Historical Jesus

[Neon Genesis]

Why is it that even when some people disbelieve in a literal, inerrant word of God, they'll still continue to believe that there was a literal Jesus who existed as a historical figure, when there is no evidence outside of these biased fictional religious writings that Jesus existed? It seems like even most unbelievers will accept that a historical Jesus existed, but I don't understand why when there is no evidence besides religious writings he existed, and anything that might have been "evidence" has already been proven by biblical scholars as being forgeries. Is it because it's less extraordinary to believe that a historical Jesus who didn't have magical powers existed in history than it is the mythological Jesus, so it requires less extraordinary evidence? Or is it simply for the sake of tradition that people still believe in a historical Jesus? When I first deconverted from Christianity, I still believed that a historical Jesus may have existed who was a good teacher but I didn't believe in any of the stories about his miracles and resurrection. But the more I read about the similarities between Christianity and older religions and considered the lack of evidence of a historical Jesus' existence, the less I believe in it, and the more I start to think that Christianity is nothing more than a big plagiarism of other myths. So, why do people who don't believe the bible is the literal truth about God still believe in a historical Jesus? Not that I have anything against people who do believe he may have existed. I'm just curious to know why people who don't believe in God without evidence will still believe in a historical Jesus without evidence.

[florduh]

I think Jesus is just a cultural "given" the past few hundred years. As discoveries are made, arguments against some of the Biblical claims have come to light, but there just hasn't been a public scrutiny of the Jesus claim like that. It almost seems an odd taboo that scientists and thinkers can attack the Bible, but not Jesus. Some do, of course, but not nearly as many.

 

Then there is our language. I mean, Jesus Christ, some people couldn't say two sentences without invoking the name. Jesus H. Christ, what's up with that? What in the name of Jesus is that all about? Holy Christ! It's part of the language, for Christ's sake! Jeeeeezus!

 

- Chris

[hereticzero]

Taking the fact that the Christians are known to lie through their collective teeths to further a lost cause, I really doubt the existence of Jesus in any form. I can't believe in a historical Jesus because the only history is what is found in the compilation of fairy tales called the bible. It is not whether the man actually lived or not, it is the story and religion that follows him that is the problem. People do not attack Jesus as much because they have been cowed into silence by the religious right that claims everyone owes them some kind of fucking respect for their beliefs. This is nothing short of narcissism in religion. Well, fuck the religious right. We do not owe Christians or any other religious group of loons respect for their beliefs. It is their beliefs, they can go home and respect them all they want.

[par4dcourse]

A story about a really mellow dude, healing, forgiving, promising an alternative to death, willing to die for you, all powerful yet human. It has drama, struggle, yet good winning over bad. It's the perfect fairy tale.

The early church leaders weren't stupid. They used the early version of cut-n-paste to create what was then an answer to all of life's worries. Join us, live forever in a gold mansion in the sky with the cool dude, or burn forever in hell. Hard to argue without any proof to the contrary.

Now why people still cling to that fairy tale even against mountains of evidence to the contrary................

[Neon Genesis]

Well, my question isn't really so much why do people cling to the fairytale, but more so why do some unbelievers accept that the bible stories and God are nothing more than myths because there is no evidence for them, but they don't accept the Jesus myth hypothesis and still believe that there was a historical character that the mythological Jesus was loosely based on in spite of the fact that there is no evidence for a historical Jesus whatsoever. Is it because it's just been a traditional belief for so long that people can't not imagine a "good prophet" existing or is it that unbelievers are trying to hold onto whatever part of their faith still made rational sense even in the face of a lack of evidence? Or is there some other reason that I'm missing here?

[Brother Jeff]

Now why people still cling to that fairy tale even against mountains of evidence to the contrary................

Satan put the contrary evidence there to fool us into believing that Christianity is Bulllshit.

 

God put the contrary evidence there to test our faith.

 

Take your pick...

[Abiyoyo]

Why is it that even when some people disbelieve in a literal, inerrant word of God, they'll still continue to believe that there was a literal Jesus who existed as a historical figure, when there is no evidence outside of these biased fictional religious writings that Jesus existed? It seems like even most unbelievers will accept that a historical Jesus existed, but I don't understand why when there is no evidence besides religious writings he existed, and anything that might have been "evidence" has already been proven by biblical scholars as being forgeries.

