Jinksy

Does anybody know of any compelling, factually supported articles that argue that Jesus didn't actually exist? Brief ones, preferably - I'm pretty snowed under at the moment. But it'd really be something to cite in some of the discussions I've been having recently...

Iasion

Greetings Jinksy,

You may like to start with Earl Doherty's (fairly brief)
12 Easy Pieces of the Jesus Puzzle

You can check the supporting detail in his main articles.

Earl's is one of the best such sites,
you may also like Robert Price's recent book
"Incredible Shrinking Son of Man"

Iasion

Jinksy

Have there been any discussions of the topic in here? You'd think if no-one had actually used the name 'Jesus' until 100 years after he supposedly died, as this site appears to say, it wouldn't be so controversial to claim that he was fictional, surely?

Asha'man

First, this discussion probably comes up in every 3rd thread, so it has been discussed a bit here.

It's not that nobody used the name, in fact the name was rather common at the time. Even when applied to a heavenly savior, the name Jesus was still used.

The information that is missing for the first 100 years is all of the biographical material about the man, where he lived, the name of his parents, what and where he preached, the miricles he performed, when he died, etc. If you examine all the material that was written before the gospels, you find out that you know virtually nothing about Jesus. He lived, he died, we are saved. That's really about it.

You might also want to read Richard Carrier's review of Doherty.

Jinksy

That's handy

What's the consensus?

Asha'man

No clear consensus, as best I can tell. Many think the Mythical Jesus is a very plausable explanation. Some think it's interesting, but are not convinced, others reject it entirely, and argue against it every chance they can.

Personally, I think the Mythical position is a slightly better explanation than the Historical position, but there is not enough evidence to make a confident choice between the two.

The Evil One

The majority of NT scholars believe that there was a historical Jesus. Unfortunately the majority of NT scholars are Christians, so they would, wouldn't they.

Scholars who do not consider there to have been a historical Jesus are in a minority, but a sizeable, important minority.

chestercopperpot

Quick question. What is the difference between a mythical Jesus and a historical Jesus? Does a mythical Jesus mean that all of the Jesus supernatural "myths" are true, or does it mean that the idea of Jesus is entirely a myth? And does a historical Jesus mean a Jesus existed without the supernatural?

Just a little confused about the terminology.

Magdlyn

Here is a useful way of looking at it.

different views of Jesus the Christ:

conservative: Jesus is God and is supernatural, ie: he performed miracles. fundamentalism, literalism.

liberal: Jesus was a historical man, perhaps some of the info about him in the gospels is historically accurate

radical: Jesus and his story are mythological. True (metaphorically) without being factual. Ie: docetism or gnosticism. As in Paul: the Christ is an indwelling spirit.

Biff the unclean

Since there is no supernatural an historical Jesus would have had to exist without it. Historical Jesus would have been a man like everybody else. With the magical stories attached to a real person the the Jesus we know from the Gospels would be the Legendary Jesus.
The problem is that no record of a Jesus of Nazereth has been found. Nor any person of another name who might have been who the character was based on.
Mythical Jesus is an entirely fictional character.
Since the life of Jesus is made up of pieces of the bios of other demigods, and since no record of an historic Jesus has ever been found (Hell Nazereth hasn't even been found) I feel that we are forced to conclude a mythical Jesus instead of a legendary one