# Jesus: Myth, or Man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 7, 2016, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392 "2016-01-07T03:02:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/221 "2016-01-08T16:47:00Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Paul clearly identifies James as “the lord’s brother” in his Epistle to the Galatians: > > “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.” > > This would be very odd, if Jesus was a cosmic figure invented by James etc. It seems more natural that an actual human would be one’s brother. That is the most difficult passage to explain, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/222 "2016-01-08T16:48:00Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > Please quote where “someone is demanding that because Josephus mentions something he heard, Jesus must be real.” Dr. Deth said something along the lines of, “There is no doubt Jesus existed…” And went on to booster Joesphus. > [@](#): > > The “shoddy reasoning” and adolescent outburst appears to be yours alone. Mine alone? There is a guy quoting a novel and thinking that it’s the actual letters Pilate wrote… a little perspective please. Also, I use profanity, I don’t know where you live, that such outbursts are confined to adolescents. 😃 > [@](#): > > Let’s look again at your previous comment … > First, your tepid ad hominem (“one thing I know about religious people, is they state their beliefs as fact”) is a bit amusing given the ease with with which you promote your belief as fact, i.e., Of course they do. Christians don’t say, “Even though the evidence is scant, I believe in Magic Jesus, and his ability to nuke fig trees.” They say, “Jesus rose from the dead.” [quote] [ul][li]“He was told that by someone. Like maybe a follower of Christ.”[\*]“Josephus spoke to an early Christian at some point”[/ul]Of course, Josephus could have just as easily gotten his information about James from some Roman (or even Jewish) source, but you prefer to manufacture/proclaim those ‘facts’ that suite you.[/li][/quote] If James wasn’t actually the brother of Jesus, then the idea that he was was probably created by Christ’s followers. That idea might have been transmitted to Josephus by anyone, but its genesis was likely a Christian. > [@](#): > > But none of this speaks to the importance of the Antiquities 20.9.1. Here Josephus, writing for Imperial Rome and to a primarily Flavian audience, clearly believes that a reference to Jesus is more than adequate to disambiguate ‘James.’ This, in turn, suggests an awareness of the nascent Christian sect and its narrative among circles ethnically, culturally, and geographically far removed from Palestine. Again, that’s not evidence. That just shows that Josephus is repeating something he heard, something that he’d reasonably believe to be true, because _of the awareness of the nascent Christian sect_. > [@](#): > > Is this proof that “Jesus must be real”? Of course not. But, taken along with the works of Paul and Acts, it serves as modest evidence for the historicity of a Jerusalem sect whose early leader would later be proclaimed the Christ. Modest evidence is overstating things a bit. I would say that it is evidence that by 90ish C.E., Josephus was exposed to someone who thought the James that was stoned was Jesus’ brother. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/223 "2016-01-08T16:48:45Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > So this /\ is you way of obfuscating: _render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible_, that your position has no facts, to tell me I am “anti-witnessing”…? > > Obfuscate, evade, avoid, circumvent, elude, side step… (shall I list more synonyms for [evade](http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/evade)?) > > One side witnesses, one side anti-witnesses. Which side has the facts? I’m not witnessing. I’m not a Christian. I’m interested in religion purely out of social-evolutionary and historical interest. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/224 "2016-01-08T16:49:37Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > What is unusual, is to have one’s “savior” killed like a common criminal, with a humiliating public death. Not unusual. Messianic figures–actual human ones who actually lived–were executed like common criminals with some frequency. It was a type of event all too well known to Jews at the time, and there is no reason to think they would have seen an execution by the Roman occupation to be effectively humiliating. The idea of a martyr had been around for quite some time prior. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/225 "2016-01-08T16:51:28Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Everytime this argument crops up, it ends up boiling down to the same thing for me. > > What exaclty is the difference between this: > > And saying he didn’t actually exist? Because that sure as hell isn’t the Jesus people associate with the guy form the Bible. > > It’s like saying: King Arthur existed! Just 'cause some bum names Arcturus wrote his name on Hadrian’s wall once. He didn’t unify the Anglo Saxons, or have a cadre of knights, or hunt down the holy grail. He did, however, have a wife who cheated on him with his best buddy. > > Does it matter? That’s not who anyone is talking about when they say: King Arthur. Even if his tale of marital woe somehow made it part of the myth, if 99% of the story is myth, then how would King