 

Neon Genesis,

 

History and science are two different things in my opinion. Science is a process of research, defining the known and theorizing the unknown, a process created by people. History is a heritage of people that defines people and their existence, also created by man.

 

Since history is among artifacts, cultural information, locations, sayings( whether written or not), myths, legends, etc; that excludes history from being scientifically provable or not. The great part of history is that someone can consider something to have happened just from legend, or cultural saying. Now, whether this thing is true or not depends on the story and if it can be without a shadow of a doubt, 'explained' in a conclusive matter.

 

Thats where religion and science don't get along. Religion is belief, whether it is mythological or not. Example. The early settlers where being killed by lions. These lions where thought to have spirits, by the Indians, that were causing the lions to kill the settlers because they were taking the land. History also discovered that these lions had abscessed teeth; in which some specialists have said this caused the lions to be very temperamental, seek slow prey, with easily eatable flesh.

 

The Indians believed this was the 'spirits' the whole time because they had no other knowledge to explain it. Knowledge, not science. History, even told wrong can either be explained or unknown. Science is a process as I described above. Science involved in history may explain the explainable, but has no use to the unexplainable. But, the point is that this doesn't make 'history' not history. At best, there are many knowns and unknowns about many religions, causing a gray area which leads to religion because it is the 'history' of all mankind.

 

Basically, Mankind is a little more involved than a lions 'spirit', or any other cultural myth of 'something' or 'someone' of importance, or extraordinaire. Certain knowledge and sciences have been either put away or put aside do to; I believe, personal, emotional 'want' of the idea of how we came about.

 

I personally could not deny there is a deity because all of science still can't pinpoint human existence. Its still, and I feel will remain theory. As far as my belief in Jesus; like I said, History is different than science. Christianity today is the footsteps of Christianity then, a history still in the making. Jesus, the disciples, Zeus, Greek Gods, Muhammad, Islam; these are all apart of history. Science may show the relevance of one or the other, but history lays out the story of these Saviors/Gods.

 

If science where undeniably the only source of confirmation of authenticity of these people, then Zeus would be considered the least in modern times; Agreed? Their is little 'physical' matter to explain the Greek Gods, yet it is a coarse in schools nationwide. Why shouldn't Christ, and Christianity be schooled nationwide? Think about it logically.

[Neon Genesis]

History and science are two different things in my opinion. Science is a process of research, defining the known and theorizing the unknown, a process created by people. History is a heritage of people that defines people and their existence, also created by man.

What does science have anything to do with my thread? Where in my post did I mention anything about science at all? And since when does history not involve research? I guess those discoveries in the pyramids of ancient Egypt just magically popped up out of nowhere, then? History requires research as much as any field of study does, otherwise we'd believe anything anyone told us about the past at all, and anywhere from Disney's retelling of Pocahontas and fairytales about George Washington cutting down a magical cherry tree would be counted as historical fact without any research. Do you even understand anything about history at all?

 

Since history is among artifacts, cultural information, locations, sayings( whether written or not), myths, legends, etc; that excludes history from being scientifically provable or not. The great part of history is that someone can consider something to have happened just from legend, or cultural saying. Now, whether this thing is true or not depends on the story and if it can be without a shadow of a doubt, 'explained' in a conclusive matter.

How does this prove that Jesus existed in history? That's like saying as long as I write a history book about leprechauns that includes artifacts, cultural information, locations, and sayings about leprechauns whether they were written down or not, then that proves leprechauns existed in history. And what do myths and legends have to do with history? That's like saying Paul Bunyan existed in history just because there are myths and legends about him but you don't see people claiming Paul Bunyan actually existed in history, do you?

 

The early settlers where being killed by lions. These lions where thought to have spirits, by the Indians, that were causing the lions to kill the settlers because they were taking the land. History also discovered that these lions had abscessed teeth; in which some specialists have said this caused the lions to be very temperamental, seek slow prey, with easily eatable flesh.

What exactly do early settlers who actually have left evidence behind that they existed in history have anything to do with whether or not Jesus who left no evidence behind of his existence really lived or not?

 

 

I personally could not deny there is a deity because all of science still can't pinpoint human existence.

What does the existence of God have anything to do with the existence of a historical Jesus? Do you even understand what this thread is about?

