What is the actual evidence for the existence of Jesus?

[Thomas]

The comments of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrin, on what to do with those apostles arrested for preaching Jesus in the Temple, are interesting in this regard:
"Men, Israelites, consider among yourselves what you intend to do to these men. For before, in days past, Theudas arose claiming to be someone, to whom about four hundred men became attached—who was killed, and all of those who obeyed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After that, in the days of the census, Judas the Galilaean arose and drew people along behind him; and that man perished, and all who obeyed him were scattered. And now I say to you, stand back from these men and leave them; for if this movement or this work is from men it will be destroyed; but if it is from God you will not be able to destroy them; you might even turn out to be men who are battling against God.” (Acts 5:35-39).

 

[Longfellow]

Then the problem, for you, is twofold, in that the evidence against is lacking and unconvincing.

The question being, how do you explain the emergence of Christianity?

By the same token, any number of historical personages could be dismissed for the lack of verified contemporary evidence, so I think the issue here is asking for this kind of 'proof' in the first place – it's simply not there.

People mostly do not use stories about those other personages as excuses for crimes against humanity.

 

[Longfellow]

... any number of historical personages could be dismissed for the lack of verified contemporary evidence, so I think the issue here is asking for this kind of 'proof' in the first place – it's simply not there.

People mostly do not use stories about those other personages as excuses for attitudes and behaviors that damage people's lives on a massive scale.

Oops. Sorry. I didn't see that the previous post was posted. I thought that I was revising it before posting.

 

[Thomas]

People mostly do not use stories about those other personages as excuses for attitudes and behaviors that damage people's lives on a massive scale.

Not really the point though, is it?

People have used any number of excuses to exhibit attitudes and behaviours that damage people's lives on a massive scale ...

 

[Longfellow]

Not really the point though, is it?

People have used any number of excuses to exhibit attitudes and behaviours that damage people's lives on a massive scale ...

I'm thinking that one reason for people wanting to think that Jesus did not exist is because they see people doing awful things and saying that they're doing it for Jesus. They think that's true, that people really are doing it for Jesus, so if they could be convinced that he didn't exist, they would stop doing it.

(later) They're imagining that some beliefs about Jesus are the reasons for some of the worst things that people are doing and some of the worst things that are happening, so that if people stopped thinking that he was a real person, they would stop doing those things, and those things would stop happening.

 

[TheLightWithin]

I'm thinking that one reason for people wanting to think that Jesus did not exist is because they see people doing awful things and saying that they're doing it for Jesus. They think that's true, that people really are doing it for Jesus, so if they could be convinced that he didn't exist, they would stop doing it.

(later) They're imagining that some beliefs about Jesus are the reasons for some of the worst things that people are doing and some of the worst things that are happening, so that if people stopped thinking that he was a real person, they would stop doing those things, and those things would stop happening.

If anybody does in fact thing such things, they are not considering the bigger picture and how many excuses people will find to do bad things to other people. And they would be disappointed to find their prediction nil.

 

[Longfellow]

If anybody does in fact thing such things, they are not considering the bigger picture and how many excuses people will find to do bad things to other people. And they would be disappointed to find their prediction nil.

It's already been dramatically proven nil, in communist-ruled countries, and in the story of Elevatorgate, Atheism+, Slymepit and what followed from those. No matter which side a person favors, nobody on either side had any Christian beliefs, and yet they still did all the worst things that people say they're doing for Jesus.

 

[Longfellow]

This book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt: Carrier, Richard: 0884967420701: Amazon.com: Books by Richard Carrier, another prominent mythicist.

I already knew about Carrier's theories, but I looked into it some more, and it looks to me like his theory could be true even if Jesus existed, so it isn't actually an argument against His existence. It's an explanation of how Christianity *could* have started *if* Jesus did not exist, but it could very well have started that way even if he did.

Christian beliefs about salvation could have started in the way that Carrier says, as beliefs about a purely fictional person, even if the gospels evolved from stories about a real person. The salvation beliefs could have started among diaspora Jews in the way that Carrier says, before they had any news about the teacher from Galilee.

 

[Kylie]

..so the Qur'an must be a conspiracy then, if Jesus is not real..
..and all the Scriptures in the NT must be based on lies.

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.

That's a false dichotomy, and a logical fallacy.

 

[Kylie]

Yes, there's a much greater number of of eye witnesses for Muhammad than for Jesus (peace be on them)

What are the names of these witnesses? Where are their accounts?

and a broad body of traditions inside Islam that cannot have been fabricated as a whole.

