# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/121 "2016-01-07T21:38:27Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I don’t think that’s established. Can we not state things as fact unless they are very solid? > > [Authorship of the Johannine works - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Johannine_works) > Why would the Romans fact-check Jesus in real time? I don’t think you are fully getting the _fog of war_ that primitive people lived in. > > So what? We have better tools to evaluate things now that we did two thousand years ago, about a preacher 30 years after his death, from the other side of the Empire, in a different language than we speak. > > Sure there is doubt. But like most things in religion, we’re expected to give it more latitude than other questions. > > So? Also, not really. So, then- we can’t state \*anything. \* If you read the section\*\* More recent criticism\*\*, theories and info gathered after the Dead Sea Scrolls make that John was the author the current consensus: \*The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran marked a change in Johannine scholarship. Several of the hymns, presumed to come from a community of Essenes, contained the same sort of plays between opposites – light and dark, truth and lies – which are themes within the Gospel. Thus the hypothesis that the Gospel relied on Gnosticism fell out of favor. Many suggested further that John the Baptist himself belonged to an Essene community, and if John the Apostle had previously been a disciple of the Baptist, he would have been affected by that teaching.[citation needed] The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by John A. T. Robinson, who coined the phrase in 1957 at Oxford. According to Robinson, this new information rendered the question of authorship a relative one. He considered a group of disciples around the aging John the Apostle who wrote down his memories, mixing them with theological speculation, a model that had been proposed as far back as Renan’s Vie de Jésus (“Life of Jesus,” 1863). The work of such scholars brought the consensus back to a Palestinian origin for the text, rather than the Hellenistic origin favored by the critics of the previous decades.[citation needed]\* Because the followers of Jesus were a giant pain in the ass to them. The Romans killed quite a number of Christians, they could have cut the legs off the faith if they had been able to show Jesus was made up. Yes, better\* tools\*. But the Romans had Pilates execution _records_. > **[Socrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates)** > > Socrates (/ˈsɒkrətiːz/, Greek: Σωκράτης, translit. Sōkrátēs; c. 470 – 399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors \*Nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, all first-hand information about him and his philosophies depend upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem,[4] or the Socratic question.[5][6] To understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates’ life and philosophy,[7] and also Xenophon.[8] These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates.[9][10] As for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament. Historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates’ life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent.\* People here dismiss the New Testament out of hand, but then accept Plato with little doubt. Plato was well known (and should be well known) for making shit up to prove a point- see Atlantis. Perhaps he made up Socrates? And who is to say that Plato wrote what is attributed to him? Much stuff attributed to him is dubious. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/122 "2016-01-07T21:45:14Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Wait - you’re saying that the person who wrote the Gospel of John actually met Jesus? That’s certainly an extraordinary claim. I’ve seen dates on John (the gospel) having been written anywhere from 90 AD to 120 AD. How long did those folks live? Yes, and John would have been about 90 or so. There is evidence he lived to about 100 AD, making him 94 or so. Old, yes, but out of 13 guys, the fact that one made it that old isn’t unusual. No doubt John’s recollections were edited and put in final form by his own Apostles. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/123 "2016-01-07T21:46:00Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Concerning Nazareth, on the hypothesis that Jesus began as a legend concerning a celestial figure, and only later had stories told about him as though he had been a human on Earth, the Nazareth thing is plausibly explained as the result of choosing the nearest-sounding place name to “Nazorian” or “Nazarene,” an original name for Christians which seems to have had its own basis in some scripture we don’t currently have access to (Matt 2:23). No, that makes no sense. Virtually all scholars agree that the verse Matthew quotes cannot be found in the Tanakh, even allowing for the way he shoehorns verses into alleged prophecies, so even if it was in some sort of lost apocrypha, it couldn’t have been very important. There would be no motive to make something that obscure the most important fact of his secular biography. Also, Matthew is the only gospel that tries to make Nazareth into a fulfilled prophecy. Mark, written before Matthew, simply says he was from Nazareth, without even mentioning that he was allegedly born in Bethlehem, which is MUCH more important to his Messianic credentials. Luke goes through gymnastics, including making up a ridiculous census requiring all Romans (which, by the way, Galileeans were not) to take a possibly months-long journey to wherever their ancestors lived a thousand years earlier, to get Jesus born in Bethlehem, but just notes as a mundane fact that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth at the time, without any effort to claim that it was