# Evidence of a historical Jesus Christ **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017 "2011-07-22T19:25:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/121 "2011-08-05T05:08:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The Roman Empire did not rule by being nice to people, but rather by using a constant level of violence to remind its subjects that they were willing to use extraordinary violence. That’s why they crucified criminals in highly public places. That’s why they had people fight each other to the death for public entertainment. That’s why they even [ordered their own soldiers to kill randomly chosen members of their own units](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_Army%29). Mass violence against both the guilty and the innocent was central to the Roman way of life. And yet, you still haven’t come up with even a single example of truly innocent people being massacred, let alone enough examples to show that it was so routine that it would be ignored. Convicted criminals or disgraced military units are not innocent civilians. Nor were martyred Christians, once their religion had been outlawed. And it wouldn’t matter if you could, because all your nonsense about how nobody would care about Herod’s slaughter ignores Luke. Please explain why Luke would go into detail about Mary’s pleasant visit to her cousin, but not say a single word about fleeing for her life to Egypt. > [@](#): > > Speaking only for myself, I’ve found that betting on the gospels is safer then betting on the naysayers. For example the most common attack I’ve heard is the claim that Nazareth did not exist in Jesus’ time. But Israeli archaeologists [recently unearthed](http://www.cleveland.com/religion/index.ssf/2009/12/archaelogists_in_nazareth_say.html)buildings at Nazareth from exactly his time. Exactly the kind of thing I was referring to a couple weeks ago, when I said that the Iliad had been vindicated in the same way the Bible has. > [@](#): > > That’s one incident. After a great many such incidents it starts to seem like a pattern. I must concede that first-century writers knew the names of some first-century towns. Very impressive. > [@](#): > > As for the particular issues like the timing of Herod vs. Quirinius, who knows what will come to light in years ahead? I’d not be surprised if new research shed light on the issue. I would. But for the umpteenth time, you don’t have the right to be talking about secular historians until you can explain the contradictions between Matthew and Luke. But you can’t, and that’s why you keep throwing up these smokescreens about people yawning at the massacre of infants. > [@](#): > > Fundamentally I think about this subject in a different way than you do. I approach it from different philosophical premises than you do. No, you don’t; not in general. I approach the Bible in exactly the same way that you and your pals would approach the Quran, or the Book of Mormon, or Dianetics, or any other book claiming to contain supernatural knowledge. It’s just that when it comes to the Bible, you resort to all this comical special pleading. Instead of agreeing that it’s preposterous to think that Augustus would order a world-wide census requiring people to travel possibly hundreds of miles, to the city their ancestors lived in a thousand years earlier, and nobody but Luke would even mention it, you say, “I’d not be surprised if new research shed light on the issue.” If Tom Cruise said that the jury’s still out on whether an alien named Xenu used hydrogen bombs to kill billions of his people on earth 75 million years ago, you would have exactly the same regard for his sanity as I have for yours. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/122 "2011-08-05T05:15:42Z")
Maybe Abraham Lincoln was really shot in 1875 instead of 1865. Who knows what the future will reveal? How dare anybody state that he was assassinated in 1865 as a fact. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/123 "2011-08-05T05:26:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I agree that [the birth narratives are] not especially important IMO they are extremely important. It is a central tenet of Christianity that Jesus was not merely a great prophet, but the literal Son of God. The birth narratives are the only stories that explicitly show this. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/124 "2011-08-05T05:31:19Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Maybe Abraham Lincoln was really shot in 1875 instead of 1865. Who knows what the future will reveal? How dare anybody state that he was assassinated in 1865 as a fact. Furthermore, I find it perfectly reasonable that no secular historians mentioned that Lincoln instituted a tax to pay for the war, and required everyone in America to travel to the city where his ancestors lived a thousand years earlier, to pay it. Or the fact that he killed all the children in Richmond in an attempt to keep Robert E. Lee Jr. from growing up and running against him in 1900. Or that he fled to Canada shortly after the war began, and remained there until he heard that Jefferson Davis was dead. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/125 "2011-08-05T07:22:14Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > Furthermore, I find it perfectly reasonable that no secular historians mentioned that Lincoln instituted a tax to pay for the war, and required everyone in America to travel to the city where his ancestors lived a thousand years earlier, to pay it. Or the fact that he killed all the children in Richmond in an attempt to keep Robert E. Lee Jr. from growing up and running against him in 1900. Or that he fled to Canada shortly after the war began, and remained there until he heard that Jefferson Davis was dead. naysayer ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/126 "2011-08-05T22:50:51Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > And yet, you still haven’t come up with even a single example of truly innocent people being massacred, I’ve come up with many; you’ve just ignored them. However, I did make a major mistake in this thread. I thought you were actually interested in having a debate. Now that you’ve made it clear that you only wanted to call me “stupid” and “insane” over and over again, I think I’ll depart while thanking God that I have better things to do with my life. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/127 "2011-08-05T23:20:19Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > IMO they are extremely important. It is a central tenet of Christianity that Jesus was not merely a great prophet, but the literal Son of God. The birth narratives are the only stories that explicitly show this. If the birth narratives are so crucial to establishing Jesus as the Son of God, why do the gospels of Mark and John, both of which insist on Jesus’s identity as the Son of God (cites: [Mark 1:9-11](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%201:9-11&version=NIV); [John 20:30-31](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020:30-31&version=NIV)), not include them? ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/128 "2011-08-05T23:49:10Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’ve come up with many; you’ve just ignored them. That is not true. Your examples are of executed criminals or decimated soldiers, not innocent civilians. And what has been ignored are my constant pleas for you to address the internal contradictions in the Gospels, rather than repeating ad nauseum your claim that massacred babies were a boring fact of life in the Roman Empire. > [@](#): > > I think I’ll depart while thanking God that I have better things to do with my life. Don’t let the doorknob hit you where the good lord split you. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/129 "2011-08-06T00:02:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If the birth narratives are so crucial to establishing Jesus as the Son of God, why do the gospels of Mark and John, both of which insist on Jesus’s identity as the Son of God (cites: [Mark 1:9-11](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%201:9-11&version=NIV); [John 20:30-31](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020:30-31&version=NIV)), not include them? As others have noted, “Son of God” is an expression that was used of various people, including Jewish heroes and the Emperor Augustus. It was a title of respect, and it implied that one was a favorite of the gods. But Christian belief goes beyond that, and asserts that Mary was literally impregnated by God, with no participation by Joseph. The authors of Mark and John don’t say that. Don’t ask me why; ask them. Oh wait, you can’t, because nobody knows their real names. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/130 "2011-08-06T02:06:24Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If the birth narratives are so crucial to establishing Jesus as the Son of God, why do the gospels of Mark and John, both of which insist on Jesus’s identity as the Son of God (cites: [Mark 1:9-11](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%201:9-11&version=NIV); [John 20:30-31](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020:30-31&version=NIV)), not include them? Why did the psalmist tell the people he was talking to,they were gods, and the sons of god? Jesus used this quote to ask why people said he blasphemed when He called God his father. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/131 "2011-08-06T02:44:09Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > I gave a detailed refutation of your post (see post 98 in this thread), and your reply, IN FULL, was, “Not if you don’t want it to.” > > I kind of doubt that anybody but you considers a question settled, just because you’ve weighed in. Well your post was long and detailed, but does anybody else see anything in it dealing with the visit to the temple being within days of the birth and the visit of Magi much later? The people proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah were common, simple people, zeros in Herod’s radar. > [@brocks](#): > > Would you agree with me that a King who would order the Slaughter of all the children two and under in Bethlehem, just in order to kill some carpenter’s infant son because some astrologers told him he might grow up and be the king, was just a bit more paranoid about threats to his throne than normal? If so, it is not likely that he had spies on constant alert for alleged threats? So even if they missed something in the “back corner” of his kingdom, how likely would it be that they would miss the public proclamations of the new Messiah by the holy denizens of the Temple in Jerusalem? > > Except, according to Luke, home was Nazareth, not Bethlehem. So should I assume you’re a member of the Star of Nazareth club? > > I guess you didn’t read either Matthew or my post very carefully, if you think the annual Temple visits resumed when Herod died. > > Matthew clearly states that Joseph and his family fled to Egypt, and remained there until Herod died, which we agree was 4 BCE. Depending on how old Jesus was when the magi came, and how long they stayed in Egypt after the Flight, Jesus could have been 3 or 4 by then, but was probably at least 2 years old. Then an angel told Joseph the coast was clear, and he could return to Israel. Except the angel was a moron, because a couple verses later, we learn that although Herod is dead, his son (Herod) Archelaus is now ruling Judea (where Bethlehem and Jerusalem are located), and so it’s still not safe for Joseph to go there. And this is not just what Joseph thinks; God himself warns him not to go to Judea (Matt 2:22). So Joseph “turns aside,” and settles in Nazareth, in Galilee. The story makes sense only if Mary and Joseph were living in Bethlehem before Jesus was born, and expected to return there, but moved to Nazareth because of the danger from Herod’s son. It contradicts Luke, who says they lived in Nazareth all along, and only visited Bethlehem for that ridiculous census. > > At any rate, Archelaus continued to rule Judea