Argument from incredulity.

No, because there's no founder of this religion. The figures of this very old religious tradition have a mythical character and they are, as far as I know, not even considered to have founded Hinduism or Brahmanism.

I don't see how this invalidates my point. The fact that it came together over time from many different people instead of through just one person does not change the fact that it does not need to be literally true.

That's another topic. Your question was whether there are sufficient proofs that Jesus or Muhammad were real persons.

No, the issue was your claim that Christianity is likely to be true simply because it exists, a claim you made back in post 8, and then immediately followed with an argument from incredulity.

All I did was point out that Islam and Hinuism also exist, and by your reasoning that the existence of a religion is an argument for that religion's veracity, it must follow that any religion that exists must be real.

 

[Kylie]

Do you think to have enough evidence that Hammurabi existed? Gaius Iulius Cesar? Maimonides? Martin Luther? Albert Einstein? Do you have a proof that I exist?
What's your criterion?

Well, for a start, I'd want sources that come from the person's lifetime.

Do we have sources about Hammurabi that come from his lifetime? Yes. He lived from 1810BCE to 1750BCE (or thereabouts), and there is a stone tablet with a carving of him that is dated to between 1792 to 1750 on display in the British Museum. When it comes to Ceasar, we have coins with his face that were minted during his lifetime. We have the actual writings of Maimonides, and when it comes to Martin Luther and Einstein, I doubt you'd claim that we have nothing regarding them that was made during their lifetime.

Can you provide me a source that speaks of Jesus that comes from the time Jesus lived?

 

[Kylie]

Aside from the Bible, there isn't really any first-hand evidence of his existence. But Jesus was a commoner. He wasn't considered royalty, wasn't famous, and wasn't rich. If there were any first-hand witness evidence, I would be surprised.

It was after his death that he became famous. That is when he starts being mentioned in historical record.

Well, yeah, but have a look at what he did. I mean, he drew massive crowds, he walked on water, he rose the dead back to life...

It's a bit hard to believe that he was viewed as almost a nobody, when the Bible describes him as having lots of people coming to see him.

 

[Kylie]

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.

As I said, I am looking for what evidence exists. I was quite clear about that.

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.

Yes, and in my earlier response to Talib al Kalim, we have evidence for many other figures of history (some of which are centuries before Jesus) that are enough to lead to a reasonable conclusion that they were real people. The writings of the person, contemporary records of them, coins minted with their faces on them, etc.

And I'm not sure what point you are trying to make by saying that we can't view written documents as being objective representations. I mean, it's fair enough to say something like, "We can't be sure these documents provide an objective account of what was really going on" and then take the existence of Jesus as truth whenm we have even less evidence for him!

 

[Kylie]

Most contemporary scholars of history, religion, bible, etc, whatever their theological position, agree either that he did exist or most likely did.

Yes, and I want to know what is the actual evidence they base that conclusion on.

Ancient historians like Josephus and Tacitus refer to him. They were later, not much later really, but not direct contemporaries.

They were still working with hearsay at best. And I've read those accounts, and they are often just stating what people of the time believed without offering any evidence as to the vceracity of those beliefs. It's like a text from today stating that there are people who believe the Earth is flat, and some future historian using that as evidence that in the 21st century the Earth was indeed flat.

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.

Of course, those people would have been very old by then. So IF he spoke to them, and IF they were actual witnmesses, and IF they remembered it correctly...

They could have been just old people who were talking about their beliefs, and weren't actual witnesses at all.

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.

Thallus wrote some time around 50CE, but he was in Greece, so anything he got about Jesus must have been hearsay (unless he travelled a lot as a child and had perfect recollection of what he saw decades later). And it seems that his reference to Jesus was simply sugfgesting that the alleged darkness at the time of the crucifixion was a solar eclipse--a sugestion disproved by the historian Africanus because the moon was full, and solar eclipses can only occur when the moon is new. But the fact remains that someone writing about their fantheory to explain something that is refered to in a story does not mean that the story is true.

 

[Kylie]

I really doubt she is saying that

Then why mention what AI says at all?

