Is Jesus real?

[Corwyn]

With Easter coming up and every other reality News show
doing it's bit of "The Real Jesus" etc shows.

I was was wondering - Is there ANY evidence outside of biblical text that even verifies the existance of this man? I mean I know there was a Jesus that lived in this time, that's kind of like saying is there a John living in Boston in the year 2004, but I mean the
profit?

I know there was the tomb with the inscription with brother of Jesus, but as far as I know that fake.


Corwyn

[Cleon]

I dunno about Jesus the Profit, for info on that check out Al Franken's book--particularly the bit about "Supply-Side Jesus."

But as for the historical Jesus, evidence is very slim. There is a contemporary record by the Roman historian Josephus, but it is widely regarded as fake, even by Christian researchers. The Catholic Church was known for pulling stunts like that, and they've had posession of Josephus' writings for over a millenium, and from what I hear the bits about Jesus kind of "stick out" as odd. (I've never read it, so I can't say.)

Beyond that, the closest historical documents come to mentioning him is several centuries after he got nailed. (So to speak.)

That said, it's important to remember that this particular period was crawling with people claiming to be the messiah and leading resistance against the Romans. It's entirely possible that one such figure was named Y'shua ben Yosef and had a cult form around him that spun into Christianity.

[Virgil]

Originally posted by Cleon
. There is a contemporary record by the Roman historian Josephus, but it is widely regarded as fake, even by Christian researchers. The Catholic Church was known for pulling stunts like that, and they've had posession of Josephus' writings for over a millenium, and from what I hear the bits about Jesus kind of "stick out" as odd. (I've never read it, so I can't say.)




do you have a ref for this ...this is the first I've heard about it and i'd like more info please.


Virgil

[Cleon]

Originally posted by Virgil



do you have a ref for this ...this is the first I've heard about it and i'd like more info please.


Virgil

Coitenly. (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html) It actually goes into detail about which parts of the passage might be accurate and which probably aren't.

[Jas]

From what I recall, there are a few problems with the passage in Josephus:

1. The passage in question doesn't occur in any known texts until the 4th century AD
2. Josephus was an Orthodox Jew, why would he talk about the Messiah, yet not follow him?
3. The placement of the passage makes no sense, and has nothing to do with the writings directly before or after it.
4. Early apologists, when discussing Josephus' writings, make no mention of the passage, which would have been logical for them to do.


Other historians who claim to mention Jesus (ie. Tacitus), are either:
A. actually talking about Christians (and no one disputes that they were in existence), and mention Jesus as the founder of the faith (as one talking about Hinduism would mention Vishnu, or Krishna), and does not imply that they have historical knowledge of him.

or

B. Were known to be easily duped, and all their knowledge was second hand (as in they also talked about dragons and such).


I don't have any references in front of me (so some of my details may be off a bit) though there's a sight called www.jesusneverexisted.com that has some of the info. They also mention the early associations between Christianity and sun worship, among others.

[Cleon]

I'm open. I honestly don't know whether Jesus really existed or not; frankly, I don't think there's any real way to know, short of new contemporary writings popping up that talk about him.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. Christians will continue to believe in him, and those of us who don't, won't.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Well Cleon I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that Josephus' writings are fraud rather certain passages were doctored by Christan's later on. Josephus was pretty anti-Christian so the fact of accounting for the historical man rather then the tenor of some passages is by itself telling . As you stated most other "contemporaneous" accounts occur many years (50+) after Jesus' death.

The man probably existed but like King Arthur and Robin Hood the legend far outstrips the truth.

[Brian the Snail]

There were a couple of well-researched posts by davefoc over in the Critical Thinking forum recently about this that are relevant:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=1870383815

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=1870389936

[c0rbin]

Come to Houston, Texas. Here you will find Jesus, his cousin, Jesus, a guy they work with also named Jesus. Their pick-up "futbol" team in which there are three Jesuses (the third is a pretty good back). Anyway, his dad is also named Jesus...

[Cleon]

Originally posted by c0rbin
Come to Houston, Texas. Here you will find Jesus, his cousin, Jesus, a guy they work with also named Jesus. Their pick-up "futbol" team in which there are three Jesuses (the third is a pretty good back). Anyway, his dad is also named Jesus...

Hey, I live in Atlanta. Same deal--especially in my neck of the woods, where even the door-to-door preachers don't speak English. Funny story, actually--this actually happened about two years ago; my Spanish is pretty good, so I don't have a problem with the linguistic differences. (Conversation was in Spanish.)


I open the door.

Preacher: Hi! Do you know Jesus?
Me: Sure, he lives on the first floor. Apartment B.
Preacher: No, no, Jesus Christ.
Me: Hrm? No, Jesus' last name is Alvarez, I think.
Preacher: You know, Jesus. The son of God. Our savior.
Me: Well, Jesus is a pretty nice guy, but I don't know that I'd go that far.
(At this point the preacher was becoming annoyed. I think he thought it was a language issue.)
Preacher: Do you have religion?
Me: I don't think so, but I'll check the kitchen. Do you need to borrow some?
Preacher: What? I mean, do you believe in God? (el Dios)
Me: Days (dias)? Well, I do stay out late...

At this point the preacher just handed me an English tract--which he couldn't read--and left.