What is the actual evidence for the existence of Jesus?

@wil -

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that Josephus describes….. and then say that he didn’t. Additionally, in the passage referenced it does not say that Jesus was called the Christ. It says he was the Christ.

See, I can be a nitpicking crotchety old man too.
 
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wil said:
TJs bible is a misnomer, it isn't the bible, no genesis, no revelation...just the gospels with the miracles (virgin birth thru resurrection removed)'
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Yes. But it works as a focused version of the message of Jesus. Especially for folks like me who find the teachings on love as the key part of what Jesus brought to the world, rather than his magical abilities.
wil said:
Celsus, as quoted by Origen, criticized Jesus and Christians, calling him a magician and a deceiver born of an adulterous affair.
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Exactly. And the fact that a man who really disliked Jesus wrote he exhibited magical ability (i.e. non human skills) not to praise him or show wonder that he had godly abilities, is a strong sign that Jesus may have been more than just your average dude.
wil said:
I do not need him to have existed or all the sayings attributed to him to have been uttered by him to utilize those statements to benefit my life a d those around me.
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Fair enough. We are all free to believe and perceive the world in the ways we wish and our senses allow. Only our actions are limited by the physical world.
 
wil said:
TJs bible is a misnomer, it isn't the bible, no genesis, no revelation...just the gospels with the miracles (virgin birth thru resurrection removed)
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Hell @wil by that rationalization even Bible as Word of God is a misnomer. Its not the full words of God but the church accepted ones. There are many more gospels than the ones in the official Christian Bible. Jefferson cut stuff out but so did the early Church.
 
Vasu Devan said:
Yes. But it works as a focused version of the message of Jesus.
not to praise him or show wonder that he had godly abilities, is a strong sign that Jesus may have been more than just your average dude
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Nothing proves that the messages in Bible belong to Jesus, with Paul writing what he wanted and the church choosing what it thought was OK.
God is a farce and Godly abilities also are farce.
You mean if I do not believe the miracles that Jesus is reported to have performed, it proves that Jesus was the son of a God?
 
Kylie said:
No, I'm saying that I find the evidence for Jesus that I have seen is quite lacking and I don't find it convincing.
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Please remember you've posted to the Christianity board so it's inevitable that you will get responses from Christians. :) In addition, it would be welcome to ask out of honest inquiry, but not if it's an attempt to directly challenge another's faith - something we don't accept here.

However, before you start trying to apply standards of proof it may be worth noting that similar limitations apply for any historical figure. There had long been a bias - coming from classical history - that any written document is an objective representation of the people and places covered. We - historians - are beginning to realize that this is a very flawed assumption indeed, and there is often no corroborating proof whatsoever. This applies to many of the popular figures and events across ancient history.
 
RabbiO said:
@wil -

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that Josephus describes….. and then say that he didn’t. Additionally, in the passage referenced it does not say that Jesus was called the Christ. It says he was the Christ.

See, I can be a nitpicking crotchety old man too.
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From what I understand we have saved info on some sort of document of antiquities which for centuries has been thought of in circles they think of these things as evidence of existence, more recently it appears there exists a faction tilting the scale saying yes but these are copies of copies that only go back thus far and have been modified to make it support the claim that it was of he that was spoken.

I am just trying to relay what this uneducated lout thinks he understands... and this is what underlies my statement of unknowing and perfectly happy with my unknowing because whether or not he existed or it was an accumulation of stories of others... I and those around me benefit from my attitude which is in large part from understanding of my elder brother and wayshower, my fellow traveler thru time as do you ...you nitpicking crochety old man you!
 
Vasu Devan said:
Hell @wil by that rationalization even Bible as Word of God is a misnomer. Its not the full words of God but the church accepted ones. There are many more gospels than the ones in the official Christian Bible. Jefferson cut stuff out but so did the early Church.
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I would say all that is correct, I would also say there are many that believe otherwise.

The number of let's say each denomination is basically a documented and litigated variation in belief and there are 45,000 of those and then I believe pretty much every person side by side in every pew will find more than a few things they disagree on...

So yeah...we all believe differently.
 
wil said:
I would say all that is correct, I would also say there are many that believe otherwise.

The number of let's say each denomination is basically a documented and litigated variation in belief and there are 45,000 of those and then I believe pretty much every person side by side in every pew will find more than a few things they disagree on...

So yeah...we all believe differently.
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True enough @wil . But too much of the same spoutings by all of us in this world, would kill the novelty that keeps our brains excited.
 
Thomas said:
OK. That's your opinion – but it's not an argument.

Today just about all scholars accept the existence of a person known as Jesus of Nazareth, based on evidence from Jewish, Roman and Christian sources.

