Did Jesus Christ really exist?

[boyinasuitcase]

Did Jesus Christ really exist? Or is he just a legend? According to author David Mills, "there is not a single reference to a 'Jesus' or to 'Jesus Christ' written by any secular source who lived during the years in which Christ supposedly walked the earth" (50).

 

So there are no witnesses who lived during the time of Christ who could account even for his existence, much less document the miracles he performed (everyone was illiterate back then).

 

Then how can one put so much faith in his teachings? And if Jesus Christ really did exist, what kind of savior was he? If you look around, there are still injustices in the world - crime, poverty, diseases, and natural disasters. But besides being born from a virgin mother, Jesus Christ cured a blind man, cursed a fig tree, conjured up a jug of wine, rose from the dead, and...? Why couldn't he cure cancer, end world hunger, or prevent the Bubonic Plague?

 

*By the way, if anyone hasn't picked up a copy yet, I highly recommend David Mills' The Atheist Universe. It's an awesome book!

[Taphophilia]

I think that Jesus was an amagamation of many people, during that time and place, who went around preaching to the masses. There were lots of "Messiah's" running around the ancient world and I would bet that one or two of them were tried as a Heretic and condemned to death.

 

Why didn't Jesus do unique miracles that would set him apart from the other godmen? Why does he preform miracles that are centuries old in tradition and are been there, done that by lots of other deities?

 

Thanks for the book info, will have to check it out.

[boyinasuitcase]

I think that Jesus was an amagamation of many people, during that time and place, who went around preaching to the masses. There were lots of "Messiah's" running around the ancient world and I would bet that one or two of them were tried as a Heretic and condemned to death.

 

Why didn't Jesus do unique miracles that would set him apart from the other godmen? Why does he preform miracles that are centuries old in tradition and are been there, done that by lots of other deities?

 

Thanks for the book info, will have to check it out.

 

No problem. You might have to order it on amazon, though, because I had a hard time finding it in bookstores!

[Mythra]

Did Jesus Christ really exist? Or is he just a legend? According to author David Mills, "there is not a single reference to a 'Jesus' or to 'Jesus Christ' written by any secular source who lived during the years in which Christ supposedly walked the earth" (50).

 

There was no non-christian reference to Jesus prior to 115CE. (80 years after he supposedly died on a cross) And that quote only proves that the Christ legend was extant at that time, not necessarily that Jesus had truly existed..

Keep in mind that Tacitus also mentions other mythological characters as though they existed in real life.

 

And, you're right, Atheist Universe is a good book.

[scotter]

From Jesus of history to Christ of faith: Rudolf Bultmann's comment is concise and precise.

 

Good reference articles:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcse.htm

[boyinasuitcase]

From Jesus of history to Christ of faith: Rudolf Bultmann's comment is concise and precise.

 

Good reference articles:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcse.htm

 

 

Thanks for the link!

[Chad3232132]

I think that Jesus was an amagamation of many people, during that time and place, who went around preaching to the masses. There were lots of "Messiah's" running around the ancient world and I would bet that one or two of them were tried as a Heretic and condemned to death.

 

Why didn't Jesus do unique miracles that would set him apart from the other godmen? Why does he preform miracles that are centuries old in tradition and are been there, done that by lots of other deities?

 

Thanks for the book info, will have to check it out.

 

That's essentially exactly what I think about the subject Tapho. Most likely a symbol of a collection of so-called "messiah's" wondering around in those days accomplishing little to nothing.

[All Gods Fail]

And if Jesus Christ really did exist, what kind of savior was he? If you look around, there are still injustices in the world - crime, poverty, diseases, and natural disasters. But besides being born from a virgin mother, Jesus Christ cured a blind man, cursed a fig tree, conjured up a jug of wine, rose from the dead, and...? Why couldn't he cure cancer, end world hunger, or prevent the Bubonic Plague?

 

If I may? (Puts fundie hat on).

 

'Christ's ministry was not to make life on Earth easier, but to save us from eternal damnation in the next life. We humans cause all of our misery ourselves, and God doesn't step in to remove it unless it serves a part of His plan - which it rarely does.'

 

See? Simple answers from simple minds! An even better question would be, 'Well, if he's all-powerful and all-knowing, why didn't he just fix the sin problem at the Garden of Eden instead of waiting thousands of years and implementing this ridiculous scheme that's damned billions of souls to hell?'