significant. There are also passages in more than one gospel that say Jesus was not able to perform his usual miracles in Nazareth, because the people there knew him and his family, and were not prepared to believe that the kid they had known was the Messiah. That is IMO fairly strong evidence that his alleged miracles elsewhere were on the order of what you see TV faith healers do today (if not completely legendary), and the last thing you would expect if the story was complete fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/124 "2016-01-07T21:49:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Now let’s say hypothetically that Jesus didn’t exist. How were you going to tell these people that he did? How could you convince them that Jesus had been preaching for three years all around Judea when these people had been living in Judea during that time? Why do you think those few people who were of age around 30-33ad _and_ were members of a Christian Church 40 years later are also very likely to be people who for some reason are quite sure they know everything every itinerant Jewish preacher did in Judea during the time in question? And then supposing they were, and they spoke up, why do you think any of the other great majority of members of the church would care to listen? More likely the thought would be “I never heard of this, it must have happened on the other side of town”–assuming there was any thought at all. Even more likely the thought would be “I don’t really care if this is actually true or not because this is the right community for me”–again, IF there was a thought at all. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/125 "2016-01-07T21:50:46Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > so even if it was in some sort of lost apocrypha, it couldn’t have been very important. I cannot see how a lack of importance follows from our not currently having a record of it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/126 "2016-01-07T21:51:25Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Allegedly. > . In the\* Antiquities of the Jews\*, Josephus refers to the stoning of “James the brother of Jesus”.\* So, a Jew- who didnt care at all for Christians- wrote that James was executed and he was the Brother of Jesus. Josephus is one of the bedrocks of Roman history. Throw him out, and about 1/3 of what we “know” about the Roman Empire at that time is also gone. So, pretty much that means all of Roman history is “Allegedly”. :rolleyes: wiki: _Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”[13] and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation_ ---
**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:** [January 7, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/127 "2016-01-07T21:51:30Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Do I need to have a definite opinion about this? If so, why? You were claiming that “There is absolutely nothing implausible at all about the very idea that someone might have simply made up these stories ca 40 or 50ad” and that “what we do have is absolutely compatible with something like that having happened in the case of Jesus.” Since the book of Acts is part of “what we do have,” I want to know how it fits into your theory. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/128 "2016-01-07T21:52:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > S > > Because the followers of Jesus were a giant pain in the ass to them. The Romans killed quite a number of Christians, To my recollection, none of that is known to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/129 "2016-01-07T21:53:04Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > You were claiming that “There is absolutely nothing implausible at all about the very idea that someone might have simply made up these stories ca 40 or 50ad” and that “what we do have is absolutely compatible with something like that having happened in the case of Jesus.” Since the book of Acts is part of “what we do have,” I want to know how it fits into your theory. I mean, there’s probably an interesting discussion to be had about Acts but for now I can stipulate that it’s a largely accurate retelling of much of early Christian history. Can you let me know if that seems to you to be incompatible with something I said before? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/130 "2016-01-07T21:55:41Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > No. Splitter! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/131 "2016-01-07T22:00:43Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > To my recollection, none of that is known to be the case. > **[Diocletianic Persecution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution)** > > The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in G... > **[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Christian_policies_in_the_Roman_Empire)** > > Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century AD and ending in the 4th century. Originally a polytheistic empire in the traditions of Roman paganism and the Hellenistic religion, as Christianity spread through the empire, it came into ideological conflict with the imperial cult of ancient Rome. Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. The state and oth... per _Suetonius_ “Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.” about AD64 or so. It’s true that the _number_ of martyrs given by some early Christian writers have come under doubt. No one doubts that they\* occurred. \* ---
**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:** [January 7, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/132 "2016-01-07T22:03:27Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I mean, there’s probably an interesting discussion to be had about Acts but for now I can stipulate that it’s a largely accurate retelling of much of early Christian history. Can you let me know if that seems to you to be incompatible with something I said before? (1) Acts is a sequel to the gospel of Luke, written by the same person. Why would that person follow a book of complete fabrications with a book of largely accurate history? (2) Some of the people in Acts (e.g. Peter) were said to have been personal followers of Jesus. How do you explain their actions in that book if Jesus never existed? ---
**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 7, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/133 "2016-01-07T22:03:50Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, then- we can’t state \*anything. \* Nonsense. > [@](#): > > If you read the section\*\* More recent criticism\*\*, theories and info gathered after the Dead Sea Scrolls make that John was the author the current consensus: > > \*The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran marked a change in Johannine scholarship. Several of the hymns, presumed to come from a community of Essenes, contained the same sort of plays between opposites – light and dark, truth and lies – which are themes within the Gospel. Thus the hypothesis that the Gospel relied on Gnosticism fell out of favor. Many suggested further that John the Baptist himself belonged to an Essene community, and if John the Apostle had previously been a disciple of the Baptist, he would have been affected by that teaching.[citation needed] I did, I noticed that citation needed. > [@](#): > > The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by John A. T. Robinson, who coined the phrase in 1957 at Oxford. According to Robinson, this new information rendered the question of authorship a relative one. He considered a group of disciples around the aging John the Apostle who wrote down his memories, mixing them with theological speculation, a model that had been proposed as far back as Renan’s Vie de Jésus (“Life of Jesus,” 1863). The work of such scholars brought the consensus back to a Palestinian origin for the text, rather than the Hellenistic origin favored by the critics of the previous decades.[citation needed]\* And that one. > [@](#): > > Because the followers of Jesus were a giant pain in the ass to them. The Romans killed quite a number of Christians, they could have cut the legs off the faith if they had been able to show Jesus was made up. Nonsense. It wouldn’t work, first off, and the Romans didn’t think he was real, in any case. And they why would they bother? Do you tell insects why they don’t belong in your house, or do you squash them? > [@](#): > > Yes, better\* tools\*. But the Romans had Pilates execution _records_. Again, it’s laughable to think that they would bother checking execution records from 30 years earlier. Just think of the logistics of that. Send a scribe to Bum Fuck Judea and have him go through stacks of rotting paper from a generation ago? If they even still existed? It’s goofy. > [@](#): > > [Socrates - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) > > \*Nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, all first-hand information about him and his philosophies depend upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem,[4] or the Socratic question.[5][6] > > To understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates’ life and philosophy,[7] and also Xenophon.[8] These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates.[9][10] > > As for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament. Historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates’ life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent.\* > > People here dismiss the New Testament out of hand, but then accept Plato with little doubt. Plato was well known (and should be well known) for making shit up to prove a point- see Atlantis. Perhaps he made up Socrates? And who is to say that Plato wrote what is attributed to him? Much stuff attributed to him is dubious. I don’t necessarily accept Socrates as having existed. I think it’s at least as likely he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/134 "2016-01-07T22:04:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t think that’s accurate. The consensus on the Gospels was that they were written within thirty or forty years of Jesus’ death. Plenty of people who had been alive during Jesus’ lifetime would have still been around. > > Look at John Lennon - he died thirty-five years ago but there are still plenty of people who were around during his lifetime. And now consider Forrest Gump - suppose there was a group of people claiming that Forrest Gump was a real person. It wouldn’t fly - there would be plenty of people who’d be around to say things like _“Hey, I watched [that episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWD8YI1Mqhs) of Dick Cavett and there was nobody named Gump on the show with Lennon. You just made that up.”_ Well, now I’m arguing the other side, but your claim is not reasonable. There is no comparison to our age and 1st century Palestine. There was no internet, let alone TV, let alone even newspapers. Most people never went more than a few miles from the place they were born in their entire lives, and they had no way to fact check any claim about almost anything that happened outside their village. The number of manuscript copies of the Gospels available in the lifetime of anyone who could possibly have known Jesus was probably a dozen or so, and they were in Greek, so the chances are that a villager from Nazareth could ever see one, let alone read it, were negligible. And what if somebody did dispute it? What if some apostle was preaching in a Jerusalem gathering of early Christians in 90 CE, and some old man wandered in and shouted, “That’s a lot of crap!” Which do you think would happen – that the Christians would immediately go home and stop believing, or that they would throw the old guy out and go on with the service? Finally, look at what’s happening