 

Jesus, the disciples, Zeus, Greek Gods, Muhammad, Islam; these are all apart of history. Science may show the relevance of one or the other, but history lays out the story of these Saviors/Gods.

Um, no, believers in Zeus, Greek gods, Jesus, and the disciples are apart of history. The only one of those you listed who actually has proof of having existed in history is Muhammad, which is more than we can say about Jesus. Going by your logic, Harry Potter must have existed in history too, just because the Harry Potter books have a devout group of fans like how Jesus has his fans.

 

If science where undeniably the only source of confirmation of authenticity of these people, then Zeus would be considered the least in modern times; Agreed?

Again, what does science have to do with this thread? You act as if history needs no evidence whatsoever when evidence is just as important to history as science is.

 

Their is little 'physical' matter to explain the Greek Gods, yet it is a coarse in schools nationwide. Why shouldn't Christ, and Christianity be schooled nationwide? Think about it logically.

Because people in schools aren't teaching kids that Greek gods are real and brainwashing kids into believing in their gods even if they don't want to. Christians on the other hand, do want to teach that Jesus is real and they do in fact want to brainwash kids into believing in Jesus even if they don't want to. And what does separation of church and state have anything to do with my thread? Again, you are showing that you have no clue what my thread is about at all.

[Hrothwulf]

I honestly don't see the problem in thinking that there was a historical Jesus. I'm personally not threatened by it.

[Neon Genesis]

I don't have a problem with people that do believe in a historical Jesus. I simply don't understand this double standard of disbelieving in God without evidence but believing in Jesus without evidence and I'm trying to understand why people do believe in a historical Jesus.

[Hrothwulf]

I don't have a problem with people that do believe in a historical Jesus. I simply don't understand this double standard of disbelieving in God without evidence but believing in Jesus without evidence and I'm trying to understand why people do believe in a historical Jesus.

 

Well, I mean, you'll find few historians who claim that Jesus never existed. Just because legends and miracle tales and visions collect around a person, it doesn't automatically mean they never existed. Sure, no contemporary historians really talked about him, but contemporary historians didn't talk about most people who lived back then.

 

I think it's much more likely that Jesus did exist, had followers, but was so unknown at the time that there'd be no reason for anyone to mention him. Of course, then his followers start multiplying, and start creepin out the local Romans, and THEN suddenly things come into history. By that time, the only people who cared about Jesus were those who thought he was the Messiah and that all these miracles happened, and you can't get an objective idea of who he actually was. The best we can do is reconstruct who he might have been.

 

Because I genuinely doubt that a messianic Jewish movement started based on absolutely nothing. From a historian's perspective, it's extremely likely that at one point in the first century there was a wandering faith healer who was called Yehoshua bar Miriam haMashiach.

[Hrothwulf]

I mean, I don't think that the Qur'an was the message of God via Jabril to Muhammad, but that doesn't mean Muhammad can't have existed. Same for Buddha, same for Mani, same for Joseph Smith.

[L.B.]

I mean, I don't think that the Qur'an was the message of God via Jabril to Muhammad, but that doesn't mean Muhammad can't have existed. Same for Buddha, same for Mani, same for Joseph Smith.

 

Um, dude, wrong. Muhammad likely existed, as there were other records (I'm told) of his existence outside the Koran. Again, Siddhartha Gautama was an ACTUAL prince; there are family histories and so on telling the world that at least a person with that name, at that time, in that place actually existed. Ditto for 'ol polygamist Joe and his loony friends. mani, I'm not sure of, as I'm not sure who that is. Fact is, however, that there is not ONE, not a SINGLE, not even ANY other reliable, factual historical record of Yeshua v'Natzeret ever having existed outside the bible. What's more, you could make the case that since 'Joshua' in the OT is the captain of the armies of Israel, and is involved in the prophecies regarding the "branch", the fabricators of the Jebus stories just used Joshua's name (which yehsua is) as the basis for their main character. They wrote stories to discredit the weight of Jewish law through the use of a character named 'Paul', and they founded their savior-god myth on a man who shares the name of the undisputed HERO of their times. Joshua, son of Nun, was the IDEAL for every Jewish boy and the hope of every Jewish mother was that her baby would grow up to be a leader like Joshua.