 

The answer?

[Guest adriannastargazer]

An

 

See? Simple answers from simple minds! An even better question would be, 'Well, if he's all-powerful and all-knowing, why didn't he just fix the sin problem at the Garden of Eden instead of waiting thousands of years and implementing this ridiculous scheme that's damned billions of souls to hell?'

 

The answer?

 

 

To answer that question would really screw things up for everyone. Because for any "god" to Fix the sin problem would be to admit that he is fallable, and that would be the same as saying that he's as full of failure as most of his creation... that being man. the failure part is simply that we all can't get along, which is the main thing that was intended. That is why I deam everything in this life as a science experiment gone wrong.

[qadeshet]

Did Jesus Christ really exist? Or is he just a legend?

 

The myth of Christ is the latest version of the dying and resurrecting Sun god myth. It is unlikely that there was a literal jesus, but it is up to Christians to prove he existed, not for us to prove he didn't.

 

Is Christmas all based on a lie?

 

The Winter solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years. The Sun can be said to die on Dec. 22 and is reborn 3 days later on Dec 25. The Church decided that, like most Sun gods, the birth of Jesus should be Dec 25. Christianity simply borrowed the Yule ceremony, like all the rest of their celebrations.

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

See? Simple answers from simple minds! An even better question would be, 'Well, if he's all-powerful and all-knowing, why didn't he just fix the sin problem at the Garden of Eden instead of waiting thousands of years and implementing this ridiculous scheme that's damned billions of souls to hell?'

 

The answer?

 

 

And that ridiculous scheme isn't really all that successful, either,

because it still condemns to hell a sizable chunk of humanity

born after the supposed resurrection of Jesus. The christian god

is either crazy or not nearly as omnipotent as christians believe.

[Toxic]

One argument Xtians always use is the "There's more evidence for Jesus' existence then there is for Julius Ceasar or Alexander the Great". Has anybody else heard this one and what do they say to it?

[Kryten]

One argument Xtians always use is the "There's more evidence for Jesus' existence then there is for Julius Ceasar or Alexander the Great". Has anybody else heard this one and what do they say to it?

You could tell them that's a LIE! They won't be able to come up with ANY evidence for Jesus (outside of the NT books which were all written well after he supposedly lived), and it's not hard to come up with evidence that Julius Ceasar lived because we have actual books that HE authored!! Plus there are TONS of other things written about Ceasar, including legal records.

It's just another stupid thing fundies say because some moron said it from the pulpit and the gullible lap it up. Can I get an AMEN??!

 

 

Oh, and welcome Toxic!

[Heimdall]

There was no non-christian reference to Jesus prior to 115CE. (80 years after he supposedly died on a cross) And that quote only proves that the Christ legend was extant at that time, not necessarily that Jesus had truly existed..

I am assuming that you are referring to the passage in Book 15, Chapter 44 of Tacitus works that reads: "Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race."

 

Strangely, this passage was never quoted until the 5th century CE, when it appeared almost verbatim in the works of Sulpicius Severus, a Christian writer known for his skill in the “antique hand” (forging antiquities). While it can’t be proved, the passage is most probably an insertion by this individual. In his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Edward Gibbon alluded to the fact that the term “Christian” was not in use during the reign of Nero (the period Tacitus was writing) and that it was the Jews (whom Roman officials could only tell from the fledgling Christians by checking for a circumcision) - ‘Their effects to dissemble their Jewish origins were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets.’ – Edward Gibbon. As you said, the mention of Christians no more proves the existence of Jesus than does the mention of Mithrans prove the existence of Mithra - Heimdall

[spamandham]

One argument Xtians always use is the "There's more evidence for Jesus' existence then there is for Julius Ceasar or Alexander the Great". Has anybody else heard this one and what do they say to it?

 

I say, "so what"? If neither Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great existed, what difference does it make?

 

I'm willing to accept the possibility that everything we think we know about history is distorted and much of it outright false. That doesn't impact my "world view".

 

(of course, the premise is crap anyway, but it's easier to just get them to realize that it really makes no difference if these men were mythical)

[Toxic]

You could tell them that's a LIE! They won't be able to come up with ANY evidence for Jesus (outside of the NT books which were all written well after he supposedly lived), and it's not hard to come up with evidence that Julius Ceasar lived because we have actual books that HE authored!! Plus there are TONS of other things written about Ceasar, including legal records.

