Gooch's dad

I chose #2. Claims that are not extraordinary don't require extraordinary evidence, and it is just an ordinary claim to say that a Jewish preacher named Jesus had a cult following, and got himself crucified for insurrection. As Peter Kirby has pointed out in his wonderful essay on the Testimonium of Josephus, the reference in Antiquities 20.9.1 to James, the brother of Jesus, is sufficient evidence. It corresponds with the much earlier reference by Paul to James as the 'brother of the Lord'.

Josephus describes several other Jewish cult leaders of the time. The others simply didn't have Paul as their marketing manager.

-Kelly

CX

I've been fascinated by HJ research for many years and have read much on the subject. Even so I would still consider myself a dilletante. That being said I think without further clarification of what we mean by "Historical Jesus" the question is insoluable. Certainly there is the trivial case of a messianic pretender or simple apocalyptic prophet named Yeshu'a (a very common name) existing in 1st century Palestine, but that case would be relatively uninteresting vis-a-vis the discussion at hand. On the other end of the spectrum is the possibility that the "Jesus" described in the New Testament existed exactly as portrayed which I consider remote enough to no longer consider seriously. The question then is where the "Historical Jesus" we are being polled on exists within that spectrum of possibilities.

Rational BAC

I voted for #1 (although will admit I considered #5 for a long time and I still think #5 is a valid answer)

Simply because all I wanted to know was if there was a good chance there was a historical Jesus--------and for this purpose I left out all the theistic part. Was there at least a "Joe Blow" Jesus?

I think so. Just as much reason to believe there was a historical Jesus in that sense as there is to believe in any historical figure from 2000 years ago.-------where records are lost, corrupted and added on to in most all cases.

--------------------------------------------------------------

PS---Nobody answered one of my earlier questions. Which is correct (or more correct)?

A historical Jesus ----------or-------An historical Jesus?

conkermaniac

I voted yes, and I am not a Christian. I believe that the purely mythical stories referred to in the Bible were written about a real person named Jesus. He may have performed one or two miracles, which led others to believe that he was the son of God and invent new miracles. This Jesus may also have been a significant preacher of the time. It's like if we were to write a story about Pope John Paul II.

Peter Kirby

"A historical Jesus" is correct. The H is a consonant, so long as you aren't speaking with a cockney accent.

best,
Peter Kirby

Stephen T-B

My colleagues say "an."
I do, too..

Artemus

I agree. The fact that there might have been some individual (or individuals) that originally inspired some of the fictional Jesus accounts in the gospels no more makes that Jesus a historical figure than the fact that the story of Citizen Kane might have been inspired by some of the events in William Randolph Herst's life makes Citizen Kane a historical figure.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

lugotorix

I had to vote #4, that the question is ultimately undecidable, barring a discovery of a birth certificate from Bethlehem General Hospital for Yeshua, signed by Yosef and Miriam . The arguments for a purely mythical Jesus that I've seen are convincing enough that I can no longer just assume there was a flesh-and-blood person behind the myths; but proving the non-existence of a peasant 2000 years ago is an impossible task.

BTW, in the UK, I think it's generally "an historical". In the US, it's "a historical" (if the 'h' is voiced, it's treated as a consonant; otherwise as a vowel). Don't know about other English-speaking countries.

lugotorix

Celsus

Oh dear. I think we've had quite enough authenticity debates recently. (I'm an HJ agnostic really, leaning to an actual figure--yes, yes, I still haven't managed to finish Eisenman's James)

Joel

Arken

I was originally going to simply vote 'no' because the Jesus described in the bible could not have existed since he committed all sorts of impossible feats, not the least of which was coming back from the dead.

Also, as others said, there's precious little in the way of extra-biblical historical evidence, evidence of deities before Jesus with similar biographies, etc.

However, I think the question of whether or not there was a revolutionary first century A.D. rabbi who headed a small Jewish offshoot sect whose name was Joshua, son of Joseph who had a mother named Mary and a brother named James, etc. is unanswerable so I guess in the end I'm sitting on the fence.