 

When it came time for the Roman empire to finally do away with the problem of Jewish liberation movements, they made it simple: the syncretistic pagan priests made up some stories about how the REAL Jewish hero is a guy who loved everybody, oh, and also wants you to abandon your thoughts of Jewish independence (Acts ch. 1) and join the new religion of Christianity. Ever notice how venomously the 'apostle' Paul rails against Torah-observant Jews who also don't want to submit to the rulers over them? Ah, yes... the odor of divine revelation. It's all bullshit and Jebus is a myth.

[Neon Genesis]

Well, I mean, you'll find few historians who claim that Jesus never existed. Just because legends and miracle tales and visions collect around a person, it doesn't automatically mean they never existed. Sure, no contemporary historians really talked about him, but contemporary historians didn't talk about most people who lived back then.

And yet don't we also have evidence for a historical King Herod yet none for Jesus?

 

I think it's much more likely that Jesus did exist, had followers, but was so unknown at the time that there'd be no reason for anyone to mention him. Of course, then his followers start multiplying, and start creepin out the local Romans, and THEN suddenly things come into history. By that time, the only people who cared about Jesus were those who thought he was the Messiah and that all these miracles happened, and you can't get an objective idea of who he actually was. The best we can do is reconstruct who he might have been.

If Jesus had such a big following that he even managed to creep out the all-powerful Roman government at the time, then why isn't there any records of Jesus' existence from the Roman government if he really had such a big impact on the Romans? It just doesn't make sense to me that Jesus would suddenly go from unknown to mega popular enough to be executed yet there would be no records of Jesus even though you just said he had a popular enough of a movement to attract the attention of the Roman government yet not popular enough until after the Roman government executed someone unknown? If Jesus was unknown until after he was executed, then how did people find out about Jesus if there were no records of him before his execution?

 

Because I genuinely doubt that a messianic Jewish movement started based on absolutely nothing.

But then the ancient Greeks created their gods and started their movement based on absolutely nothing and the Roman government plagiarized the Greek gods and started their movements based on absolutely nothing, yet it's inconceivable for Christians and Jews to do the same thing that the Greeks and Romans did?

[Hrothwulf]

And yet don't we also have evidence for a historical King Herod yet none for Jesus?

 

If Jesus had such a big following that he even managed to creep out the all-powerful Roman government at the time, then why isn't there any records of Jesus' existence from the Roman government if he really had such a big impact on the Romans? It just doesn't make sense to me that Jesus would suddenly go from unknown to mega popular enough to be executed yet there would be no records of Jesus even though you just said he had a popular enough of a movement to attract the attention of the Roman government yet not popular enough until after the Roman government executed someone unknown? If Jesus was unknown until after he was executed, then how did people find out about Jesus if there were no records of him before his execution?

 

But then the ancient Greeks created their gods and started their movement based on absolutely nothing and the Roman government plagiarized the Greek gods and started their movements based on absolutely nothing, yet it's inconceivable for Christians and Jews to do the same thing that the Greeks and Romans did?

 

You apparently didn't pay attention:

 

1) Herod was an important figure. Jesus, at the time, was not.

 

2) As I said, Jesus probably didn't have a very big following when he was alive, so no one would've cared about writing about him. Plus, when cities are sacked, written records are burnt up by the hundreds. When the Romans burned Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, written records would have been destroyed without care. So to be fair, part of the reason why we don't have a lot of records from that specific place in that specific time is because of the Roman destruction of the Jewish Revolt.

 

3) The evolution of religion isn't nearly as orderly and cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Religions like those of the Greeks, Romans, or really any polytheistic people, they don't just spring out of thin air. They evolve, like the rest of society. For example, anthropologists have hypothesized that Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians evolved out of the ancient proto-Iranian god Urmazdyas. They've estimated the same with Yahweh, estimating that at one point the ancient Hebrew proto-Israelites worshipped a whole pantheon like the rest of the Canaanite peoples, and that the Canaanite god El and another Semitic god called Yah became sort of blended, after much political and religious conflict, into one god, to fit the newer monotheistic ideology among the Israelites and Judaeans. Which would explain parts of the Bible where it says things like "I will be known to you as Yahweh, but your fathers knew me by a different name."