It's just another stupid thing fundies say because some moron said it from the pulpit and the gullible lap it up. Can I get an AMEN??!

 

 

Oh, and welcome Toxic!

 

Thanks Kryten, I think they probably read it in a book whose author just happened to be a fundamentalist christian and jumped to this conclusion after lots of "meticulous and unbiased" research

[Checkmate]

................

It's just another stupid thing fundies say because some moron said it from the pulpit and the gullible lap it up. Can I get an AMEN??!

...............

"ALMOND!"

[Thurisaz]

It's just another stupid thing fundies say because some moron said it from the pulpit and the gullible lap it up. Can I get an AMEN??!

 

Ramen

[greasemonkey]

Actually, there are a few more than just the one cited by Tacitus. I've heard quite a few preachers pull out some of them as "extra-biblical proof" of the existence of Jesus. Here is a great link that debunks pretty much all of them. It's a great site (not to mention pretty HUGE) & contains more information than a lot of books I have read (and it's free!). ...check it out sometime, I think he still keeps his "hate-mail" on there too (which is always good for a few laughs)!

 

Burton Mack has some pretty good books on the subject as well.

[odintim]

Another great read that puts some light on this is The Jesus Puzzle - Was There No Historical Jesus? by Earl Doherty, and he's some of his book on his website : http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/home.htm

 

Scroll down until you reach The Jesus Puzzle, and you'll have a few dozen articles you can read.

 

OT

 

Oops! I didn't notice that greasemonkey already beat me to it. My apologies.

 

OT

[Guest zoolook]

according to what i've read, 'flavius josephus' mentions him in his writings, only the once though, i think.

[Heimdall]

Go here for my rebuttal to the Testimonium - http://ex-christian.net/blog/heimdall/inde...p?showentry=235

Heimdall

[spamandham]

Please forgive the cross post, but I would like to get some feedback on this hypothesis I posted on another board:

 

 

 

 

The Jesus of the Bible is not an ordinary man. If you wish to claim that an oridinary man named Jesus lived in that time period as an itinerant preacher, you have to explain how all the mysticism and fantastic aspects of the Bible Jesus came to be grafted to him.

 

The fantastic aspects of Jesus - healing the sick, walking on water, turning water into wine, etc. - come close on the heals of when he is said to have lived. While it's possible for a figure to be made larger than life within only a few decades of his death, there are other clues and pieces that indicate Jesus is an amalgamation, and thus quite likely a fictional character. For one, John the Baptist had a significant following that continued long after he was killed. Yet, he was not deified like Jesus, nor were pre-existing miracle stories attributed to him like Jesus. Why would the followers of Jesus do that to him, while the followers of John did not do the same thing to John?

 

Pre-existing phrases such as the "son of god" were attributed to Jesus (Augustus Caesar had called himself that in 42BC and even minted coins with the phrase on it), as were pre-existing Essene teachings. There is clear astrotheology grafted into the Jesus stories in the 1st two chapters of Matthew, as well as clues of Pythagorean teachings grafted into John 21.

 

Josephus mentions Jesus in passing, but highlights John the Baptist as an important historical figure. Josephus attributed the defeat of Herod's army as divine retribution against the execution of John. An interesting point is that Josephus does not record how John was executed, but he did record why. John was executed because Herod believed he was plotting a revolt. The punishment for treason would have been crucifixion, not decapitation.

 

I suggest an even simpler explanation than the one you provided {that jesus was an itinerant preacher} (admittedly this is speculation), Jesus (which literally means 'god saves') was a teaching aid used by John the Baptist - the central figure in his stories. After the crucifixion of John the Baptist, these stories continued to be retold and the Jesus character was seen by John's followers as the mystical resurrection of John. John's followers broke off into different sects which took the stories into different directions.

 

This hypothesis explains how it is possible that only ~20 years after the purported death of Jesus the churches had already diverted significantly in their teachings about him {jesus}. It also explains Paul's lack of interest in the man Jesus. It reconciles passages about the kingdom of god being within and the christ within, and passages about Christ's sacrifice being made at the beginning of time. It is not incompatible with what Josephus wrote about Jesus, as Josephus was recording Jesus 2nd hand and would have received his information about Jesus from Christians themselves. Josephus has very little to say about Jesus, which is compatible with a myth that had not yet historicized Jesus.