Did Jesus Even Really Exist?

[Mad Militant]

Looking at it from an Antiquity standpoint you have nothing to prove he ever lived. The NT can hardly be evidence for his existence since most of it was written 70 to 130 years after the fact. Antiquity goes not support a christian version of this jesus.

[Forsaken]

I have never read about him in any historical text or document (Bible is not a historical text, rather a story book) so in my opinion, he was a character in one of many famous fairy tales from the ancient times.

[Godscreated]

Apologists will try to tell you that he was a nobody to those who would have written the accounts. They like to work in a little underdog narrative. Son of god, miracles left, right, and center. Entirely unremarkable.

Just like what Lucent said about the Trinity, it's having your cake and eating it too.

Jesus' life was the "greatest story ever told", except that he was an unremarkable nobody that never got anyone's attention outside his band of followers.

Here's a quote from the "reliable eye-witness accounts" discussing this insignificant, unremarkable ministry that never got anyone's attention:

Matthew 4:23-25 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.

Yeah, totally unremarkable ministry. Just some nobody that no one ever paid attention to pretty much.

There are plenty more examples in the Gospel accounts. Herod Antipas wondered if he was John the Baptist reincarnated (Matt 14:1-2). A centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant (Luke 7:1-10). A wealthy woman sought Jesus out to cure her illness (Mark 5:25-34). Two wealthy friends of Jesus convinced a Roman governor to allow a crucified man a burial (John 19:38-42). A wealthy man sought Jesus out to be advised how he might be saved (Mark 10:17-23). John the Baptist, who was himself a successful religious leader, declared Jesus the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29) the one for whom he was to be a forerunner (Matt 3:3). All this is to say nothing of the established clergy at the time, for whom Jesus was a constant thorn in their side, so much that they met on Passover Freaking Eve to conspire against him.

Read the Gospel accounts. If you accept them as a reliable account, you do not have the option of discounting Jesus as an obscure figure.

I agree Jesus was well known by the common people and some higher ranking where He traveled. This however was a very small area and covered only three years of work. John the Baptist preached in about the same area and probably worked no longer than Jesus. Do you know of any others as low ranking in status that has a larger record in history, should anyone even expect that individuals of their status (poor as they come) would ever have a historical record. I believe another reason that historical records on either are so few that, those perceived as trouble makers that upstage those who have great authority influence those who write that history. Is it not true that kings often threatened to kill those who would put them in bad light and so history is some what skewed from what is true.

[Forsaken]

I agree Jesus was well known by the common people and some higher ranking where He traveled. This however was a very small area and covered only three years of work. John the Baptist preached in about the same area and probably worked no longer than Jesus. Do you know of any others as low ranking in status that has a larger record in history, should anyone even expect that individuals of their status (poor as they come) would ever have a historical record. I believe another reason that historical records on either are so few that, those perceived as trouble makers that upstage those who have great authority influence those who write that history. Is it not true that kings often threatened to kill those who would put them in bad light and so history is some what skewed from what is true.

So how did the bible survive all this?

[The Grand Nudger]

Casting the patina of doubt over what little we have with regards to antiquity does nothing to help your case. It only makes matters worse GC. Now I doubt the authenticity of any document yet to be discovered which would confirm christ's existence. After all, it could just be propaganda. Paid for a by a powerful christian sympathizer. Course, I bet that this line of reasoning only works for you when the conclusions reached are in your favor, right? You've got your answer, now you're just looking for ways to convince yourself and others that it's the right answer. Well, I remain unconvinced. Maybe if you let the evidence speak for itself without insisting that it has to conform to your preconceived notion of "biblical history" I'd take you seriously. Whats that? You don't have any, ah, I see.

[Mad Militant]

Apologists will try to tell you that he was a nobody to those who would have written the accounts. They like to work in a little underdog narrative. Son of god, miracles left, right, and center. Entirely unremarkable.

Just like what Lucent said about the Trinity, it's having your cake and eating it too.

Jesus' life was the "greatest story ever told", except that he was an unremarkable nobody that never got anyone's attention outside his band of followers.

Here's a quote from the "reliable eye-witness accounts" discussing this insignificant, unremarkable ministry that never got anyone's attention:

Matthew 4:23-25 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.

Yeah, totally unremarkable ministry. Just some nobody that no one ever paid attention to pretty much.

There are plenty more examples in the Gospel accounts. Herod Antipas wondered if he was John the Baptist reincarnated (Matt 14:1-2). A centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant (Luke 7:1-10). A wealthy woman sought Jesus out to cure her illness (Mark 5:25-34). Two wealthy friends of Jesus convinced a Roman governor to allow a crucified man a burial (John 19:38-42). A wealthy man sought Jesus out to be advised how he might be saved (Mark 10:17-23). John the Baptist, who was himself a successful religious leader, declared Jesus the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29) the one for whom he was to be a forerunner (Matt 3:3). All this is to say nothing of the established clergy at the time, for whom Jesus was a constant thorn in their side, so much that they met on Passover Freaking Eve to conspire against him.

Read the Gospel accounts. If you accept them as a reliable account, you do not have the option of discounting Jesus as an obscure figure.

I agree Jesus was well known by the common people and some higher ranking where He traveled. This however was a very small area and covered only three years of work. John the Baptist preached in about the same area and probably worked no longer than Jesus. Do you know of any others as low ranking in status that has a larger record in history, should anyone even expect that individuals of their status (poor as they come) would ever have a historical record. I believe another reason that historical records on either are so few that, those perceived as trouble makers that upstage those who have great authority influence those who write that history. Is it not true that kings often threatened to kill those who would put them in bad light and so history is some what skewed from what is true.

The NT is NOT an EYEWITNESS account of anything. None of the NT authors ever saw a physical jesus on the face of the earth. Not one! The Encloypedia Biblica states

that the order of events in the life of Christ as given to us by the Evangelists are contradictory and untrustworthy and that the chronological framework of the Gospels is worthless. In other words Mark, Luke, Matthew and John wrote not what they knew but only what they imagined.

New Testament itself contains the strongest evidence that Christ was not a real person.


Walter R Cassels author of "Supernatural Religion" considered to be one of the greatest works on Christianity ever written had this to say:

Quote:"After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels during the First Century and a half after the death of Christ."

The Gospel of Mark knows nothing of a virgin birth, a sermon on the Mount, the Lords prayer or any other of the facts of Jesus supposed life. These were facts added by Matthew and Luke. The Gospel of Mark as we have it is not the original Mark.
In the first (3) Gospels and the fourth you meet (2) different Christs. It should be (3).

(1). According to Mark Christ was a man.
(2). According to Matthew and Luke he was a demigod.
(3). While John insist he was God himself.

[DeistPaladin]

I agree Jesus was well known by the common people and some higher ranking where He traveled.

Did I mention Herod Antipas? As the ruler the local client state of Rome, you can't dismiss him so easily.

This however was a very small area and covered only three years of work.

I quoted you the very passage of Mathew that states that Jesus' fame spread beyond the small areas he traveled.

Do you know of any others as low ranking in status that has a larger record in history...

None that brought back the dead, cast out demons, healed the sick...

[The Grand Nudger]

So how did the bible survive all this?

It didn't. Que the King James and Apocrypha.

[DeistPaladin]

So how did the bible survive all this?

GodDidIt. Duh!

[reverendjeremiah]

If Jesus exists, then so must Hercules and Bachus and Mithras.

The same "system" used to suggest Jesus actually existed can be used to make MANY mythological heros and gods exist as well.