 

I know it's easier to go with a simplistic conspiracy theory-style explanation for religion, but it's just not likely. Don't be quick to oversimplify things.

[mwc]

I haven't been reading this thread too closely so correct me if I'm getting anything wrong but...

 

2) As I said, Jesus probably didn't have a very big following when he was alive, so no one would've cared about writing about him. Plus, when cities are sacked, written records are burnt up by the hundreds. When the Romans burned Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, written records would have been destroyed without care. So to be fair, part of the reason why we don't have a lot of records from that specific place in that specific time is because of the Roman destruction of the Jewish Revolt.

 

How does anyone know what kind of a following an HJ would have if there are no records of said person? Is it because there are no records that causes this statement? I doubt it because you go on to make further reasons for not having any records. Is it because the stories we have tell of a small, but growing, movement? If so, your own argument claims those were created long after the supposed events. And in those very stories we're told that literally thousands of people came into contact, and even followed, this HJ. This would make him an important person. Important enough that not just local people would speak/write of him (see Josephus for lessor examples...of course there's the TF but even the frauds, with smaller followings, get more out of old Joe). Yet this did not occur (beyond maybe Paul...who may not be speaking entirely of a HJ).

 

Anyhow, the main point I'm trying to uncover here is, with no contemporary records to go on how do you know what the size of a following of a mystery person, that you have no records for, is exactly?

 

mwc

[Neon Genesis]

You apparently didn't pay attention:

 

1) Herod was an important figure. Jesus, at the time, was not.

So, if Jesus was unknown outside of his cult following and was executed for being a public nuisance, but he didn't start to become popular until after his execution, and there were no records of Jesus until after his execution, then how did the people who converted to Christianity after Jesus' execution know anything about him to convert when the only known reputation is a negative one of being a public nuisance? How does a man sky rocket from a state of public nuisance to mega popularity without any sort of evidence other than his negative reputation?

 

2) As I said, Jesus probably didn't have a very big following when he was alive, so no one would've cared about writing about him. Plus, when cities are sacked, written records are burnt up by the hundreds. When the Romans burned Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, written records would have been destroyed without care. So to be fair, part of the reason why we don't have a lot of records from that specific place in that specific time is because of the Roman destruction of the Jewish Revolt.

But you're also making the assumption that the Jews would have been the only one with records of the existence of Jesus when you have nothing to prove that. If Jesus became as popular after his execution like you claim he did, wouldn't have it stand to reason that there were more than Jews who followed Jesus and so more people than Jews would have had records of Jesus? And if Jesus became such a popular figure with the Jews after his execution, wouldn't they have managed to secure at least one surviving document of Jesus that weren't forgeries of sorts? It seems awfully suspicious to me that the Jewish followers of Jesus would go through the trouble of securing biased religious documents and forgeries yet not secure any sort of actual non-biased physical evidence for Jesus which would help their cause more so than any religious documents would.

 

And why isn't there any evidence for any other popular biblical characters like Moses, or David, or Solomon, or pretty much everyone in the bible? And if any non-biased religious evidence was destroyed by the fires, why do we have any biased religious documents at all? Wouldn't they have destroyed those, too? If the Jewish revolt you're referring to is the one I'm thinking of, then it didn't happen until sometime around 66 BC. The Gospel Of Peter was supposedly written in the latter half of the second century according to most biblical scholars yet despite the Jewish revolt, the Gospel Of Peter still managed to survive into modern times. If a non-canon gospel like the Gospel Of Peter could survive for all this time in spite of the Jewish revolt, then why couldn't non-biased religious documents of Jesus have survived if Jesus was as popular as you say he was after his execution?

 

3) The evolution of religion isn't nearly as orderly and cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Religions like those of the Greeks, Romans, or really any polytheistic people, they don't just spring out of thin air. They evolve, like the rest of society. For example, anthropologists have hypothesized that Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians evolved out of the ancient proto-Iranian god Urmazdyas. They've estimated the same with Yahweh, estimating that at one point the ancient Hebrew proto-Israelites worshipped a whole pantheon like the rest of the Canaanite peoples, and that the Canaanite god El and another Semitic god called Yah became sort of blended, after much political and religious conflict, into one god, to fit the newer monotheistic ideology among the Israelites and Judaeans. Which would explain parts of the Bible where it says things like "I will be known to you as Yahweh, but your fathers knew me by a different name."

