Did Jesus Really Exist as a Person?

Roark

Roark

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I have recently read some interesting articles questioning the historicity of Jesus. Growing up as a Christian, I had always assumed that Jesus was a confirmed historical person. However, some argue that the man portrayed in the New Testament may not have existed at all.

The argument is based on the idea that early biblical texts only refer to Jesus as appearing in revelation. This theory also asserts that the known secular historical accounts of Jesus are suspicious, and even the Bible has conflicting information about the man.

Here is some interesting background info from one of the theory's main proponents, Dr. Richard Carrier.

http://www.strangenotions.com/questioning-the-historicity-of-jesus/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbTbEvFSSF8

Why say you all? Does this information legitimately call into question the historicity of a human Jesus?

 
There's no good evidence to suggest he didn't, and plenty good evidence to suggest he did.

Richard Carrier is not much more than the last "shining hope" of mythicists, who are very few and far between.

 
MLB 51 said:
I read somrthing about this the other day. He claims this is some kind of Government conspiracy.
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That's a claim by Joseph Atwill. It's a different (and a far more outlandish) argument than the one presented by Carrier.

To me it doesn't seem logical that the Romans would create Christianity to pacify Jews, only to have Christians executed half a century later. You would think that if this hypothesis were true, the Romans would want more Christian converts, as the Jews and Romans were engaged in various conflicts throughout the 2nd century.

 
Carrier is self-admittedly on the fringe of biblical scholarship. He knows he's one of the few proponents of the "Jesus Myth" theory, but whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it's gotta be hair raising for Christians either way. Essentially his entire argument burns down to this: we do not have a single, solitary eye witness account of Jesus of Nazareth, including the gospels, which are second hand sources written decades after the fact and are anonymous. The later mentions of Jesus in 'primary' sources (in scare quotes because they, too, are all penned well after Jesus supposedly was executed) are not much help in establishing anything about Christ, and are often only parroting what was common knowledge at the time. In other words, evidence for Jesus is very flimsy.

I think there was likely a historical Jesus. Considering how many people were looking for or claiming to be the Messiah around that time, it's not out of the question that some charismatic figure got executed and contradictory legends sprung up around him. It seems more likely than inventing a character whole cloth, but then it's really hard to know anything for absolutely certain. God timed his whole avatar-transformation thing pretty poorly; 2000 years later and Jesus could have gone on CNN, cleared up the whole mess.

 
Husker_x said:
Carrier is self-admittedly on the fringe of biblical scholarship. He knows he's one of the few proponents of the "Jesus Myth" theory, but whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it's gotta be hair raising for Christians either way. Essentially his entire argument burns down to this: we do not have a single, solitary eye witness account of Jesus of Nazareth, including the gospels, which are second hand sources written decades after the fact and are anonymous. The later mentions of Jesus in 'primary' sources (in scare quotes because they, too, are all penned well after Jesus supposedly was executed) are not much help in establishing anything about Christ, and are often only parroting what was common knowledge at the time. In other words, evidence for Jesus is very flimsy.
I think there was likely a historical Jesus. Considering how many people were looking for or claiming to be the Messiah around that time, it's not out of the question that some charismatic figure got executed and contradictory legends sprung up around him. It seems more likely than inventing a character whole cloth, but then it's really hard to know anything for absolutely certain. God timed his whole avatar-transformation thing pretty poorly; 2000 years later and Jesus could have gone on CNN, cleared up the whole mess.
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It's entirely possible that the stories of Jesus could be loosely based on a political/religious leader who lived in the early 1st century. To me, the most surprising thing isn't the evidence supporting the hypothesis that Jesus was entirely a celestial being, manifested though revelation. The analysis of biblical texts and 'historical' evidence supporting the life and deeds of Jesus are really what intrigued me.

I think that most Christians are oblivious to these arguments. They believe that Jesus was a well documented individual during his time, and that the writings about him are comprised of first-hand accounts, which have been carefully preserved. This is simply not the case, regardless if you believe that Jesus was a real person or not.

ETA: So I basically reiterated exactly what you said. I should have just replied with "I agree."
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Roark, depending on how much time you have and how much you care, this might be of interest to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaUd234Q3GU

Ignore the title of the video, because Carrier isn't an idiot, but he did acknowledge defeat after this.

I might input more of my own thoughts later, but honestly this stuff exhausts me a bit so we'll see.

 
You couldn't swing a stick in the Levant 2,000 years ago without hitting five guys named Jesus. Kinda like all the dudes of Muslim heritage named Mehdi today (of whom I know two personally). When there's a famous old prophecy saying the Messiah will be named _______, it's not uncommon for mothers to name their babies _______ on the off chance that she'll have given birth to The One.

So was there a guy named Jesus 2,000 years ago who did all the things the Bible says the Jesus did? I'm inclined to believe that quite a bit of it is based on some truth. As Husker_x says, inventing someone "whole cloth" is far more work than basing your writing off someone entirely fabricated.

 
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Also, one thing I'll mention that's worth mentioning:

The Biblical accounts of Jesus are independent sources, written by different people at different times to different audiences. Just because we group them all together into one book now, doesn't discredit the strength of evidence in originally having multiple accounts independent of each other testifying to the same things.

 
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