Factinista

I've heard it said often when debating religious people that there is evidence of a historical Jesus. THis got me wondering if there actually IS evidence of such a person and furthermore if there is evidence for other religious figures actually existing, such as Islam. I'm sure many people can see why this data might be relevant to a discussion, especially to undermining the religious position.

I suppose the best evidence for or against this type of thing would be anthropology does anyone have any good information about this subject?

AdamWho

The BC&H (Biblical Criticism and history) forum deals with the historical evidence for Biblical characters.

DancesWithCoffeeCups

Moving to BC&H.

show_no_mercy

The primary evidence for Jesus are the writings of the New Testament. However, the earlier writings about a character named "Jesus" in the NT never refer to him in unambiguously human terms. As in Paul's letters, he seems to be either unaware or uninterested in the human Jesus, instead focusing on his near godlike status and sacrifice, much like Philo of Alexandria's Logos or the Melchizedek figure in Qumran's Dead Sea Scrolls. This is also true of other Christian writings assumed to be written prior to 70 CE.

As Christian writings move towards the 2nd century, there's a process of "historicising" the man Jesus. This is the environment (late 1st, early 2nd) that we start getting more information about the human being Jesus, like references to his birth, his teachings, etc. The gospel narratives themselves were written in this time period (a lot of times you'll get a hard and fast date of "70 CE" but the more honest analysis would give date ranges like 70 - 100 CE or later).

Still, the gospels themselves were written anonymously. In the late 2nd century further historicising goes on where names of "disciples" found in the narratives or letters are attached to these anonymous writings. Of course, we don't really know what genre the gospel narratives are - whether they were originally intended (not how later Christians interpreted them) as history, biography, hero biography, theology, or apology.

Another problem, which I touched on earlier, is the problem of dating these writings. Were Paul's letters written when they were traditionally said to have been written, or later? Are they actually Paul's words, or were they touched up by later scribes?

This is all that we have to work with when trying to analyze the historicity of Jesus. Writings. We have no archaeology or other hard evidence that would support historicity like we have for another Jewish messiah Simon Bar-Kokhba.

gurugeorge

What he said

Toto

There is poor evidence for a historical Jesus, but a historical Jesus is no help to showing the validity of Christianity. Nevertheless, there are Christian apologists who start by asserting that there was a historical Jesus and then trying to prove that he actually resurrected from the dead and therefore must have been the son of god. These arguments are bogus.

The evidence for Mohammed is slightly better than the evidence for Jesus. The evidence for Confucius is lacking. The Buddhists do not seem to care one way or another whether there was a historical Buddha.

ApostateAbe

Yes, there is evidence for such a person. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians is an uncontested letter written by Paul. In the passage 1:19, he writes of meeting "James, the Lord's brother." The name "James" is among the four names of the brothers of Jesus listed in two synoptic gospels, in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. He is again attributed as a brother of Jesus in the writings of the historian Josephus.

Among secular historians and New Testament scholars, this is evidence enough that Jesus existed. Jesus apparently had a brother named James, and Paul met him. But, there are many people in this forum who believe it is probable that Jesus never existed, and so they have explanations for Galatians 1:19, such as "brother" was only a brother in the metaphorical religious sense, in line with how Paul uses the word on most other occasions. This explanation is rejected largely because it is contrary to the evidence given by Josephus and the gospels, and the title was used by Paul to identify James (the name was very common).

There is other evidence. Paul also writes of meeting Peter in his epistle to the Galatians, for example. And, the existence of Jesus is simply the most probable model to explain a very sudden emergence and quickly-evolving religion of written documents focused around the character of Jesus who was purported to be a human being. His myth is comparable to the myths of the leaders of Islam, Mormonism, and Rastafarianism. But, the myth surrounding Jesus is not so comparable to Moses, Hercules, or King Arthur, characters who probably did not exist.

Toto

Except that it is contested by some scholars who have studied it more than Abe. And we don't actually have any way of dating or authenticating the letter.

But those same gospels imply that Jesus' brother was not a follower, while others named James were. :huh:

But the earliest documents do not describe Jesus as a human who lived recently. Nor is there any support for the alleged quick evolution or growth of Christianity. And the myths around Jesus appear to have been modeled on those of Moses.

The evidence, such as it is, is quite dicey.

Chaucer

See this thread for a fully threshed out discussion on this very question:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....24#post6021824

Chaucer

aa5874

A claim that a Pauline writer met the Lord's brother is not evidence that the Lord did exist as human. In the NT the Lord Jesus Christ was the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God with NO human father.

And further, it is well-known phenomenon that some persons have falsely claimed through hallucinations or some mental problem that they were Gods or biblical characters and some have even claimed to have seen Gods and biblical characters.

The Pauline writer "saw" things .
He saw Jesus after he was raised from the dead but did not not write that he SAW Jesus BEFORE he was raised from the dead.

But, as early as the 2nd century among Church writers, It was claimed that the father of James was Joseph and that the sister of Mary was the mother of James.

These are excerpts from the "Fragments of Papias" a supposed early writer of the 2nd century.

There was a mistake James had no brother called the Lord.

The passage in "Antiquities of the Jews" 20.9.1 is regarded as a forgery since even Josephus himself declared that Vespasian was the predicted messianic ruler found in the oracles of Hebrew Scripture.

But, the Pauline writer also wrote that he and over 500 people saw Jesus in a non-historical state and that his gospel was NOT from man but from Jesus Christ who was RAISED from the DEAD.

It is clear that the Pauline writer was writing about a non-human entity.

It must be obvious by now that you cannot use the NT for a human Jesus. The Jesus in the NT was the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God who was raised from the dead.

And the mythological Jesus is NO comparison to the leaders of Mormonism, Islam and Rastafarianism.

Jesus of the NT has no credible external historical source, and further, Joseph Smith did not claim he died for the sins of mankind and was to be worshiped as a God. The supposed original leader of Islam is not worshiped as a God and Haile Selassie himself was not even a rasta-man or even a itinerant preacher for the rastafarian sect and anyhow he has an historical record. J

Jesus is comparable to Achilles. myth--no history.