Jesus? did he exist..... my step son argues.......?

Question

There is LOTS of evidence that Jesus exists .... I am an atheist and not so sure ...so what hard evdidence to convince this athiest?

1 hour later he (my step son ) argues that the 'person' Jesus exists but no one has proved he was the son of god! .....help some one bring me some rope!

Answer 1

Even as an Athiest - I believe that a MAN named Jebus existed once...

It's the whole DIVINITY thing - the virgin birth, being the son AND the father (and a ghost) at the same time, resurrection - that is a FAIRY TALE ;);););)

Answer 2

Probably. As an Atheist, it's not something I fight about.

Remember that if you weren't important enough to get your name carved into a building or minted on a coin there is very little hard evidence that anyone existed in the first century. We have records of censuses but no census record. Ditto no tax roles or birth, baptism, marriage, or death records. Even the fall back of genealogists, tombstones, didn't exist back then.

Having said that, most people, including Jesus, are known from being mentioned in writings of the period. Even beyond the oblique references by authors such as Josephus, the fact that Paul and the gospel writers mention Jesus as a person is significant. They were all writing within 50 years of his death and were writing separately in different communities. None of them has any suggestion that Jesus might have been a composite figure or an allegorical figure.

You can contrast this evidence of his existence with those portions of his life which the early writers, Paul and the writer of Mark, don't cover. Here the descriptions of his birth and early life are wildly divergent. Also the descriptions of his post-death appearances, which I would hold to be allegorical, do not agree.

Having said that, I will add that there might be solid evidence that Jesus existed. Although it makes the christians squirm and it could still turn out to be a forgery, there were a set of ossuaries (small caskets which held a person's bones after the flesh had decomposed) discovered in a tomb which bear the names of Jesus and some of his relatives. The existence of a box for Jesus bones messes with the whole bodily resurrection and the fact that there were also ossuaries for Mary Magdalene and Judah the son of Jesus. See the article below.

Sorry for the delay in adding to this, my internet connection went down last night.

Answer 3

Eye witness accounts, written down in the Scriptures. The Holy Bible is proof that He existed. The Holy Bible is the True Word of God. All the fulfilled prophecies are enough to convince anyone. The Messianic Prophecies, especially. The chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies which Jesus Christ fulfilled is:
1 in 10 to the 157th power. The computer won't allow me to type all the zeros in this number but, there are 155 zeros behind the number 1 in this number. I can't even tell you what that number is. Just so you have a something to compare that to, The estimated number of electrons in the universe is around 10 to the 79th power. That should be proof enough that Jesus did not fulfill these prophecies by accident! You can just type in Messianic Prophecies for some websites to see what all the prophecies were.

Also, Josephus is a book written by a Jewish Historian. He lived his life as a Roman, and wrote these books. If you don't want to believe the Bible, Josephus is a History Book that claims to know Jesus existed. He lived not long after Jesus was Crucified, so, it wasn't hundreds of years later.
Have you done any research at all? Are you truly seeking to know the truth? If you are, then you will find it. Also, read the Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel. He WAS an atheist journalist for a Chicago newspaper, whose wife became a Christian, and he set out to prove the Bible wrong. Also, there is the Case for the Creator, & The Case for Easter, I believe. They are not long books, and are an easy read. Why don't you read some books that were written by ex-atheists and see what made them believe? Wouldn't you want to know? I hope you do.

Answer 4

to put to rest the notion that there is no historic and scientific proof of Jesus outside the Bible, we may look to Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and to Roman historian Carius Cornelius Tacitus - both well known and accepted.

Josephus, in the book Jewish Antiquities" wrote:

"At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. . . .And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him. For on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, subsists at this time"

Tacitus, in writing about accusations that Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on Christians, said the following:

". . .Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people, who were in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. They had their denomination from Christus ( or Christ to us) , who in the reign of Tibertius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. . . .At first they were only apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; after wards a vast multitude discovered by them, all of which were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind.

So actually there is indeed outside the bible sources that can historically prove that there was a Jew named Jesus that was the forerunner of Christianity.

Answer 5

There is evidence that he did in fact exist. Did he perform miracles? No evidence. Was he the son of God? No evidence. Was Mary a virgin? No evidence.

You have to have faith since there is no evidence.

There is no physical evidence of Mohamed existing either. The records from that time are scarce if any were made at all. Most of the history was passed verbally since most were illiterate.

Answer 6

Probably. It really isn't that extraordinary of a claim that there was a man named Jesus who was a Rabbi. But it is a weak case and there are no contemporary stories outside the Bible. The few that there are are all from generations later by their own dates. And there are challenges to the authenticity of several of them.

So at the very least you have to conclude that it is a weak case, and that no one who met the guy was all that impressed.

Answer 7

The terms 'Christ' and 'Savior' were used by different religions to describe their man-god and the mentions of Josephus are said to be insertions by a later date or highly suspect b/c of the way they are written.
Other than that, I know of no direct evidence.

Edit: I looked up the Tacitus reference. First, it's authenticity is questioned, not b/c of a mention of a 'Christ' but instead b/c it says Nero was trying to blame the Christians for a fire. Second, it talks about Christians and says they got their name from following a 'Christus' but that word has been attributed to other religions.

Answer 8

Yes, He is exist ;-] if u can find a bible, u can open the book of Matthew read it from the chapter 1 till end ( if u like), and also God already talked about Jesus in the old testament about Jesus. By the way u can read it all from genesis till Revelation ;-]

Answer 9

There are many Roman historians who mention Jesus in their writings; foremost amongst them is Tacticus (one of the most famous historians of all time).

Famous Roman historians who mention Jesus:

· Flavius Josephus - c90CE

· Suetonius - c120CE

· Tactitus - 110CE

· Pliny - c110CE

· Thallus - cited in c300CE

· Talmud - 200-500CE

· 'Acts of Pilate'

The most convincing source of information is Josephus, who wrote in great detail about Jesus.

An extract from his work:

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

(Antiquities XVIII 63f)

Other mentions of Jesus by the authors above:

Suetonius wrote:

"Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome". Life of Claudius

(XXv.4)

"Chrestus" is the Latin name for either Christ or Christian.


Tacticus gave details about persecuted Christians:

"Consequently, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations. Called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberias at the hands of the Procurator Pontius Pilatus, and a deadly superstition, thus checked for a moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but also in the City."

Annals (XV.44.2-8)

Pliny wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan saying:

"They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: that they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery ..."

Roman historian Thallus described an earthquake at the time of Jesus's death on the cross - which is what happened in the Bible.


Basically, the Romans said he existed, and that is our evidence. The Roman empire's documents are considered the most reliable from the time, along with Greek etc. (he's mentioned in those as well)

So unless ALL of the Roman historians are liars, and the ancient world was totally different from what we think it was, Jesus DID exist.


Whether he was the Son of God or not is your decision.

Answer 10

Check out the books at http://groups.yahoo.com/rainesbooks

They show the consistency of the Bible and say a lot of the scientific evidence that supports it, and refute evolutionists and big bang believers. The 101+ Arguments book shwos that there is no argument that can stand up to the Bible and it itself points out some other books too *because it doesn't cover every single supposed contradiction). I was very thorough, and I update my work.