Did the historical Jesus exist? A growing number of scholars don’t think so

Jobrny ^ | August 30, 2014 | Valerie Tarico

[Mean Daddy]

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity.

At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this view, a “historical Jesus” became mythologized.

[ravenwolf]

The way people changes history who knows, but one thing is sure the Biblican Jesus was sure enough here.

[Mr Rogers]

“The kernel of Christianity is the Word enunciated in the Sermon of the Mount - particularly the Two Great Commandments.”

I disagree. The Good News of Jesus is that God has not left us to die the deaths we deserve, but that He is willing to forgive our sins and change us.

[Mastador1]

Would those be secular or atheist scholars?

[ravenwolf]

Not Biblican, biblical stupid.

[ConorMacNessa]

You're right - there is much more Truth in Christianity than what I stated - and the Sacrifice that Redeems us lies at the center of it all.


"Dia shábháil ar fad anseo!"

Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Varda]

One of my archeology professors talked about this once. Basically, we have no physical evidence of most people in history. We believe in historical events, places and people mostly from writings. These scholars are applying a standard for Jesus that they don't apply to other people mentioned in non-biblical sources. Some take the position that everyone in the Bible is fictional unless physical evidence is found.

[mrobisr]

How Glorious the day will be:

Romans 14:11, New International Version (NIV)

It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

Praise to our Living God!

[Ramonne]

Perhaps this is why we are saved by faith, knowing Jesus is an affair of the heart and only those who believe can know Him and the power of the resurrection.

[alexander_busek]

So. All those martyrs died, not just for a fraud, but for a fake fraud, to preserve a fake, fraudulent fiction? In a million years, that’s not gonna happen. People tend to say, at the point of death, “OK, ya got me. What tipped ya off?”

I assume that you are referring to that special category of eyewitness martyrs, since there would be nothing remarkable about non-eyewitness martyrs - who gullibly believe in a fantastic myth without extremely reliable and convincing evidence (see my tagline!) - dying for their supposed "belief."

Now, how many eyewitness martyrs of the miracles of the Gospels were there in actuality? What where their names, and when was their eyewitness testimony transcribed and thus documented?

Consider those "Heaven's Gate" cultists who died (committed suicide) for their beliefs. Couldn't they likewise be regarded as martyrs? Don't their voluntary deaths "prove" that their beliefs could be true. And it the "Heaven's Gate" suicides had occurred in an earlier age, before t.v. and the Internet, you can be sure that the stories surrounding them would be far more colorful (the bodies would have been mysteriously "incorruptible," or the comet would have changed course, etc.).

In reality, the measuring stick you propose using to determine the validity of a belief-system is severely flawed.

Regards,

[Buffalo Head]

“I don’t think men would of been lining up to die for a known fraud.”

You should research Jim Jones and Kool-Aid drinking.

[alexander_busek]

“Does the historical Jesus still exist? A growing number of scholars think so!!!”

Actually, you're wrong. In the past 200 years, the proportion of scholars who believe in the historicity of Jesus has been dropping (in the pre-Industrial Age, virtually all of them believed it).

Regards,

[Vendome]

Josephus...

[Bulwyf]

Oranges and apples.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

There exists orders of magnitude more contemporaneous evidence that Jesus lived than for such historical figures as Charlemagne.

[chajin]

Why doesn’t anyone ever say this about Muhammad, or Gautama, or Kung-fu-tse (Confucius)? The only other religious figure who gets so often accused of not ever having existed is Lao Tse—and one can actually make a reasonable case for Lao’s nonexistence, while there is absolutely no reasonable case for Jesus’ nonexistence.

[alexander_busek]

These scholars are applying a standard for Jesus that they don't apply to other people mentioned in non-biblical sources.

And rightly so!

For two reasons: a) The "other people" didn't routinely perform miracles; and b) The other people didn't ask us to fundamentally change our belief systems.

See my tagline!

Example: If your newspaper boy mentions to you that you have a new neighbor named Joe Brown from Georgia, you are justified in assuming that he is telling the truth. However, if your newspaper boy tells you that he saw Joe Brown raise the dead, that he was born of a virgin birth, that he held conversations with the Devil in the desert (who else was there to report on that, by the way?), and that you should give your money to the paper boy so that you can save your soul and so that he can go out and spread the word...

Regards,

[Religion Moderator]

Are you atheist?

[alexander_busek]

Are you atheist?

I am someone who has yet to be provided with enough high-quality evidence to rationally embrace the postulate that Jesus Christ was an historical figure who did indeed stem from a virgin birth and who did indeed perform all the miracles ascribed to him by the Gospels.

Count me in with Jefferson and Payne.

Regards,

[BlackElk]

Most historical scholars think that stories of the American Founding Fathers, George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others, are “mythologized history.” RIIIIIIGHT!!!!

[Nifster]

They are wrong