Did Jesus Even Really Exist?

[Minimalist]

Do I believe he physically existed-yes.

Which may be enough for you but it sure isn't enough for me.

[IATIA]

Do I believe he physically existed-yes.

Which may be enough for you but it sure isn't enough for me.

Even if the biblical account of the life and death of jesus was fully documented, so what! There is no god, so this man was nothing more than a 'strung up' delusional menace. Running around, tearing things up and screaming, "god made me do it!".

[Minimalist]

Even if the biblical account of the life and death of jesus was fully documented, so what!

As H. L. Mencken noted:

Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense.

Here you see why the morons cling so stubbornly to their absurd "gospels." With logic and reason against them they must insist that these spurious claims are accurate.

[Cyberman]

Do I believe he physically existed-yes.

Which may be enough for you but it sure isn't enough for me.

Slight but nominally relevant tangent: in 1877, celebrated Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported observing a network of channels on the surface of Mars. An unfortunate linguistic coincidence led to the confusion of the Italian word for channels, canali, with the more familiar English word canals, with connotations of artificial construction not implied in Schiaparelli's use of the term. Almost instantly, the public imagination was captivated by such visions as teams of Martian engineers building this vast network of canals in an attempt to irrigate the Martian deserts and revive their dying civilisation. These speculations were fuelled and even championed by, among others, the equally celebrated American astronomer Percival Lowell, who even drew maps of the Martian canal system. It wasn't until the Mariner 4 photographic mission in 1965 that the canali were revealed to be the optical illusion that they were. Yet that illusion set loose a wild goose that has been chased around ever since by the credulous, the ill-informed, and the just plain over-imaginative.

Moral: Not every popular belief needs a basis in fact.

[Angrboda]

Pardon me if this has been mentioned, as I'm skipping a few pages of comments to add my two cents worth.

That aside, you ask two completely different questions, A) did Jesus exist, and B) did the Jesus of the Gospels exist. These are two radically different questions, and I would feel no qualms about answering no to the second but not the first. I think the gospels are mistakenly placed into the genre of historical narrative, and analyzed with that genre's hermeneutic principles without particularly strong evidence for doing so -- and there are elements of the gospels which, if not necessarily removing it from that genre, indicate it crosses the boundaries of multiple genres, and an analysis of it on the assumption that it is strictly historical narrative and that alone is wrong headed.

I don't believe the Jesus of the Gospels existed, but I'm willing to maintain agnosticism with regards to whether the Jesus of the Gospels is not a reaction to real events, either of an individual, or individuals, or possibly even a social movement. I think, personally, that the Jesus of the Gospels is a) possibly based on a real, existing apocalyptic rabbi or rabbis, or a composite of them, combined with b) an evolution of the needs of social movements within the larger Jewish and Gentile communities of the time, akin to the aphorism that, "when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive." I think, along the lines of, "If God didn't exist, we would have to invent him," the Jesus movements satisfied a real need, stemming from years of oppression, the cognitive dissonance between the Jewish myths of being the chosen people and the reality that they were often the chosen victims (See Dever's work on the Exodus), the collapse of the Hasmonean empire, the failure of Jewish apocalypticism to deliver, and the change in leadership and governance with the waning of the Hellenic influence and the eclipsing by that of the Romans, who had a quite different attitude altogether.

Anyway. Pick which question you meant to ask, and discuss that (if you haven't already -- again, mea culpa otherwise).

[Angrboda]

Regarding hagiography, I'm rather intrigued by St. Eulalia, largely as a result of the Waterhouse painting (I love the pre-Raphaelites), her age, the name, and the involvement of snow (I'm a northern girl). Trifling reasons, I know, but there it is. (See also, St. Eulalia)

According to the Spanish-Roman poet Prudentius of the fifth century, ...she said: "Isis, Apollo and Venus are naught, nor is Maximian anything more; nothing are they...."

She was then stripped by the soldiers, tortured with hooks and torches, and burnt at the stake, suffocating from smoke inhalation. She taunted her torturers all the while, and as she expired a dove flew out of her mouth. This frightened away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its whiteness indicating her sainthood.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Running around, tearing things up and screaming, "god made me do it"

My mother tells me I went through a [very short] similar phase when I was five. I had just started school with the nuns. Apparently I went around being a real little stinker,then saying "the devil made me do it". My mother felt obliged to go and have words with the head nun.(the first of many occasions)


Puts me in mind of a scene from Braveheart,with the mad Irishman. He explains well OF COURSE he speaks with God;that's the only way he gets to have an intelligent conversation.

As an atheist, when surrounded by theist apologist,I can't do that so I talk to myself. The outcome is the same.

[Epimethean]

The dove flying out of the burning woman's mouth reminds me of the pig dinners in the Cena Trimalchionis of Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon. Love those silly stories!

[Minimalist]

This frightened away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its whiteness indicating her sainthood.

Sounds like the typical shit invented by the early church to impress the dolts, though.

[IATIA]

As H. L. Mencken noted:

Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense.

It would be possible to rise from the dead in those days. One word, coma. That still would not validate christianity or the assumed extension of god.