Arthur NOT be mythical? > > If 99% of the Jesus narrative did not happen, how is Jesus not mythical? Well, if the question was “did Jesus, performer of actual miracles and the son of god, exist”, then the question would be a simple one: no. No-one can perform miracles, and god doesn’t actually exist, and so cannot have sons. However, that isn’t the question in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/226 "2016-01-08T16:56:27Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Not unusual. Messianic figures–actual human ones who actually lived–were executed like common criminals with some frequency. It was a type of event all too well known to Jews at the time, and there is no reason to think they would have seen an execution by the Roman occupation to be effectively humiliating. The idea of a martyr had been around for quite some time prior. No. In Judaism, by definition, a messiah can’t also be a failure. Failure makes one a _false_ messiah. See: Simon Bar Kokhba. The execution of Jesus makes it very difficult for Jews to accept claims of his messiah-hood, as it is totally contrary to the Jewish understanding (then as now) of what a messiah is. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/227 "2016-01-08T16:59:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The notion of a savior who went away but will come back to save everyone in some perfect future isn’t at all unusual in mythology. In some types of Islam, the 12th Imam is said to have gone “into occlusion” but will return; Kind Arthur is said to be sleeping (but will awaken to drive out the Saxons), etc. > > What is unusual, is to have one’s “savior” killed like a common criminal, with a humiliating public death. True, but that’s part of the reason it’s a good story, and has such buy-in. Also, his death was a trivial inconvenience. He didn’t die in any reasonable sense. He took a long nap and woke up fine… well almost fine, he still had his injuries, which is a bit weird. > [@](#): > > To my mind, it makes more sense that the success of Christianity is basically an accident arising out of “damage control” from the traumatic - and very visible - failure of the cult’s leader to accomplish, well, anything (other than get himself killed). You don’t think that the death was necessary to have the reveal at the end? It’s a good story, that’s why it’s the most popular religion on Earth. > [@](#): > > The other possibility - that it was just all made up by a genius group of cult-inventors - strikes me as more improbable. Why have their savior come to Jerusalem, fail, and be executed? Would it not make more sense to have a leader who goes away after performing numerous miracles, without the failure and death? It doesn’t need to be a genius group of inventors. It could have just built up over time from many hands. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/228 "2016-01-08T17:05:21Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > No. In Judaism, by definition, a messiah can’t also be a failure. Failure makes one a _false_ messiah. See: Simon Bar Kokhba. I believed your point was that once a person had been crucified, Jews at the time would have stopped respecting him. This is a common argument that’s made in conversations like this, but it seems to be a completely ungrounded idea. I can see my own reply confused the issue by using the term “messianic.” > [@](#): > > The execution of Jesus makes it very difficult for Jews to accept claims of his messiah-hood, as it is totally contrary to the Jewish understanding (then as now) of what a messiah is. Up for grabs is the question of whether Jews thought of killed-then-resurrected messiah as a thing that could happen or not. Many have asserted that Jews at the time did not and practically could not have conceived of such a thing. But the very fact that Jews conceived of the resurrection story of Jesus seems to cast doubt on that idea, and we do have at least one albeit very vague reference in an inscription to an executed messianic figure named Simon of Perea, 40 years prior to Christ’s execution, which seems to indicate an expectation that _something_ will happen three days after his death. Again: It’s a very vague inscription so this can’t be taken as a clear record of such a belief, but remember that my whole point in threads like this is to urge _uncertainty_. Lots of things people assert with an “It is known, Khaleesi” intonation simply aren’t so known. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/229 "2016-01-08T17:05:37Z")
It is far more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person than that he was cut from whole cloth. Messianic pretenders were hardly rare at that time, it would be hard to walk down the streets of Jerusalem without tripping over a few. And just as with cults now rivalries would be fierce. Reading between the lines of the NT I think it likely that Jesus and a few of his disciples had been followers of John the Baptist before breaking away and setting up their own stall. Such has always been the fissiparous nature of sects. John’s loyal followers, who continued for centuries, must have been furious when they saw their Master recast in Christian literature as an obsequious herald for this upstart Nazarene. The New Testament is too messy to be wholly fictitious. Again it’s easy to spot the ghosts of old rivalries. How Paul must have resented being Johnny-Come-Lately who, as the _real_ disciples surely took pleasure in reminding him, had never even met the Master. And imagine how those disciples felt when the news came in, “Hey, guess who Paul bumped into on the way to Damascus?” I just bet the air was alive with the babble of many tongues that day and none of them emanated from the Holy Spirit! With one bold stroke Paul had set himself on a par with the elders of the movement. Even above them: when was the last time they saw Jesus? Really? That long ago? My point is that no writer would make this stuff up. These were all real people, including Jesus himself. