[Inserted Oct. 3, 2008: This post is being edited to change the title of the thread. The original title was Nonexistant Evidence for the Historical Jesus. Today I added some scholarly sources for a historical Jesus as well as sources for the argument against the idea that a historical figure Jesus ever existed in Galilee as taught in the Christian tradition. This seemed to call for a new title.]

Originally posted here as part of a discussion regarding evidence for the historical Jesus. It is posted here with some adaptation to make it capable of standing alone.



Thanks for those dates. This is pretty convincing evidence that in no extant documents did his contemporaries write about him; the early writers who did refer to the Christians and/or Christ lived much later than the supposed historical Jesus.



Bart D. Ehrman is another. Kirangel, you might want to read some of his books.



Hans, you have it right so far as I am concerned. If ever a person wanted to believe in christianity it was me. But when the evidence is either totally lacking or too fragile to stand up to scrutiny, I am left with the choice to lie and live comfortably with the christian majority, or to be honest and thereby open myself to the ridicule and abuse of christians.

I sifted through the evidence many times over. I feel like my sifting last fall was definitive. I was taking a course on the New Testament. My professor insisted that there was more evidence for Jesus than for many other historical figures. This sounds exactly like Kirangel's argument. I started a discussion on this forum to get the exChristian perspective on it at the same time that we were discussing it in school.

The very same passages were used by both sides to prove their points. The Christians interpreted the evidence as saying that Jesus did exist and the exChristians interpreted it as saying Jesus did not exist.

My profs taught me to take passages apart and scrutinize them on the fine details. When I do that with the "evidence" for Jesus' existence, I end up knowing only that Christians existed in the first century. I find no direct reference to Jesus except in the NT. One of the Roman governors, Pliny the Younger, wrote about "Christians who worship Chrestus as though he were a god."

Here is the passage according to one translation:

Other named by the anonymous List said they were Christians, and later changed their statement. Some said that they had been and then stopped, some three years before, some longer, some even twenty years before. All these reverenced your statue and those of the Gods, and cursed Christ. They stated that the sum total of their error or misjudgment, had been coming to a meeting on a given day before dawn, and singing responsively a hymn to Christ as to God, swearing with a holy oath not to commit any crime, never to steal or commit robbery, commit adultery, fail a sworn agreement or refuse to return a sum left in trust. When all this was finished, it was their custom to go their separate ways, and later re-assemble to take food of an ordinary and simple kind. END OF QUOTE

Here is some background on Pliny the Younger:

Pliny the Younger or Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62-c.115): Roman senator, nephew of Pliny the Elder, governor of Bithynia-Pontus (109-111), author of a famous collection of letters. END OF QUOTE

Apparently he was born thirty years after Jesus' alleged death. By the time he grew up and was Roman governor, there were many people around who believed that a Christ existed and they "worshiped him as god."

It is true that in places he speaks about Christ as though he were a historical person. However, who of us has not talked about fictional characters as though they were historical? When we are talking about these characters, it is cumbersome to preface every statement with "the man whom they call Christ," or "whom they worship as a god." When it is firmly established with the speaker and the audience (when everyone knows it) that they are talking about a fictional character, people stop prefacing their statements like that. For the sake of convenience we use only the name.

I don't know Star Wars so I will use nursery rhyme tales to illustrate. A kindergarten teacher might ask the children: Where were the three bears when Goldilocks broke into their house?

This story tells us several things:

1. A girl named Goldilocks existed at some point in history.
2. Bears live in houses that look pretty much like our own.
3. Bears sit in chairs.
4. Bears eat porridge.
5. Bears eat out of bowls.
6. Bears can tell who touched their property.

Jack and the Beanstalk proves that there are giants the size of houses and that an ordinary man can plant a bean stalk that is strong enough to carry his weight, and that he can climb this beanstalk to get away from the giant. The place he escapes to is another world where the giant cannot enter. This proves that there is another level of reality from the normal everyday life.

Objections:

1. In our world, we never see giants the size of houses.
2. In our world we don't have bean stalks that are strong enough to carry the weight of an adult.
3. In the world as we know it, we cannot escape into another world to get away from our enemies.

Yet Jack did all these things.