 

[Kylie]

I've had some new thoughts about this from thinking about your question. As I said, none of the arguments that I've seen online or from authors look convincing to me at all, but I see some other reasons for thinking that the gospel stories are about a real person. It seems likely to me that there was some real person, some sort of figurehead at the center of Christianity in its beginnings, Looking at Christian denominations for example, for each of them we see one real person that they look back to as the founder. The beliefs might have been circulating already, but there was one person who stood up for them and became a figurehead for them, a rallying point. It seems likely to me that Christianity started the same way, and that there would be stories about that person. If that person was not the one in the gospel stories, then there would be traces or hints of stories about some other person, but there aren't, not even in warnings against heresies. If the person in the gospel stories was purely fictional, then there would have been stories about some other person as the first leader of Christianity, and those would have been denounced as heresies, but there is nothing like that in writings about heresies. Now that I think of it, heresies were sometimes labeled with the name of some leading person. If Christianity started with some leader who was not the one in the gospel stories, people who told that story would have been denounced as heretics, and that person would have been named as their leader. Leaders of heretics are named, but none of them claimed to be the first leader of Christianity. There isn't any trace of hint of any story about a first leader that isn't the one in the gospels. Even the gnostics called the first leader of Christianity "Jesus," and identified him with the one in the gospels.

This seems like an argument from incredulity to me.

 

[Kylie]

Then the problem, for you, is twofold, in that the evidence against is lacking and unconvincing.

The question being, how do you explain the emergence of Christianity?

The question is, if the emergence of a religion is evidence that it is real, how do you explain the emergence of other religions?

After all, when it comes to other religions, you must hold the position that a religion can emerge without being true. And if a religion can emerge without being true, then you can't claim that the emergence of Christianity is evidence that Christianity is true.

By the same token, any number of historical personages could be dismissed for the lack of verified contemporary evidence, so I think the issue here is asking for this kind of 'proof' in the first place – it's simply not there.

Perhaps, but there's often some contemporary source about them.

Oh, and people don't generally make claims that they can do impossible things like bringing the dead back to life. Extraordinary claims, after all, require extraordinary evidence. In simpler terms, I'd need much less evidence to convince me that Joe Bloggs in New York city had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch yesterday than I would to convince me that he flew around like a superhero saving people from alien spaceships hovering over the city.

 

[Longfellow]

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)?

I think the simple answer to that is no. There aren't any verifiable eyewitness accounts for anything that happened in and between Galilee and Jerusalem at that time. If I'm understanding correctly, there isn't anything that you would call "evidence" for the existence of Jesus, and you already knew that when you started this thread, so why are you wasting our time?

(later) Just out of curiosity, how do you think it might be possible to verify an eyewitness account from that time?

(later) Personally, I don' think that the gospel stories are eyewitness accounts. I think more likely that they are what Jesus taught his disciples to say. I suppose that could be called "eyewitness," but through the eyes of Jesus.

(later) If verifiable eyewitness accounts are required to claim knowledge about what happened, then we don't know anything at all about life in the area and at the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived. We have zero knowledge about life in that area at that time, anyone who lived there, or anything that happened there.

 

[Kylie]

I think the simple answer to that is no. There aren't any verifiable eyewitness accounts for anything that happened in and between Galilee and Jerusalem at that time. If I'm understanding correctly, there isn't anything that you would call "evidence" for the existence of Jesus, and you already knew that when you started this thread, so why are you wasting our time?

Because there are lots of people out there who claim that there is indeed strong evidence for Jesus.

(later) Just out of curiosity, how do you think it might be possible to verify an eyewitness account from that time?

Government records such as a census. There were quite a few historians writing down the events of the day. And even physical traces of events described in the stories.

(later) Personally, I don' think that the gospel stories are eyewitness accounts. I think more likely that they are what Jesus taught his disciples to say. I suppose that could be called "eyewitness," but through the eyes of Jesus.

That still assumes an actual Jesus.

(later) If verifiable eyewitness accounts are required to claim knowledge about what happened, then we don't know anything at all about life in the area and at the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived. We have zero knowledge about life in that area at that time, anyone who lived there, or anything that happened there.

Are you telling me that there was no one around in that time who was writing stuff down?

 

[Longfellow]

Government records such as a census.

I haven't checked, but if there was any census of that area at that time, I doubt that we would have any copies of that now.

There were quite a few historians writing down the events of the day.

At that time? About what was happening in and between Galilee and Jerusalem? That we have copies of? I don't think so.

And even physical traces of events described in the stories.

Physical traces of what? Someone giving public talks and private lessons? And people then or afterwards claiming that he did miracles? What kinds of physical traces would you expect for that? Or even if he did? Change water into wine? Walk on water? Feed thousands of people with only a few fish and loaves of bread? An earthquake? The curtain in the temple tearing in half? The death of a fig tree? What kinds of physical traces would you expect for those?