I have no idea if Jesus existed or not. On balance, I think it's more likely that he existed, than that he's totally made-up.

OTOH, we have to ask "are the stories about Jesus true?" I think the evidence points overwhelmingly to the idea that the stories are made up--fabrications intended to accomplish a variety of things.

It's no accident that "the body's gone". We see this cheap, stupid plot device in countless TV cop shows, thrillers, and so on. If the body's gone, there's no evidence to refute lots of claims about his life--e.g. the crucifiction stuff. There's no way at all it couldbe disproven, even if it's not true.

I also suspect it's no accident that there are no contemporaneous, secular records of Jesus' life. Doesn't it strike anyone else here that this omission is awfully peculiar? Here we have a man who's a real pain inthe ass to the Romans, who's allegedly performing these acts which defy the laws of nature, yet there's almost no record of this stuff by a contemporaneous secular historian? I just don't think that's possible if the bible stories are true. OTOH, if the stories were written decades after Jesus died, they'd almost certainly be embellishments--this is what happens when people write recollections of the dead, particularly years or decades after they've died.

Why this sudden outburst when there are two threads going already dealing with this issue?

Michael

Lance

Skeptic22: You're missing a couple of points here. As depicted in the gospels, Jesus was a pain in the ass to the high priest and company, NOT the Romans.

In fact, if you believe that wonderfully made up scene with Pilate, according to the Gospels that had to practically force the Romans to execute him.

None of which jives with any kind of history. The Romans would have been involved at that level for one and one reason only...rebellion. Now if the theory that Jesus was leading an armed messanic rebellion is true, then the Romans would be quite concerned, and it would square with what Donini's paper on the topic that the gospel of John indicated a tribuine was present. (I can't find this in modern accounts, has it been changed?)