Can we argue that Jesus never existed?

Question

Here are the principal arguments:

1) Total lack of historical evidence that he ever existed.
Fundamentalist apologists cite a lot-- ALL of it bad
and easily refuted by a competent scholar.

2) The close resemblance of the Jesus story to the essential
outline of the Mystery Cults: god-men, born of virgins on
December 25th, who die on a tree and rise from the dead,
giving immortality to their devoted disciples. Plus a
sacramental meal of bread & wine. Plus ritual baptism,
even being literally "washed in the blood".

3) The convoluted distortion of Old Testament passages use
as "prrof texts", and the indication that a lot of the details of
the story were borrowed from the OT and inserted into the
text of the NT.

In all, it's highly fishy. There is no reason to conclude that Jesus ever existed. Only wishful thinking. But all the wishful thinking in the world cannot make delusion real.

Answer 1

Add to what you've said--which I agree with the following.
If this were any other area than religion, one would cross-check the biblical stories of this person with other sources--much as newspapermen of today require more than one source for confirmation. Now, if the biblical story of the crucifixtion was true--the temple curtain was rent, the dead got out of their graves and walked, the sun was blotted out, and there were earthquakes. Both the romans and the indigenous Jewish population of Jerusalem were avid writers/recorders. For the dead arising and walking not to have made it into roman or jewish historical accounts is interesting. Would be sort of like the New York Times missing the story of 9-11. There were no records of earthquakes--no eclipses of the sun then--yet earthquakes sufficent to make the rocks move and groan would have been suffiecent to cause signficant damage in Jerusalem--why was there no record of any quakes in the area AD 20-AD 100 or so. And finally, the curtian in the temple was very thick and the entrance to the Jewish holy of holies. It is inconcievable that this curtain could have been torn in to and no mention made of it in Jewish historical and religious records.

Answer 2

There is nothing wrong with educated debate. Obviously someone got caught up with the name Jesus, so even if Jesus as a person didn't exist, where did the myth come from?

Such things tell me about what people believe, and what people believe tells me what it means to be human.

There isn't "total" lack of historical evidence, if you can call the Bible historical evidence. The epistles of Paul and the Gospels are a form of historical evidence. They aren't usable for literal historical information about the life of Jesus, but from them we can at least ballpark and postulate.

Something that I think about a lot is that Yeshua and all the different variants of the name were very common. I think it's very easy to imagine a carpenter named Yoshua or Yeshua or Yehoshua having a son by the same or similar name (Joseph and Jesus are basically the same name in Hebrew), and I can imagine a whole generation unhappy with the religious practices (corruption, perhaps?) and Roman occupation of that time. Put one and one together, y'know? The breeding ground is there for a hundred nameless crucified itenerant preachers. Take a saying from this one, a deed of that one, put it on the expectations already existing for hundreds of years by the Jewish community in general and the specific expectations of groups like the Essenes (go read the Dead Sea scrolls! Ask yourself - who is the teacher of righteousness?), understand that there is a HUGE psychic need for change in society at this time, and you've got a messiah waiting to happen.

But yeah, it would be nice if the Son of God appearing on earth could have been noticed by a society of meticulous record-keepers, or any of the contemporary historians. It would be nice if the only alleged references to his existence happened within a few decades of his life and weren't either outright forgeries (Jocephus) or so ambigous as to be useless from a historical perspective (Tacitus).


Saul

EDIT:

Let me reiterate. Flavius Jocephus' alleged testimony about Jesus is later christian interpolation. That's a polite way of saying that someone else forged it. It ain't true. Sorry.

Tacitus' "evidence" about Jesus is ambigous and incomplete, and says nothing about Jesus' divinity.

I am completely open to evidence, but as of yet I've seen nothing that really bears through, and once you look at the socio-religio context it looks like the ground was ripe for a savior religion to spring up.

So if you've got some hard evidence that I haven't seen yet, hit me up. Send me an email, I like to learn new things. I don't expect my mind to be blown, but hey you never know, right?

Answer 3

No, and I think the arguments against the existence of Jesus are pretty silly.

1. Most scholars believe that a man named Yeshua (translated as Jesus) did live in the 1st century. Whether or not He was and is divine is the main point of contention, not His existence.
2. It doesn't matter if these "god-men" of "mystery religions" were born on December 25th, because Jesus WASN'T. Mystery religions did not use the ritual baptism that was used first in Judaism, and then incorporated into Christianity.
3. The first Christians were Jews. They had a LOT to lose if they "convoluted" the OT to support their view. They were ostracized, banished, imprisoned, and often executed in the worst ways. Yet they continued to claim that they were telling the truth about all they saw!

Even the earliest Roman writings NEVER indicate that Jesus never existed. To claim that a man named Jesus never existed is intellectual dishonesty, because "Jesus mythers" are not willing to apply the same standards to other historical figures. It's quite hypocritical.

But if you want to deny it, go ahead.

