The historical Jesus.?

Question

So I have seen some questions regarding the historical Jesus. I also saw some claims that the ancient historian Josephus' account of Jesus is a forgery. Is this true? I would appreciate proof too, such as a link or literature. Are there any pieces of evidence which prove Jesus was a real person? I mean anything but the Bible.

Answer 1

The Josephus' text was most likely either added in later by a religious person, or fed to him by a religious person. In either case, it is just a regurgitation of the party line.

Answer 2

The bible is for the purpose of proving Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David and Solomon, the Judah kings and Babylon world Empire #3, after Joseph and Moses are in Egypt world Empire #1, Cyrus was in world Empire #4, everyone knowing any world history knows Greece was world Empire #5, and Christ Jesus was in Rome world Empire #6 to year 33, John was there to year 100 to write Revelations on Patmos Rev.17:10-14; five [ 5 ], had fallen and one [ Rome ] is, and the world will have the bible from 303 years to end world Empire #7, Satan has a short time in the 8th to Rev.20:1-6,12,13; no Satan 1000 years as all is made as new as before Eden.

Answer 3

Here's a good essay. Long read, but it covers the Joesphus forgery (and how we know it's a forgery), along with the usual false pieces of evidence that get brought up (Tacitcus, Roman records, etc.):
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html

There are a number of books I could recommend too, but this essay is a good place to start.

Answer 4

The historical Yeshua was a black man. He definitely was not white or European as some people think.

He was Afro-Asiatic, meaning he was a mixture of the descendants of Shem and Ham. Physically he would have looked more like Bob Marley, than an Arab or European.

Answer 5

There is a minority view among scholars of the historical Jesus that Jesus simply did not exist, however most scholars agree that he did exist. See some of the links below for more info.

Part of the reason for this consensus is that historians generally agree that some parts of the gospels are based on history. The analysis is complex but basically, the gospels contain some information which is contrary to the interests of Christianity, but had to be included because it was simply true. For example, it is a very inconvenient truth for Christians that Jesus was baptised by John, rather than the other way around, because this meant that Jesus was John's disciple. How could the son of God be a disciple of a mortal? Why would a Christian writer make up this fact? So, Jesus' baptism by John is generally regarded as being historically accurate. There are other examples of this, which lead historians to conclude that some parts of the gospel texts are based on fact.

Josephus' account has some additions to it, but is probably not entirely false. We do not have the originals of many ancient texts- many were copied and copied by scribes over the centuries. These scribes often made changes/additions.

Dr. James Tabor, a professor of religion from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and historical Jesus researcher recently wrote the following about the Josephus text concerning John the Baptist, Jesus and James, the brother of Jesus, in his blog (there is one part of this that had the words crossed out that were inserted by scribes, but when I cut and pasted, they weren't crossed out due to different format):

September 21, 2007
Josephus on John, Jesus, and James
Filed under: History — James Tabor @ 9:20 am
I am of the view that the descriptions that Josephus, the 1st century CE Jewish historian, gives us of John the Baptizer, Jesus, and James, the brother of Jesus, are of immense value to the historian of early Christianity. These three figures, all brutally murdered by the political and religious establishment, just happen to be the founding figures of what scholars call “the Jesus movement.” And yet, properly understood in its historical contexts, this Messianic movement is broader than Jesus, beginning with John the Baptist, and advancing significantly under the leadership of Jesus’ successor, his brother James. It is noteworthy that in Josephus’s earlier work, The Jewish War, John, Jesus, or James go comletely unmentioned. It is only decades later, in the 90s CE, when Josephus comes to write the Antiquities, that he includes this material. My own guess is that he is well aware that the emperor Vespasian, following the heat of the War in Judea, is very keen to suppress any movement that might be deemed “Messianic,” and particularly one built around the expectations of a Davidic ruler as rightful king of the Jews. Josephus is surely aware of the Nazarene movement, but he is not inclined to expose them to imperial scrutiny, and perhaps he even wants to shield them in that regard.

What he says about John and James is truly precious material, coming as it does from an “outsider” with no Christian theological agenda. Josephus, of course, has his own multiple and tendentious purposes, but supporting any particular side of controversies about the place and role of John or James in the movement is not on his radar screen.
His “testimony” to Jesus is more problematic since it has been so heavily interpolated by medieval Christian copyists. However, we are more than fortunate that these pious scribes had such heavy hands, since their additions appear to be so blatant and obvious, in both placement and phrasing. Scholars have worked on this text quite extensively and I recommend the summary discussion by John Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Doubleday, 1991), Vol I, pp. 57-88.

Taking the passage and removing the obvious interpolations we end up with the following results:

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 wonders, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew many after him both of the Jews and the Gentiles. He was the Christ. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among 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 about him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64). (note- due to the different format the added parts weren't crossed out).

This bare and minimal account I find quite instructive. If one reads it again, without the additions, we have:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonders. He drew many after him. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).

The content of this short report is strikingly close to what critical historians would distill as a kind of bare minimum regarding the historical Jesus–a wise teacher and wonder-worker who ran into opposition from the religious and political authorities and was crucified, but whose movement continued after his death. That Josephus does not mention anything about Jesus being resurrected was what obviously most troubled the medieval Christian copyists.

I hope this is helpful. Check out the sites below for more info.

Answer 6

usually those with an agenda specifically against christians and jesus in general say those things. there are a few extra biblical accounts of jesus, though few can be "authenticated". including some hindi texts that are often disregarded.
do some homework.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/main.htm