until 6 BCE, i.e. ten years after Herod died. So Jesus would probably have been at least 12 when Archelaus died. In other words, instead of Joseph taking the family to Jerusalem every year, as Luke said, the story he tells about Jesus in the Temple would actually have been the very first year since Jesus was born that they went to Jerusalem. > > Or, if Jesus was two years old when the magi came, and they stayed in Egypt a year or two, then Jesus was 13 or 14 before their first possible visit to the Temple according to Matthew, even he’s only 12 after many visits to the Temple in Luke’s story. > > It was apparently a VERY well-kept secret, because Mary and Joseph didn’t seem to realize that Jesus was special when he was 12, and Mark 3:21 tells us that his best friends thought he was crazy. > > The whole story is preposterous. Why did the Magi have to ask Herod where the Messiah was born? These guys were scholars, who were so smart that they knew, from hundreds of miles away, that the Messiah had been born, so how could they not know what every Jew knew, i.e. that he would be born in Bethlehem? It would be like a psychic magically seeing the Eiffel Tower destroyed by an earthquake, but not knowing which city it was in. > > Matthew even says that the Star of Bethlehem LED the magi, and stopped directly over where Jesus was. So why did they have to ask anybody where he was? > > And besides all that, if God wanted to save Jesus, all he had to do was tell the Magi not to talk to Herod. Then Jesus is safe, and so are the untold number of innocent babies that Herod slaughtered. Wait, you say God doesn’t work that way? Well, yes, he does, because he told the Magi not to talk to Herod on their way home, didn’t he? > > Makes no sense at all. What doesn’t make sense are your posts. While the Magi were learned men, they may not have had a copy of Micah to check on the birth place. Besides, no matter where the crazy star went, a king to be should be born in the palace. Now as far as making stuff up, you don’t make up things there is no oral tradition to back. The birth narratives are there to tie Jesus to the Old Testament prophecies. Even at the time Mathew and Luke were written, there were people whose family traditions would back the census, the slaughter, and maybe even the star. We may have no record of them, but the slaughtered babies would be remembered for generations. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/132 "2011-08-06T05:30:39Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > My own guess is that if you could run a time machine in reverse, you could trace back the stories to an individual, but those stories bear little resemblance to what actually happened to him. I think it’s kind of (like many things from way back when), kind of a historic version of the game Telephone. You have some guy who’s born in Nazareth, goes to Bethlehem, maybe he’s even in a manger at some point. He does a couple notable things for his class and people mumble about him a little, then he becomes a bit of a self-styled philosopher, maybe attracts a handful of followers, becomes a bit of a rabble rouser and gets crucified. Hell, if we want to stretch it, maybe somebody bribed the guards and took the body away to burn it in effigy, or give it a proper burial and you have your mysterious body disappearance. Then, at some point posthumously somebody, either jokingly or mostly-seriously starts telling what amounts to Chuck Norris jokes about him involving stories of other template messianic miracles attributed to others. Suddenly 60-70 years later you this rather unremarkable figure has this intense mythos behind him (again, like Chuck Norris jokes, except more serious) and somebody decides to actually write this down, since fact checking the life of a nobody is rather hard in those days, it’s not surprising accounts of even basic information between different gospel writers differs, especially since from village to village the story probably got warped a little differently. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/133 "2011-08-06T05:43:35Z")
> [@thelabdude](#): > > We may have no record of them, but the slaughtered babies would be remembered for generations. I used to think that, but ITRChampion has convinced me that slaughtered babies were an everyday occurrence in 1st-century Palestine. As were angelic choirs, worldwide censuses, magic stars, three-hour solar eclipses at the time of the full moon, and zombie saints. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/134 "2011-08-06T06:03:57Z")
I’m currently working on a novel about a plausible historical basis for the origins of Christianity. Historical Jesus is a subject that’s all but impossible to research because there’s so little hard data, and every scholar has his own pet theory (wherein Jesus is usually in philosophical accord with the writer. People tend to want to project their own ideologies onto Jesus. I’ve been guilty of this myself. It’s a pernicious, subconscious tendency that’s hard to get rid of). I basically just decided to tell something that would make plausible historical sense and at least would not _contradict_ any known history (or contain any supernatural elements, of course). My basic narrative: Jesus comes from a peasant laborer family, under the heel (as were most other families of his time and place) under the heels of an oppressive, tax happy class system and of the Romans. It’s an era of Messianic hopes and apocalyptic fervor. Jesus becomes a follower of John the Baptist, who is heralding the coming of the “one like a son of man” who Daniel says will descend from the sky to bring about the Messianic age. After John is arrested and killed, Jesus undergoes a period of psychological crisis culminating in ecstatic, mystic states where he believes he is in communication with God. He continues to preach the coming of the Son of man and the imminent Kingdom of God. Ultimately (for a variety of reasons), he begins to see the temple as an obstacle to be destroyed in order to bring about the advent of the