The only things in the above two stories that are realistic are the animal ability to smell who touched their things, and the ability of a seed bean to grow into a large plant (though nowhere near as large as indicated in the story).

Maybe we can create a world such as Never-Never Land, and maybe we can explain the links between our world and Never-Never Land. Maybe if we squeeze our eyes shut tight enough and try hard enough we can actually feel like we are in Never-Never Land. Maybe we can smell the smells and see the sights. But are we really there? Does that make it true that the following existed at some point in history: a man who could climb a bean stalk, a house-sized giant, a girl named Goldilocks, and three bears who live in houses, sit on wooden chairs, and eat porridge out of bowls?

The only things that are realistic in the Jesus story is that he was born, that he grew up to be a rousing teacher of the common people, and that he paid for it with his life. It is also realistic to believe that his followers had to find some way to make sense of his execution. They had, after all, given up their jobs and/or sold their businesses to follow him.

We know that at the time and place of this supposed Jesus, the common people had a tradition of having heroes born of virgins. It was the tradition that these divine heroes died to save humanity, and then rose from the dead and flew off to heaven. Maybe Jesus' followers made up the same kind of story about his death. It would be realistic to think so.

It is just as common today for people to talk about taking a red pill or a blue pill. Because I am new to mainstream culture, I am not sure what is meant by these pills. Do I think there are doctors who prescribe these pills and pharmacies that sell them? Do I think people actually go to their medicine cabinet and swallow a pill when they say this?

No.

The only time and the only way people today ever talk about the red pill or the blue pill is when they want to talk metaphorically. Obviously, these pills are symbols taken from some story, and these symbols are meaningful to the people who know the story.

The same holds true for virgins having babies, and for these babies to grow up to be miracle workers who end up dying to save humanity from the Romans, and then resurrect and fly off to heaven.

These "pills" are so far from realistic that it is automatically assumed that the audiences understand what was meant. Yet today, Christians and atheists alike insist that no person is a real Christian who does not believe these fantastic tales of the first century of the Common Era.

There are Christians alive today who dare take these stories metaphorically as they were originally meant to be taken. Who are we to decide whether or not they are true Christians? In light of the fact that no evidence exists to prove that there ever was a historical Jesus, for people who want to retain Christianity, this position makes a great deal of sense.

For the rest of us, there is no blue pill and there is no red pill. Perhaps we can climb Jack's beanstalk in our dreams and learn to co-exist with the bears in our conservation areas. And it is even possible that the story of Jesus' resurrection inspires us to conquer our own barriers to happiness. What we should not do is eliminate or excommunicate people just because their perception of reality disagrees with our own.

Originally posted by Varokhar here.

Jesus of Nazareth is one of the most successful lies ever told. Not a shred of evidence exists to support this individual, and in truth, people only assume Jesus of Nazareth was real because people have claimed he was. Other than that, there is nothing else of any solidity or substance to go on regarding ol' Jebus.

Just because someone claims something is real, does not make it so. Yet, that's what Xianity is built on - an individual made up from thin air.

The day we can get Christians to admit this will be the day when the Iron Curtain falls.

Whew! Never before has this allegory of Iron Curtain occurred to me re the way some Christians treat nonreligious people but the more I think about it the more I am convinced that it works. Some churches won't let you be part of their community if you don't say their creed their way. They will shun and excommunicate you. Even family members will refuse to eat with you in some cases. If that isn't what Iron Curtains are for--to keep dissidents out, then I don't know what it is/was.

This article, written in 1855, shows that Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man was not original.



I guess if Jesus had to "borrow" his hell doctrine from the heathen, we know Jesus wasn't very real. Since scholars have found that other people had this story before the Jews had it, and that the Jews had it before Jesus said it, we KNOW FOR A FACT that Jesus was not bringing any "good news"--or bad, for that matter--from God. In my opinion, it is most logical to assume that the story was floating around and someone wanted to preserve it. Since the Jesus figure was also floating around, they put the story in the mythical Jesus figure's mouth. Now Christians claim hell exists because Jesus told us about Lazarus and the rich man. And we know hell is a lake of fire because the rich man said "I suffer torment in this flame."

And it's all just a story. Told by a guy in the comics.

Besides, as the article emphasizes, sheol or the place of the dead, is a place for both good and bad; there is no judgment as in the Christian Bible.

