mountainman

One possibility for evidential proof is that someone in antiquity, following their previous pagan customs for honoring important historical figures, commemorated his historical appearance with a shrine and/or inscription, for example analogous to the following ....



Example inscription .....

'This man, named after Joshua,
and shining forth Nazareth,
extinguished the faults of men.
The tomb in Jerusalem (received) his body,
but in truth heaven received him
so that he might drive out the pains of men
(or:drive pains from among men) .'

--- Ancient inscription, translated C. P. Jones

Then I would look at Constantine differently. If the evidence is such that the historical existence of this Jesus character looks reasonable, then I would see Constantine as a type of Ashoka, who sought a religious experience for himself and his empire by way of becoming a follower of Buddha, and erecting pillars and inscriptions commemorating the birth of Buddha three centuries after the event (Constantine does the same and more three centuries after the supposed historical existence of the Jesus figure).

I would cease to see Constantine as a ward irresponsible for his own actions and instead see him as one of the finest examples of the servants of Jesus who knew when the time was right to order his armies to fight in His Most High and Holy Holy Name. I would decline the invitation to become a christian soldier.

spamandham

If it turned out that some guy 2000 years ago went around hanging out with whores and preaching fortune-cookie style wisdom, and in the process created a ruckus and got himself crucified....and that was the origin of the Christianity, I must say it would cause me a bit of confusion as to why something so ordinary would result in a new major religion.

But beyond the perplexity, it wouldn't effect me at all.

WVIncagold

He would sure need to give his recipe for zombie stew! Really? if he existed ok i can accept that a guy named Jesus (boy were his parents kissing Roman ass to name thier child a latin name rather than a jewish.) walked around and had fishermen follow him. but after that no way can I accept a man became a walking dead, zombies walked in Jerusalem, and flew into the sky. That kind of fiction exist only in mens minds. So the answer is not a bit. Just another guy with a message.

Doug Shaver

It wouldn't make a bit of difference. I was thoroughly convinced of Jesus' existence for the first 55 years of my life. When I changed my mind about that, I did not change my mind about a single other thing. If I had to change it back again, the same would be true.

Jimmy Higgins

Jesus existing isn't a really important issue. It was the resurrection that was key to the identity of Jesus. No resurrection, no Christianity. It can be argued that Jesus didn't think he was god.

Steve Weiss

The effects of no Jesus would be about the same as Superman or Batman not being real people. Now, if Spiderman weren't real than who is all those movies about? I have seen spiders and men, so put them together and you've got Spiderman. Don't tell me there's no Spiderman. That I couldn't handle.

EarlDoherty

"Recorded"? Do you accept the reliability and accuracy of Irenaeus, writing around 180, and the Talmuds in the 5th century responding to Christian claims and voicing the name in its Hebrew form?

Virtually the entire body of early Christian literature that preceded Irenaeus has the name in the Greek form, so why is that not more "correct"? Actually, MJers know that the name has been chosen for an invented character (or influenced by the Pauline god Christ Jesus), and since those authors lived in a Greek-speaking environment, that was the 'original' form. Irenaeus was simply reading a Jewish HJ into his religious tradition and assumed he would originally have been known by the name's Hebrew form.

If those Greek speaking Gospel authors and Q compilers (the majority were likely non-Jewish anyway) were basing their character on some kind of background figure or type, then there would indeed have been many "Jesuses" on the scene who could have functioned in that role.

Earl Doherty

mountainman

Setting aside the patristic literature, the sources for which are very late, the evidence dictates that the name of Jesus was not just recorded in the Greek form but in the abbreviated ("nomina sacra") Greek form.. A "leap of faith" or a "poetic licence" is required to interpret "J_S" and "Jesus" and/or "Joshua".



Many assumptions are possible because the form of the name was codified. What was indeed the real non symbolic meaning or indeed the expanded form of the full name is conjectural. The evidence we have is the codified form only.

The evidence indicates one universally employed series of abbreviations which included the name of Jesus (as J_S). The universality of the use of the abbreviated form for the orthodox and the heretics, and for the Greek and the Coptic (and Syriac and Latin??) indicates an EARLY oversighting EDITOR of the books of the NT canon, copied by the authors of the NT non canonical texts.

J_S said, J_S said, all this constant repetition for example in the NHC Coptic gThomas is not the same explicit evidence as "Jesus said", Jesus said". Many Jesus and/or no Jesus at all can be equally deduced from this universal use of the codified scribal conventions present in the evidence.

Ferryman to the Dead

Yeah there were about 20 or so at the time of this christian saviour and none fit the profile of the christian one.

gurugeorge

Well of course it would depend on what one meant by "Jesus":-

If some obscure preacher who got glorified by mythical overlays, then it's a ho-hum thing, makes no difference to my life at all, there are tons of preachers and philosophers and wise men in history, some of what they say is valid, some rubbish.

But if the superhero-like god-man who was a one shot Avatar of the Creator of the Universe, then I suppose I would have to become a Christian