), why not fix Jesus' name as well? It really is supposed to be Immanuel.

Maybe because writer of "Matthew" was dumb as shit? Considering that in Isaiah 7:14 doesn't even say born from virgin but rather it was wrongly translated in Septuagint that "Matthew" was using. He was dumb enough not to know what it really says and also that the passage doesn't even speak about Jewish messiah.
Then again there are Christians even on this forum, who are quiet now, that claim that Immanuel is same as Jesus.

Another example is the story about Jesus being from Nazareth but being born in Bethlehem.

Actually Mark calls him "Jesus the Nazarene," while Matthew, John and Acts always call him "Jesus the Nazoraean."
It also seems "Mark" never intended to paint Nazareth as Jesus' hometown at all, like verses 2:1 and 9:33 he appears to have had Capernaum in mind as Jesus' home – a town which also had a handy messianic prophecy attached to it (Isaiah 8:21- 9:2), as Matthew tells us in his gospel (4:12-16).

myth of the Resurrection because there's no way an author would make women so important to the story (ie, Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb, etc).

Actually "Mark" ends on very sexist note. You must remember that "original" Mark ends with 16:8 meaning that women saw the empty tomb but "they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."
So, women panicked and ran away in terror! Ain't that just like a dame? Mark's gospel was written, at the very least, 40 years after the time it describes. Blaming those silly hysterical women conveniently explains why no one had ever heard the story before now, not even Paul - or any other Christian writer, apparently, since no one ever mentions this appearance to the women. So "Mark" is using M. Night Shyamalanian's twist of telling you now that Jesus rose.

With that keep in mind that none of the gospels agree on their names. Or how many of them there were. Or what happened at the tomb. Far from being a lock on the validity of the story, the "account," or rather, the conflicting "accounts," of the women at the tomb shows that nothing was easier to make up.

Yes, you can scroll through  the Codex Vaticanus in this link.  This was copied in  around 300 to 325, and  there is nothing  after Mark 16:8.    This is a copy of the original Vaticanus Codex in a digital facsimile.  It's interesting to look at.     

http://www.csntm.org/Manuscript/View/GA_03

[Angrboda]

If Jesus was just a historical person, and not the resurrected miracle worker who healed the sick and walked on water, then he is no different than any other historical first century Jewish preacher. I don't worship those other men as God because they are unremarkable, and neither should Christians. Christians justify their worship with respect to the miracle man, not to him being an ordinary Judean. If Christians want to worship Jesus as an ordinary man, then they're welcome to do so. Christians don't care, ultimately, if Jesus was an ordinary man because they no more consider worshiping an ordinary man sensible than I do. So Christian claims that we have reason to believe that a historical Jesus existed are essentially in bad faith as they don't care about the historicity of an ordinary man any more than I do. That's not the Jesus they worship nor one that they would worship if he were that. They only care about him being based on a real person in as much as it supports their claim that the extraordinary man existed. Thus the issue of the historicity of Jesus is just a way to get to the conclusion that Jesus the miracle man existed. They don't care about any of the first century Jewish preachers insofar as they are just that. So the whole issue is nothing but a stalking horse for the larger claim.

[Aliza]

Uhm... yes? I thought you've studied religion. Christians put right in the front of their bibles that it "comes from the original tongues." Christians believe that the Torah predates the Christian testament. They have no problem learning Latin, but learning Hebrew is too challenging for them. Wonder why.... And even if we can't agree to read the Jewish version, I can still make the case that Jesus wasn't a real person with their own Christian translation. In their zeal to keep as much of the original content as possible, while also trying to appeal to a mostly gentile audience, they left some rather revealing boo-boos in the text.

Ah yes, the Isaiah 7:14 debacle of mistranslations.  Please Aliza, do your magic and explain this to the good folks.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at Isaiah 7:14. I’m a little rusty here because religious debates had kind of come to a lull over on TTA, so forgive me if I skip any details. OP, you proposed that Jesus must have been a real person because his name was Jesus and not Immanuel and if they were painting him into the bible retroactively, then they’d have named him Immanuel, right? But Jewish prophecy does not place a prediction on the name of the Jewish messiah at all. The whole Isaiah thing was ripped out of context by later Christians who were trying to find "proof" for Jesus in the Jewish bible. They stumbled on a passage that, with a little editing, could work as a prophecy for Jesus based on the virgin story they had already begun telling.