One can argue the odds about miracles, words and deeds, etc., but the Jesus's baptism, crucifixion and resurrection are widely accepted, and the idea that he was a purely mythical figure is rejected by academic consensus.
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Again pretty much agree on all that. I believe there was a dude that said enough cool things that he developed followers not unlike any other spiritual guru, motivational speaker over time.

Were all the words attributed to him his, or were there a number of other stories that got mixed in, or were there multiple people.with the name yeshua? And yeah did any miracles by other previous gods or did hyperbole get tacked.into the stories to help elevate the story, the storyteller, the movement.... none of this I know, none of this has been answered concisely but continued to have been discussed, argued about, warred about and crusades about over the centuries.

That alone makes me "not care" exactly which of which part is right and which is wrong, I will let the theologians and leaders of tens of thousands of denominations continue to hash that out.

Me? And I hope you, will spend the rest of our days contemplating our own understanding of scripture as we float downstream thrunlife.
 
Someone correct me if im wrong.. but Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Egypt to avoid the census as Herod was killing young male children. Thats why there would be no census records of His birth.
 
Kylie said:
What evidence is there for the existence of Jesus?

Pretty much everything I have seen is people speaking after the fact and even they are just repeating what other people already believe. There's no contemporary accounts I am aware of.

Are there any verifiable eyewitness accounts? Anything contemporary (that is, from the time he actually lived)?
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Most contemporary scholars of history, religion, bible, etc, whatever their theological position, agree either that he did exist or most likely did.
Ancient historians like Josephus and Tacitus refer to him. They were later, not much later really, but not direct contemporaries. Josephus was born not long after Jesus was gone, and some people think he could have known or at least met or spoken to or corresponded with people who knew Jesus. Thallus was another historian who referred to Jesus and it is believed he may have been a contemporary. But I think a lot of his material is now missing and is mostly know due to being referenced by Christian writers later.
Faithfulservant said:
an atheist investigative journalist set out to disprove Jesus existence and couldn't.
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Of course not, it would be crazy to set out to disprove any historical figure's existence, as you really can't prove a negative like that. Who was this atheist journalist? The best people can do if they are trying to disprove anything is point out something like a lack of evidence or that what little evidence there is is cryptic or vague or unreliable or something. That comes up in historical investigations a lot I think. It all goes back that whole burden of proof thing anyway . But even so, most relevant scholars today, no matter what they believe theologically, concur that there indeed was the physical existence of Jesus the human person.
Kylie said:
Verifiable records of Jesus that come from the time when he actually lived.
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I don't think they've uncovered anything that slam dunk yet, no.
Kylie said:
ow is it that there is not a single verifiable record of these events? No government records either?

Of course, you're probably going to say that it was all in some backwater of the Roman Empire or something, that records weren't kept acurately, or they were lost, or something else, which is very convenient. And unfalsifiable as well.
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Precisely. Records from that era are spotty at best. Most individual who ever lived don't have records about them. We may have estimates of populations from various eras and locations, but the further back in history you go, the harder it gets to isolate individuals. Even if birth records were kept anciently, only some survive.

Birth registration in ancient Rome - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
And even something more recent, 19th and 20th century America (informative Reddit thread) - Stuff was all over the place
(if you click it you can still see the discussion even though the original post got deleted somehow)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/1g7n765/when_did_people_in_the_us_start_tracking_their

Even if/once they do find some evidence that is a slam dunk as to the existence and personal identity of Jesus/Yeshua -
That doesn't do a thing to prove or disprove any single element of theology or religious doctrine.
 
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muhammad_isa said:
Feel free to believe what you like, but I find it more credible, that these Scriptures are based on truth,
even if they contain errors/exagerrations etc.
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Ideas, stories repeated by word of mouth, theologies, philosophies, opinions, and memories, which do not always fall into the neat boxes of truth vs falsehood or truth vs make believe.
 
This is an hour long, if anybody cares to watch something that long, but it refers to the earliest, most well known extra-biblical reference to Jesus. The scholar being interviewed, TC Schmidt, has also written a book (It's a scholarly book, but I was still shocked by the price)

Amazon.com: Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ: 9780192866783: Schmidt, T. C.: Books

Amazon.com: Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ: 9780192866783: Schmidt, T. C.: Books
www.amazon.com

In case this video does not play on our site, it's Religion for Breakfast on YouTube
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ReligionForBreakfast

An educational channel dedicated to the academic, nonsectarian study of religion. We promote improving the public's religious literacy by exploring humanity's beliefs and rituals through an anthropological, sociological, and archaeological lens. Religion for Breakfast does not endorse any...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com

ReligionForBreakfast

An educational channel dedicated to the academic, nonsectarian study of religion. We promote improving the public's religious literacy by exploring humanity's beliefs and rituals through an anthropological, sociological, and archaeological lens. Religion for Breakfast does not endorse any...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com


The Most Famous Extrabiblical Reference to Jesus: Authentic or Not? (Interview w/ Dr. Tom Schmidt)


 
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