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/230 "2016-01-08T17:05:49Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The mythicist hypothesis I think is most plausible posits that Christianity started in Jerusalem with, probably, Peter James and John, and that Paul was a later addition to (and trouble-maker within) that sect. Thanks for the response. So you accept a Jerusalem sect led by James and yet claim that the fabrication of Jesus is more likely than is the idea of James as successor to Jesus. Why is that? > [@Frylock](#): > > The idea is that from the beginning Jesus was thought of as a cosmic figure, not a human one, and Paul was continuing with this, declaring he was having revelations of his own alongside those of James etc. Only later did people start imagining Jesus as having lived on Earth–and then probably only later still did people start _believing_ he had been a human on Earth. Possibly but, again, I see zero reason to believe it more likely. There is an exceptional two volume work by David Flusser titled “Judaism of the Second Temple Period” with volume 1 focusing on “Qumran and Apocalypticism.” There is little evidence that “cosmic figure” theology had much currency. On the other hand, there is much evidence of charismatic sect leaders sounding very much like the prophets of old. It seems much more likely to me that Jesus was such a leader later promoted to “cosmic figure” in the diaspora. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/231 "2016-01-08T17:06:28Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > True, but that’s part of the reason it’s a good story, and has such buy-in. Also, his death was a trivial inconvenience. He didn’t die in any reasonable sense. He took a long nap and woke up fine… well almost fine, he still had his injuries, which is a bit weird. > > You don’t think that the death was necessary to have the reveal at the end? It’s a good story, that’s why it’s the most popular religion on Earth. > > It doesn’t need to be a genius group of inventors. It could have just built up over time from many hands. Well, it was popular once it grew outside of its Jewish roots. The “great story”, as it turns out, appealed to non-Jews, but not to Jews so much - because, despite all of the attempts made to connect Jesus to the Biblical notion of a messiah, his ignominious death simply isn’t part of - and is, in fact, directly contrary to - the Jewish notion of messiah-hood. My “take” is that Paul took a struggling Jewish sect and made it viable by making the story accessible to non-Jews. This strikes me as having the hallmarks of a happy accident, not of planning. If it was planned (or even “built up”), why not do so with a story that appeals specifically to Jews - as the authors evidently intended? Why do so with a story that turns them off? ---
**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:** [January 8, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/232 "2016-01-08T17:06:40Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It doesn’t need to be a genius group of inventors. It could have just built up over time from many hands. This. A genius group of inventors wouldn’t have included that bit about zombie saints rising up and shambling towards the town…never to be heard from again. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/233 "2016-01-08T17:08:55Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > Thanks for the response. > So you accept a Jerusalem sect led by James and yet claim that the fabrication of Jesus is more likely than is the idea of James as successor to Jesus. Why is that? Long story. Sorry, but see below: > [@](#): > > Possibly but, again, I see zero reason to believe it more likely. My own view is that it’s at least a little more likely, but more to the point what I really try to emphasize in conversations like this is that _we just don’t know_ a lot of things people assume we know. To me it’s serious, important progress if someone will just admit that Jesus’s non-existence is a _live possibility_ based on what evidence we do have. Not just a speculation or tendentious implausible idea but a live possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/234 "2016-01-08T17:10:19Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > appealed to non-Jews, but not to Jews so much You can estimate how likely a Jew was to join the sect and how likely a non-Jew was to join the sect? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/235 "2016-01-08T17:12:29Z")
**Jaywalker** , to be a little more helpful on “what’s the case for mythicism” front I’ll present this synopsis with some trepidation: [http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml](http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml) You’re going to hear a lot of valid criticism of the author in terms of his bedside manner (though in the linked article he’s in scholar mode so the crankiness is not on display) but in my view, as to the _logic of the debate_ (ignoring the rhetoric and drama), he’s got a plausible case–at least as plausible as non-mythicism. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/236 "2016-01-08T17:15:31Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > These are not sources–we do not have any of their writings. We have descriptions of their beliefs and those descriptions aren’t insane, unlike with the Borborites, so there’s no reason to think that the writer made up this particular accusation. And the descriptions tend to be consistent in this regard across the Jewish-Christian and early Gnostic groups. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/237 "2016-01-08T17:16:04Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I believed your point was that once a person had been crucified, Jews at the time would have stopped respecting him. This is a common argument that’s made in conversations like this, but it seems to be a completely ungrounded idea. > > I can see my own reply confused the issue by using the term “messianic.” No - the idea is that a guy who fails and is executed can’t be a “messiah”. This is totally grounded. A “messiah” in Judaism is someone who _succeeds_ in saving Jews, leading to a brighter future. The only specific individual identified in the OT as a “messiah” isn’t even Jewish - he is Cyrus the Great, King of Persia. He’s a “messiah” because he saved the Jews from Babylonian captivity, and sent them back to Judea. Someone who fails and is executed may be a “hero”, or have any one of a number of positive labels - but he just can’t be a “messiah”. That’s by definition. Just like someone who fails to win a race isn’t “the winner”, even if his or her failure was totally noble. > [@](#): > > Up for grabs is the question of whether Jews thought of killed-then-resurrected messiah as a thing that could happen or not. Many have asserted that Jews at the time did not and practically could not have conceived of such a thing. But the very fact that Jews conceived of the resurrection story of Jesus seems to cast doubt on that idea, and we do have at least one albeit very vague reference in an inscription to an executed messianic figure named Simon of Perea, 40 years prior to Christ’s execution, which seems to indicate an expectation that _something_ will happen three days after his death. Again: It’s a very vague inscription so this can’t be taken as a clear record of such a belief, but remember that my whole point in threads like this is to urge _uncertainty_. Lots of things people assert with an “It is known, Khaleesi” intonation simply aren’t so known. Of course they could “conceive of such a thing” - just as I may argue that, because of my good sportsmanship in a race, I’m the “real winner”. What I can’t do, is convince the judges to give me the winner’s cup - just like the early Christians evidently found it hard to convince Jews of their day to accept Jesus (the executed) as the “messiah”. The cult only took off once non-Jews began to join. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/238 "2016-01-08T17:17:58Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > You can estimate how likely a Jew was to join the sect and how likely a non-Jew was to join the sect? No, but I can point out that hiostorically the cult only achieved success once Paul reformatted it to make it appealing to non-Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/239 "2016-01-08T17:24:20Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > We have descriptions of their beliefs and those descriptions aren’t insane, unlike with the Borborites, so there’s no reason to think that the writer made up this particular accusation. And the descriptions tend to be consistent in this regard across the Jewish-Christian and early Gnostic groups. I am just insisting that they’re not _sources_. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/240 "2016-01-08T17:28:34Z")
Again, do the people who think Jesus was wholly mythical think John the Baptist was also mythical? How about Jesus’ brother James? The idea that someone creating a religion around a martyr would have avoided fraud detection by using a real martyr, rather than a fictional one, does not depend on whether the fraud was discovered, but _whether it might have been_. Certainly there were residents of the tiny town of Nazareth alive in 62 A.D. who would know whether “James brother of Jesus” made sense. > [@Lobohan](#): > > If James wasn’t actually the brother of Jesus, then the idea that he was was probably created by Christ’s followers. That idea might have been transmitted to Josephus by anyone, but its genesis was likely a Christian. If you assume Josephus’ _Antiquities_, published in 93 but written earlier, contained the phrase translated “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James” then this was presumably considered a true story in 62 A.D. Are you now suggesting that James was real, but his connection to the mythical Jesus was invented? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Well as said, it’s not a conspiracy that I’m particularly knowledgeable on. … nutters … exreme nutter. … And no interest in debating the topic … Given the rest of the post your claim of ignorance on the matter was redundant. But good show getting some “nutter” digs in while having “no interest” in learning. You’d fit in real well in a thread on the topic: those most ignorant get most vehement! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=13)