1. If the Christians are taking the prophecy of Immanuel as a messianic prophecy, then under these conditions, Isaiah’s prophecy will not have come true and the entirety of his book should be discarded under the rules stipulated in Deuteronomy 18:20. (You may have to read a verse or two around 18:20. I read a different version than you. The numbers are close but not always exactly the same.) IF Isaiah was referring to the messiah in his 7:14 prophecy, and IF Jesus was the messiah, then Isaiah told a false prophecy and Christian should, by the rules established in the Torah, disregard the entirety of Isaiah's works.

2. See the thing is, Isaiah wasn’t talking about the Jewish messiah in his famous 7:14 prophecy. He was talking about a normal child who was, at the time, in the womb of a woman who was physically in his presence at the time that he said. He said (and this is reflected in the Hebrew) “that” woman, a specific woman who he could point to at that moment, was going to have a baby. She was likely already pregnant and likely the wife of King Ahaz. Read Isaiah. Go back a little and read what’s going on in the story. He’s not talking about a messiah at all! He’s telling the king of a warring faction that he’ll be triumphant, and that he shouldn’t lose hope because by the time that woman’s baby is old enough to know right from wrong, the war will be over.

3. There’s no virgin birth. The word virgin isn’t even used here. It just says “young woman,” and there are places in the bible where a young woman means a virgin and other places where it doesn’t. Just as in English, age is not an indicator of sexual status. If a girl loses her virginity at a young age, is she not still a young woman? If a spinster of 80 years of age never lost her virginity, would she be described as “young woman?” And just to further put a point on the meaning of the word used in this section, the same word for “young woman” is used elsewhere in the bible to describe an adulteress. In truth, Christians were trying to sell their virgin birth story to gentiles, so they took this section, changed the word young woman to virgin, and without reading the context, they told their flock that this text was proof that Jesus was foretold in the bible. –And then they had the nerve to say that the Jewish people missed or ignored this prophecy entirely, thereby denying Jesus his proper title as messiah. –Because somehow it’s the Jews who can’t read Hebrew.

4. Last point. Isaiah is talking in this passage to a king who is worried about a war. He’s trying to offer comfort and assurance to the king. He needs some kind of evidence that will be of use to the King. Why then, if the Christian translation is correct, would he say, “King! Don’t worry! You’ll win the war, and as proof, I will demonstrate my prophetic powers by predicting a virgin birth 700 years in the future. Just wait and see! It'll happen, and then you won't have to worry about the war anymore. I’m sure that’s really helpful to you right now. K, bye!” The prophecy was about what was going on at the time in Isaiah’s life. Not about the distant future and a simple reading of the text will reveal that.

[Minimalist]

Christians put right in the front of their bibles that it "comes from the original tongues."

Well they put the Septuagint in the front of their silly new testament, I'll grant you that.  As far as that being "un-fucked" uh, no.  It's as fucked as all other holy horseshit.

Robert Price has a new book out called

Holy Fable: The Old Testament Undistorted by Faith

In this first of a comprehensive two-volume study of the Old and New Testaments, Dr. Robert M. Price builds a spacious and sturdy ark to carry Bible readers over the floods of mystery that have long perplexed them. Why are there multiple creation stories? Who are the -sons of god- in Genesis? What's really going on with those Isaiah passages that preachers love to read at Christmas? Putting a lifetime of biblical scholarship hard at work on perhaps his most momentous project yet, Dr. Price explains the mysteries without scorning them. The beloved old Bible is revealed to be indeed a Fable, but still a Holy one in its sprawling and fascinating way.

But fables are just fables.... and that is about as fucked as you can get!

[Angrboda]

Christians will simply say that there is a double fulfillment in the case of Isaiah.

[Aliza]

Christians will simply say that there is a double fulfillment in the case of Isaiah.

I know. It's silly. They tell themselves there's a double fulfillment in a passage about a false prophet who "gets stripes on his back" because his friends and family beat him because they're so ashamed of him for lying to everyone about being a prophet.

Anyone can go around painting targets around their arrows.

[Angrboda]

I'm a prophet too! It's just that my ambiguous words that refer to current events haven't been reinterpreted to point to something that I never actually meant!