The point I was trying to make wasn't whether or not the Greeks evolved from other religions but the point was that there is no psychical evidence that Greek mythological characters like Zeus or Hades ever existed and yet the Greeks worshiped them anyway even though you claim it's unlikely for the Christians to worship Jesus without evidence of the existence of Jesus, yet the Greeks prove it's not so unlikely. And your proof arguments still don't make sense to me. In your other thread, you were just bashing the Jesus myth hypothesis for stretching the parallels between religions to disprove the existence of Jesus, but now you're turning around and using the parallels between religions to prove Jesus existed even though you were just criticizing the Jesus myth hypothesis for stretching the parallels before. Which one is it? Are the parallels between different religions a legitimate method to prove or disprove the existence of Jesus or not? You can't have your cake and eat it, too. It seems rather convenient for you to accuse others of stretching their claims by using parallels between religions to disprove Jesus but then turn around and use the same method to prove he exists.

 

I know it's easier to go with a simplistic conspiracy theory-style explanation for religion, but it's just not likely. Don't be quick to oversimplify things.

I fail to see how disbelieving in Jesus because of a lack of evidence is a conspiracy theory. That's like saying atheism is just a conspiracy theory to disprove the existence of God because it's easier to go with an oversimplification than to accept that God is real without evidence. Besides, I thought that according to Occam's razor, the simplest solution was usually the best one? It seems like to me coming up with all these hypothetical situations you have no evidence for to make sure it fits your viewpoint and disregard anything that might be inconvenient for your viewpoint sounds more like a conspiracy theory to me than simply accepting that there is no evidence for these claims of yours. As you say, if the existence of Jesus isn't "threatening," then why is the lack of evidence for the existence of Jesus so "threatening" to you?

[Lightbearer]

Historical Jesus rode a raptor, not a donkey.

 

 

 

[Hrothwulf]

I never said the "lack of evidence for Jesus" was threatening to me. I just don't see why people have to resort to believing that Jesus was entirely created out of thin air and that somehow there was enough there to convince people that he did exist.

 

To me, it's much more likely that a first century Jewish cult had a real leader, rather than no leader. Can't have a cult without a leader.

 

I don't want you to assume that because I think Jesus was real, that I think he was exactly as he's portrayed as he is in the gospels. I just think there are certain likely grains of truth in the whole story. That there was a dude called Yeshua, who did "miracles" to his few followers, and who for some reason was executed. There's no reason to believe that this was all impossible. It doesn't matter if no one wrote about him because, as I said, why would anyone write about him?

 

Hell, I'm not in any history books, but does that mean I don't exist? Now if I die tomorrow, then in thirty years someone who claimed to know me wrote a book about my life, but it was extremely embellished and full of nonsense, of course there's no reason to believe the nonsense, but that doesn't mean I never existed.

[Neon Genesis]

Some people "resort" to disbelieve in Jesus because there is no evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Saying that we should believe in Jesus without evidence to me is no different than saying we should believe in God without evidence or we should believe in Paul Bunyan without evidence. Regardless of whether or not Jesus actually existed historically, the fact still remains that there is no evidence for his existence. And as Mwc said earlier in the thread, if there is no evidence for the existence of Jesus, then there is no evidence for any of your baseless claims about what events occurred during his life nor do you have any evidence to back up your baseless claims about the level of Jesus' popularity before his execution. Without any evidence, if Jesus did actually exist, I think it's pointless for someone to make baseless claims about what Jesus did or said during his lifetime. To me that's like putting words into other people's mouths when you have no proof they said or did the things they did.

 

I also think it's pointless to try and use something as unreliable and fantastical as the bible to find some sort of proof for a more realistic account of the life of Jesus. To me that's like cherry picking which parts of the bible sound good to you to prove your baseless claims about Jesus when you have no proof of which stories in the bible are to be trusted and which ones are falsified. Nobody is disputing that Christianity had a ring leader that started it all. That's obvious enough to anyone but that doesn't necessarily mean that the ringleader had to be a Jewish carpenter named Jesus of Nazareth. Without any proof, how do we know that Christianity's ringleader was even named Jesus? Or if there was even only one ringleader of Christianity? What if "Jesus" could be a collaboration of these multiple first century prophets?