Son of Man, launches his assault, and (to his own amazement) is simply hunted down, arrested by temple authorities and handed over summary execution by the Romans. The Son of man doesn’t come. The Kingdom doesn’t come. God takes no notice. His followers flee back to Galilee, emotionally destroyed, Some time later, Simon the Rock has a visionary experience of Jesus, then one or two other followers make the same claim, then they decide that Jesus himself was the son of man, and that he will soon return in glory from the clouds. Then an over educated snot from Tarsus named Saul takes that ball and runs with it, adding his own highly idiosyncratic interpretations to it. I’m finding that it’s actually a kind of humorous story when written down. I’m using the device of having a young Roman convert try to collect recollections from surviving apostles (think the Gospels crossed with _World war Z_), and the disciples were crude, uneducated vulgar men. They curse and swear. They have ribald senses of humor. They are not pious twats, but genuine, salt of the earth, blue collar guys. I’ve tried for years to approach thsi project, and when I finally hit on the device of just letting these guys talk like fishermen and construction workers would really talk, it finally clicked. I’ve probably revealed too much. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/135 "2011-08-06T11:21:05Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I’m currently working on a novel about a plausible historical basis for the origins of Christianity. I hate to tell you this, but Monty Python beat you to it with “The Life of Brian.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/136 "2011-08-06T13:19:14Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I think it’s kind of (like many things from way back when), kind of a historic version of the game Telephone. The problem is that we are only getting one side of this religious “Telephone” game, making it hard to identify it as such. We haven’t got a clue as to how the story began, so we have no possible way of telling how distorted the final outcome is. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/137 "2011-08-06T15:11:47Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I think it’s kind of (like many things from way back when), kind of a historic version of the game Telephone. You have some guy who’s born in Nazareth, goes to Bethlehem, maybe he’s even in a manger at some point. Yes, except the whole story about being born in Bethlehem is clearly mythical. The writers of Matthew and Luke desperately scoured the Old Testament looking for anything that could be considered a prophesy. There was one, from 700 years earlier and clearly talking about events during that time period, which said that one would be born in Bethlehem, which is where David supposedly was from. So Matthew and Luke, in order to make this implausible connection, came up with two implausible and mutually contradictory stories about how this Jesus character could have been born in Bethlehem when everyone knew he was from the Galilee area. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/138 "2011-08-10T01:06:42Z")
So, I’m an atheist from a Christian upbringing. I generally consider myself above average in understanding of Christianity, although far from an expert. More of a lifelong hobby; It’s always been an interest. I’ve read some pop theology and tracts, debated with numerous Christians, seen quite a few film adaptations, attended church religiously for the first ten-or-so years of my life, and even read fair snippets of the Bible in various translations. Most of the arguments in this thread are ones I’ve heard before and am decently familiar with. But I absolutely swear this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the Massacre of the Innocents. I’m _flummoxed_. How did _that_ get there? ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/139 "2011-08-10T01:50:27Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > But I absolutely swear this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the Massacre of the Innocents. I’m _flummoxed_. How did _that_ get there? Don’t feel bad; you probably still know the Bible better than most Christians. Based on years of discussions and correspondence, most Christians have spent more time studying for their driver’s license than they have studying the Bible. And all you have to do to verify that is to look at the pageants and displays every Christmas. Most of them have the Magi visiting the baby Jesus in the manger, with the [cows watching them present their gifts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gentile_da_fabriano,_adorazione_dei_magi.jpg). But that is conflating two contradictory stories. There was no visit (except by shepherds) in Luke, and no stable and manger or inn’s barn in Matthew (he says Jesus was in a house, and there is no indication that Mary and Joseph ever lived anywhere but Bethlehem in their entire lives, until after they ran away from Herod). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017/140 "2011-08-10T04:48:18Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > So, I’m an atheist from a Christian upbringing. I generally consider myself above average in understanding of Christianity, although far from an expert. More of a lifelong hobby; It’s always been an interest. I’ve read some pop theology and tracts, debated with numerous Christians, seen quite a few film adaptations, attended church religiously for the first ten-or-so years of my life, and even read fair snippets of the Bible in various translations. Most of the arguments in this thread are ones I’ve heard before and am decently familiar with. > > But I absolutely swear this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the Massacre of the Innocents. I’m _flummoxed_. How did _that_ get there? That’s one of Matthew’s _less_ fantastic claims. Are you familiar with his description of a zombie assault on Jerusalem? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-historical-jesus-christ/590017.md?page=8)