Is there any proof that Jesus Christ ever existed?

Question

He left no writings of his own and most of what was written about him was written years after the "fact" by people who never even met him. Hmmm.

Answer 1

No. You will get lists that include Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, etc., but none of these men were contemporaries of Jesus. Nothing that any of them wrote contradict the theory that Jesus is pure myth, as it simply regurgitates the Christian phrases and beliefs of the time - proof that they were merely recording common early Christian beliefs second hand rather than historical facts.

There is a tendency among both laypeople and scholars to place great emphasis on what ancient historians wrote. Yet, almost all of these 'historians' would be considered tabloid journalists at best by todays standards. The oft cited Josephus, in addition to his single paragraph about Jesus, also records flying chariots and other absurdities as a matter of fact in other parts of the same record! This was an era of superstition before the existence of modern rules of evidence. Nothing these people wrote can be taken at face value. Hell, I don't even do that with modern writers who are under much much greater scrutiny.

The strongest evidence in favor of a historical Jesus is the Ebionites. We know they believed Jesus was an ordinary man who did not perform miracles, etc, and we know they had their own gospel that was very similar to Matthew sans the first 2 chapters, and without the remaining mircales, and without the crucifixion. But that's about all we know. The church of Rome killed them off and burned their holy books. I'm not sure it would matter though in determining the historicity of Jesus, as they came later than the mystical early Christian writings, which are Pauls.

If you read Paul's writings in exclusion of other NT writings, you will discover that Paul's Christ was the mythical "son of man" character from the books of Enoch, syncretized with 1st century Egyptian mysticism.

Answer 2

From what I've heard there's virtually no proof at all. Christian believers are in denial but practically every classical reference to this alleged prophet have been proven to be forgeries inserted into the ancient documents at later dates. This wasn't hard to do since the Catholic and Orthodox Churches controlled almost all the libraries and archives in the Christian world for centuries.

The only ancient reference I've heard of that is even in serious dispute (ie, by qualified, non-cultist scholars) is the two lines or so in Josephus that seem to mention him. Only about half of the scholars who've studied it think the Josephus reference was just another forgery....

For my part as a person who's really into history, I intuitively think that some person like this did exist and was a religious figure at roughly the time the mythos claims he did. Altho his name certainly wasn't "Jesus Christ"; it was probably "Yeshe Bar Yusef" or "Yeshua Ben Yosef" or something like that. What gets me is that if they can't even prove he exists, then obviously they can't prove what (if anything) his teachings were. When all the writings from the first few centuries of the Christian Era are considered together, there's absolutely insane disagreement about what this guy supposedly taught. The believers invariably respond to this by saying only the Bible is true but there's simply no rational reason to consider the writings in the official "Bible" any more reliable than the stuff that was excluded, the so-called "Apocrypha".

Answer 3

There were a lot of self-proclaimed messiahs wandering around during the time of Jesus. So yes, there is some proof that Jesus the man may have existed. However, there is very little reliable evidence of that Jesus saying what is written in the bible and zero evidence outside of the bible that he did anything miraculous.

I included some links in the sources which will help you research the "no" side of the answer.

Answer 4

Besides the Bible which is an historical document, there are more than 25,000 different documents that back up the claims of the Bible. These documents originate from all different types of christian, pagan and secular sources.
Read, Josh McDowell ( The New Evidence that demands a verdict) published by Thomas Nelson publishers. This is chalked full of relevant data.

Answer 5

No there are NO proof at all, it might be a fiction made by Paulus and his fellow partner Lucas. The idea is built up from older stories in the past and the thinking of Greek philosophers early in time and added to the Jewish believing at that time. If you read the works of the Greek philosopher, you will find out that Jesus have used their words, word by word in his sayings. Thanks to the Arabs, we can still read the Greek philosophers work, they did take care of it when it was going to be vanish for good.

Answer 6

There is so much history on Jesus outside of the Bible by people who lived the same time He did that even the Encyclopedia doesnt deny His existance.

Answer 7

Ummm, y r we living in the year 2006? Someone came and split time in half... BC and AD...
Man get your facts straight. Who that wrote the New Testament didn't know Jesus?!/!/!

Before you ask a question, do at least SOME research

Answer 8

There are not any data what so ever outdoors of the bible. human beings will in all likelihood attempt to promote you prices from Josephus, Tacitus and others, yet they have been shown to be early Christian forgeries. Your theory on why and how Christianity became all started is on the different hand ridiculous. in case you prefer to debate the problem I propose you examine up on it first. this is surely exciting to ascertain what surpassed off, how and why. also seem up Simon of Perea, he became the messiah formerly Jesus.

Answer 9

Our calendar is one.

2006AD Anno Domini (Year of our Lord)
####BC Before Christ

You dont see any ficticious people being so influential as to change our Calendar. That takes a real person of great historical importance.

Answer 10

I'm pretty sure there are records somewhere of his birth I remember hearing something about it. I believe in Jesus though, I'm a protestant who doesn't believe in churches or others enforcing their interpretations of the bible or God's or Jesus' teachings on others though.