Written in response to a person asking for scholarly sources here.

The only book I've read todate is Tom Harpur's Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. On my table waiting to be read is Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle: Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. Other books often mentioned on these forums are Bart D. Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, and the work of Robert Price, and also of John Dominic Crossan. I think Crossan is a liberal Christian and so is Harpur, but the fundies would hardly own them as part of the fold. Even the moderate school where I studied condemned Harpur, though they recommended Crossan as a reputable scholar.

A look at the titles of the books by Price and Crossan suggest to me that by the time you get through all of these you will have expanded your horizons. Does anybody know--I think Price is an atheist. [Someone answered that Price is an atheist.]

Several posts later:



Others might have better answers. Christian scholars hate Harpur; that's the long and short of it so far as I can make out. My NT professor hated the very sound of his name so much that we students were not even allowed to raise his work for discussion with regards to the course. My professor for systematic theology had a Christian prof from another department come in and give a talk about Harpur. That prof ranted and raved about Harpur's terrible scholarship. He had had considerable correspondence with Harpur and was considered a "specialist" on him, I guess.

Harpur has a real PhD and did real research, along with real documentation, but he was writing for a popular audience so he did not format his book like a university text or professional journal. That is how I size up the situation. He is a Christian today so far as I know. He says in his book that the Christian message had more meaning for him after doing his research than before.

I live about an hour and a half from Toronto where Harpur got his doctorate and I presume he lives there. I suspected my profs just can't handle it that a "local boy" hit the jackpot with a heretical book while they themselves toil away faithful to the church with little to show for their efforts. But you say your prof doesn't like him either? I would not know his reason.

I had contacted Harpur with questions. One of my sisters was also seeking for answers a few years later. I recommended Harpur's book. She, too, wrote to him and had good correspondence.

Thus, Harpur seems to be for real. Maybe I don't understand your question. But I don't know who else to recommend. The other NT scholars I know who don't think Jesus existed deconverted or never were Christians. There is also Acharya S. I didn't think of her for my other post.

I looked at your question again. Are you asking for a scholar who argues FOR Jesus' existence? I would think those exist all over the place.

Just now I typed "historical Jesus" into Amazon. Here's the page. Famous names like John Dominic Crossan, Gary Habermas, and Albert Schweitzer head the list. I think all of those are Christians, though I don't know each person's position in the debate--whether for or against. Habermas is evangelical so he would definitely be for but, knowing what I do about some evangelical scholarship, I can't vouche for his quality of scholarship.

Another keyword to use would be "lives of Jesus." Scweitzer and Crossan are known for their excellent scholarship, I understand. A Jewish NT scholar of today is Adele Reinhartz. And here's another book I found just now on my shelf from my NT course: Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man From Galilee, by Mark Allan Powell. That book might lead you to others, if what you are looking for is the historical Jesus. If I remember correctly, it was in this book that I was introduced to names like Scweitzer, terms like "lives of Jesus," and issues like the search for the historical Jesus.

Good luck on your research!

A course that had quite a powerful impact on me was a course on the mystery religions in Greco-Roman society. One of the course texts, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts, edited by Marvin W. Meyer, included excerpts from Philo, Plutarch, Clement, and Gospel of Philip--IOW, Jewish and early Christian writings of the Roman era.

After thinking about this for about five years, in the context of everything else I learned in that course and since then, I am thinking it makes a lot of sense to believe that the Jesus story came out of wherever the Mystery Religions came, i.e. the dark womb of mystery. Today, no one knows where they came from. There is so much in the New Testament itself and in the Gnostic literature that would allow one to arrive at this conclusion. The similarities between the Jesus story in all its versions (Gnostic as well as orthodox/traditional Christianity) and other Mystery Religion stories are, in my opinion, too great to discount without serious consideration.

One must also take into consideration how these stories were acted out on the stage, in what context, lighting, etc. The Mystery Religions used the stage, carefully adapted to evoke proper mood. Men and women were used as actors and admitted as audience because the enactment was part of the ritual of the religious practice. Then think about a regular Christmas or Easter enactment in a Christian church today, esp. one in which some professional talent is put to use with lighting, music, acting, accoustics, etc.