Oh, and jesusneverexisted.com is NOT a reliable source. I read through it, and their conclusions are based on faulty evidence, go figure.

Answer 4

Yes it is wishful thinking.

The time when the jesus concept was born was under the tyranny of the roman empire. Anything is better than being oppressed. Christianity was born on the idea that people would be better off as a society if we helped one another and did good for themselves and by doing that you would be rewarded when you die. the bible teaches good lessons but do you really think; two of every animal boarded a ship to avoid a flood, earth was created in seven days, human beings just appear out of nowhere, and why is there no mention of dinosaurs millions of years earlier if thats gods handy work then surely his only born son and the disciples knew of his trial and errors prior to conjurring up some human beings. Lets use our heads here. Although its easier for some people to believe this because frankly its complicated and both views are speculative. I have nothing against those people, i wish i was one of them.

Answer 5

One can argue against a historical Jesus, but the fact remains that there is an existing corpus of sayings and parables attested to independently in Q, Mark, Matthew Luke, Thomas, etc that are attributed to a man named Jesus (Yeshua).

Someone had to write Jesus's lines adn I think it was Jesus. I doubt that one person/group could have fabricated those lines and then propagated those words throughout the Mediterranean while keeping secret that Jesus was made up. I think a guy named Jesus said much of which is the basis for what is attributed to him in the Bible. I'm not saying the Bible is word-for-word accurate in quoting Jesus, but much of it is close to the original Jesus sayings.

I do think a lot of stuff was added to his words - this is seen by reading the synoptic gospels in parallel (look at the wedding banquet parables). And I do think all the miracle stuff is just made up.

But I do think we can say that there is a high probability that a teacher/rabbi/philosopher type named Jesus lived in the Galilee area around 30 ACE.

But we can also say that much of the rest of the Jesus story is mythology.

Answer 6

Mhm.

I think of it a little differently, though.

I'm an atheist. However, I believe that *some* of that which is told of in the Holy Bible is true, or at least roots from truth.

Rather than believing that NOTHING happened, I think that man became so frustrated with the lack of answers, that we began to become hasty in our search for the way in which the universe came to be. Hence, once just a few coincidental facts appeared, they were manipulated and altered by word of mouth to create what was, at the time, the most acceptable answer possible for the origin of life on Earth. Over time, it became so widespread, that many began to simply change the details, or even add new ones altogether.

Therefore, I think that there might've been a man named "Jesus." But as far as I'm concerned, he was just a normal man, if he existed -- maybe a bit "off" in the head; ever so slightly crazy. But it's possible he existed; simply in a different way than that in which we "know" him.

Answer 7

I'm an out-and-out atheist, but my reading of the evidence is that it's slightly more likely that there was a historical Jesus - athough it's more of a hunch than anything else. I'd think if it were entirely made up it would have been a bit neater - why does the son of God have siblings? Does that make James something like God's Stepson?

No doubt, there's been a bunch of redaction and revision, but I suspect there was a historical itinerant preacher to hang all this nonsense on.

Answer 8

You are mistaken. Jesus and the crucifiction were talked about by the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tertullian who both lived in Jesus's day.

Also, the Christian martyrs of the 1st century did not willingly die for someone who never existed.

You can argue about anything you want to but if you want to argue that Jesus never existed as a human being, either you are ignorant or you think that all the rest of us are. Not.

Answer 9

Add the dead sea scrolls, and text written long before the proposed birth of Christ that mirrors text found in the New Testament but with a spiritual/allegorical twist.

Add, letters found from Pope Clement stating that there was an original book of Mark that is more 'spiritual' in nature, showing that the literal account of Jesus as read in the New Testament, was actually created by the church.

Answer 10

Answering such skeptics, the respected historian Will Durant argued: “That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.”

Ask yourself: Could a person who never lived have affected human history so remarkably? The reference work The Historians’ History of the World observed: “The historical result of [Jesus’] activities was more momentous, even from a strictly secular standpoint, than the deeds of any other character of history. A new era, recognised by the chief civilisations of the world, dates from his birth.”

Yes, think about it. Even calendars today are based on the year that Jesus was thought to have been born. “Dates before that year are listed as B.C., or before Christ,” explains The World Book Encyclopedia. “Dates after that year are listed as A.D., or anno Domini (in the year of our Lord).”

Critics, nevertheless, point out that all that we really know about Jesus is found in the Bible. No other contemporary records concerning him exist, they say. Even H. G. Wells wrote: “The old Roman historians ignored Jesus entirely; he left no impress on the historical records of his time.” But is this true?

Although references to Jesus Christ by early secular historians are meager, such references do exist. Cornelius Tacitus, a respected first-century Roman historian, wrote: “The name [Christian] is derived from Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” Suetonius and Pliny the Younger, other Roman writers of the time, also referred to Christ. In addition, Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, wrote of James, whom he identified as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.”

The New Encyclopædia Britannica thus concludes: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.”