today, when we DO have the internet and TV and all that, and checking facts takes only seconds. We still have people, millions of them, who believe Obama is a Kenyan Muslim. So no, the argument that if it was false, it wouldn’t have persisted, is just not plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Iron\_John](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@Iron\_John](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iron_John)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/135 "2016-01-07T22:05:51Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > To my recollection, none of that is known to be the case. . The Roman writer Tacitus, who was born in the year 56 AD, mentions how the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians, who were a despised sect, for the burning of Rome in the year 64 AD, saying: > [@](#): > > "No human aid, nor all the wealth that nobility could bestow, nor all the sacrifices offered to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he lay the blame upon a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christ, from whom the sect takes its name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of burning the city, as of hatred against mankind. " ---
**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 7, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/136 "2016-01-07T22:07:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In the\* Antiquities of the Jews\*, Josephus refers to the stoning of “James the brother of Jesus”.\* So, a Jew- who didnt care at all for Christians- wrote that James was executed and he was the Brother of Jesus. He was told that by someone. Like maybe a follower of Christ. You get that all it would take for that is for someone who believed to talk to him, right? > [@](#): > > Josephus is one of the bedrocks of Roman history. Throw him out, and about 1/3 of what we “know” about the Roman Empire at that time is also gone. So, pretty much that means all of Roman history is “Allegedly”. :rolleyes: I’m not talking about forgetting Josephus. I’m saying that he didn’t see James get stoned. He was told it as a fact. And if there is one thing I know about religious people, is they state their beliefs as fact. > [@](#): > > wiki: _Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”[13] and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation_ Which means that Josephus spoke to an early Christian at some point. That’s all. ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/137 "2016-01-07T22:13:22Z")
I believe in a Creator (God) that can create a universe surely if he can do that raising Jesus from the dead is not a problem and performing a few miracles through Jesus not very difficult. I have a very basic faith, if God wants it to happen it will. People will say that the story of Jesus is outrageous but they forget he said nothing is done by him but through him by God ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/138 "2016-01-07T22:13:55Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I cannot see how a lack of importance follows from our not currently having a record of it. Because important scriptures were preserved – some parts of the Bible are over 3000 years old. And you also have to explain why if it was important, and if the other gospel writers knew that Jesus was from Nazareth (which they did), why was Matthew the only one who mentioned the alleged prophecy? If Luke was willing to incorporate some hazy memory of a census into his story, why didn’t he incorporate the famous prophecy of Nazareth? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/139 "2016-01-07T22:16:32Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Obligatory Wikipedia link on the [Historicity of Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). > > I have little doubt, personally speaking, that there existed at least one rabbi named Yeshua, and at least one rebel leader named Yeshua, any or all of whom could have been the basis for the Jesus of the Gospels. But one single Yeshua ben Yosef who did all the things attributed to Jesus of Nazareth? To my mind, terribly unlikely. I’m thinking about it the other way around, to be honest. If you discard the supernatural stuff, the raising the dead and multiplying food and so on, as the natural tall tales the followers of a guru would tell, he didn’t do anything all that impressive during his short life. He died because eh didn’t even manage to be more popular than some random highwayman called Barrabas, didn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/140 "2016-01-07T22:17:00Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Yeah, but Joseph Smith existed, too. He was a fraud and a scoundrel, he lied about the Book of Mormon and treated women like shit. But there was a guy named Joseph Smith who started the Church of Latter Day Saints. There was an L. Ron Hubbard who started Scientology. These people weren’t fictional just because the things they wrote were. > > It’s not important to me that Jesus existed. But it seems like Occam’s razor points towards him existing in some sense. Not that he performed miracles or was the son of God, but just that there was a guy this whole religion was based on, even if all the stories were bullshit. > > Of course, I’m less convinced that Jesus existed than Muhommed or Joseph Smith, because Jesus didn’t write anything down. He’s more like the subject of the story than the author, in my opinion. But I still think it’s safe to say he existed as the default assumption, barring evidence that he didn’t. > > To be clear, it wouldn’t surprise me nor upset me to find out Jesus was a myth, or an amalgam of several different people. But I just don’t think you can conclude that without a lot more evidence than we currently have. I wish I had read this post first. My sentiments exactly, so I’m wasting my time here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=8)