Is the story of Jesus just an extreme case of 'chinese whispers'?

Question

I've checked up on every piece of evidence someone has presented to me for the existence of a man called Jesus, and not one piece could be deemed credible evidence for his existence.

Forged letters between pilate and Tiberius, distorted translations of text that Josephus had copied from someone else in the year 92CE, inaccurate accounts by Tacitus (which mentions a 'Christus' not 'Jesus')......the list goes on.

Of the scholars of the era, Josephus is the only one credited with any mention, yet both instances are not in any way reliable as evidence. http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/testimonium.htm & also http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html

Some mention Pliny the younger, yet he mentioned christians, not Jesus.

So with the severe lack of evidence, is it not possible that the whole story is such a gross exaggeration, of what may have happened, that it is probably basicly a story of a legendary guy who never even existed?

David W.........I see christmas more like the traditional pagan way actually. A celebration of the season.

yvett3.........Why?

Comer59...........perhaps you need to look at WHY they have problems with it. The more you read about it, the less credible it becomes. I have used the references I chose because the christian based ones have a habit of leaving things out or twisting facts to suit themselves.

sunscour..............the historical inaccuraccies in the newtestament are all over the place, beginning with Luke's account of the census which actually happened in the year 6CE, two years after Herod's death.

Just because you WANT to believe something, dosn't make it real.

LuckyJohn19.........Thanks for the links.

Answer 1

Why would you question the existence of Jesus in the first place. There are many historical people that you have never met and I am sure you are not doing research on them. Let me tell you something, you want to be an atheist that is your choice but I think you better pick on someone other than Jesus.

Answer 2

This is actually a very good question. Not that I'm surprised.

However, you're wrong about one thing: It was thought by a group of scholars that Luke was incorrect about the year the census took place. However (and please give me some time to find a reference on this), it was later discovered that there WOULD have been a census the year Jesus was born.

You're also right about Josephus, to an extent. Some of that stuff was probably added later.

I went to that other site that you referenced, and read the whole article. There are several things I found:
1. Many of claims in it were NOT what I've read in other sources.
2. The references that the author of the article used actually came before many of the references I've seen cited in other works. Why is this a big deal? Because there have been other discoveries made since then!

But now I'm interested. I'll go ahead and look into this person's claims. What I saw when I gave it an overview, though, was that there were a lot of things that have been proven false just in the last ten years.

As a sidenote, do you consider the history of Alexander to be accurate? Did you know it was written five hundred years after his death?

The Gospels were not written as late as some people believe. They were already in existence by the end of the 1st century.

Answer 3

Jesus the man may have existed as a minor prophet of the time – I’ve read there were a few about.

I think some time during the first century, well before the bible was compiled in the late 300s, some influential family or families, probably in Rome, looked at the best myths of all time and decided to carbon copy them into a Christ man.

There is not one Jesus story that is original - every one of them is a carbon copy of a story that another prophet/godman experienced before him.

Xians are gonna go apesh*t but the reality is that with out Saul/Paul, the Roman tax collector, the Jesus story woulda been buried in the dusts of time.

There are many similarities between Jesus and many other godmen.
One of my favourites is Horus:

Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years old.
Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the Baptist."
He had 12 disciples.
He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.
He walked on water.
Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.
He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys").
Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."
Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story.

Answer 4

Without sounding too offensive would it not be just as hard to try and prove your existence 2000 years from now? as well as famous people such as Isaac Newton. Hypothetically, the photographs could have been taken by some guy and labeled as Newton, the name could have been made up. Several things can look shady when so much time goes past. If the real man behind the discovery of gravity didn't want to be known he could have easily made up this Newton fellow.

Jesus appears in the Koran, and in four books of the bible (Lets say for arguments sake three because ones book was allegedly copied. A lot of Jesus's journeys are historically accurate as to the time period in which they occurred, such as the time of king Herod, traveling to Rome and preaching by the statue dedicated to the unknown God. and other aspects such as the cave of john the baptist (which has been found)
The first church dedicated to Jesus (which has been found)
and several other pieces.

NOTE soleir, I gave you a thumbs down not because of your response, but because you insulted people due to your own inferiority complex.

Just because Your don't WANT to believe in God, doesn't make him not exist.

Answer 5

Don't worry, there will be many much more literate individuals then you, ready to prove Jesus is a myth. But among other non-christian religions, some admits he's existance saying he have been a big prophet.
But I'm not going to give examples, in respect for those of you whom may feel offended.

Answer 6

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you site 2 websites that are so biased towards atheism, it discredits you from trying to honestly find the truth. That would be like someone putting up 2 websites that prove Jesus existed. The account written by this Josephus was then said to be false because "critics" didn't agree with it. Thats not very convincing.

Answer 7

You might enjoy reading "Misquoting Jesus," by Bart Ehrman.

Answer 8

Actually I hope he existed just as they described him. That will make today's followers more like hypocrites.

Answer 9

that is one of the problems with humanity is that it always in need of proof..i bet if you took Jesus out of religion and put him in the context of just a man with a message of spirituality a lot of so called atheists would not have a problem with his existence..so far mankind has just made religions out of people with a divine message the exact opposite of what they all asked us not to do,and that reason being is that they also were looking for proof outside of themselves instead of living through the knowledge that is inside of us

Answer 10

extreme yes, i suppose
since there is no remnants of the begining left apparently