# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/161 "2016-01-08T00:27:56Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Speaking of unlikely, how likely is it that a Roman governor, during the busiest time of his year (precisely because of the influx of Passover participants), would personally examine a hick from the sticks rabble rouser, or would free a convicted insurrectionist on the whim of the crowd? Because a whole bunch of Jews, most of whom didn’t like being ruled by Romans, were converging on Jerusalem to celebrate the story of their release from foreign oppression? From a Roman governor’s point of view, that seems like _exactly_ the time he’d want to keep tabs on hick from the sticks rabble-rousers. Conducting a philosophical conversation about the nature of truth with said hick is unlikely, but of all the stories in the Gospels, Romans crucifying a troublesome rabbi is about the _least_ implausible. ---
**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, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/162 "2016-01-08T00:29:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > **AD64** is in the 4th century? :dubious: > > and if you bothered to follow that first link, you would have seen it covered earlier persecutions also. I followed the first link, saw the fourth century was being discussed, and made reasonable assumptions. More later about the Seutonius reference. ---
**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, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/163 "2016-01-08T00:32:06Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > You _are_ misrepresenting me, consistently, because you continue to imply that the only evidence of Matthew’s prophecy being an invention is its absence from the Tanakh (and every other Jewish source we know). That is conclusive evidence that it was not considered canonical, and strong evidence that it was not considered highly important, but that’s all I claim from that fact. > > Nor are we talking about “any Jewish scripture.” We’re talking about a scripture that foretells a key fact about the Messiah; a fact that, if widely known, would have had all 1st-century Jewish eyes eagerly watching Nazareth for the advent of the Messiah. We would have had the Magi following the Star of Nazareth, and Herod ordering the slaughter of all male infants in Nazareth. But we don’t have that, do we? > > What we do have is a (non-canonical)[proverb](http://biblehub.com/john/1-46.htm) about Nazareth, quoted by the Gospel of John: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” THAT has been preserved for 2000 years. > > What I have said, repeatedly, and you have ignored, repeatedly, is that the more compelling evidence that it was either nonexistent or unimportant is that nobody but Matthew cited it, in spite of the fact that “Jesus of Nazareth” was a constant theme of the other Gospels, Acts, and contemporaneous Christian commentary. And since Matthew was known to have misquoted or twisted many of the cites that we _ **can** _ find, the reasonable conclusion is that he was more concerned with persuasion than accuracy, and used whatever he could find to claim that important details of Jesus’ life were foretold. > > Maybe he made it up, or maybe he found it on the bulletin board at the laundromat. We’ll never know. But what we do know is that his fellow Gospel writers knew that Jesus was from Nazareth, and included all sorts of details to emphasize his claim of Messiah-hood, but with the same access to Jewish scriptures as Matthew, didn’t seem to notice that prophecy. I think your are confusing me with other interlocutors as you reference ‘multiple’ exchanges and characterize me as misrepresenting you when the only representation of you I have proposed was explicitly in the form of a question and so could not have been a misrepresentation. ---
**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, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/164 "2016-01-08T00:37:53Z")
It’s unique among ostensibly factual topics that I find otherwise very reasonable people, on both sides, often with no direct skin in the game even, become nevertheless bizarrely unwilling to engage in some pretty simple logic, and also very unusually prickly. It for no other reason than the existence of this topic, I deeply wish to live another fifty years, so that the issue will finally be settled when cooler heads have prevailed, and we can all sit down and have a cool drink, and smile about how -insistent- we used to be about this topic where in truth the best answer was always much closer to ‘no idea, and wouldn’t it be cool if…’. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/165 "2016-01-08T01:39:13Z")
If, indeed, there was a man that existed that is at the root of the gospel legends, the mythology that has been built upon it is such that it no longer matters. Those that believe in that myth do so ‘without evidence’ and all of their hopes and beliefs are based ’ on things that are not seen’ - the [myth](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/myth) itself is enough to feed the belief. To the OP - it is simply a question that can not be reasonably answered - it is only a question that matters to the faithful - and the asking of it only serves to embolden both sides of that question. ---
**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, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/166 "2016-01-08T01:43:38Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > You want to tell me that one of them healed the sick and walked on water and that the fate of my eternal soul rests on their actual existence, I am going to need more than “weak” evidence before I accept that they actually lived/existed… much less that they were divine. What was there about … > [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > \*\*\*This is intended as a thread about historicity, not divinity. \*\*\*Was there a sect leader named Yeshua (or some variant o Yeshua) that directly or indirectly inspired Christianity? … that you don’t understand? For the record: I’m Jewish; I have zero belief in the divinity of Jesus or in his purported miracles. ---
**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, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/167 "2016-01-08T02:02:39Z")
> [@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. From Wikipedia … [ul] [li]Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90 CE, with a range of possibility between 70 to 110 CE (a pre-70 date remains a minority view).[/li][li]The [Gospel of Mark] was probably written c.AD 66–70, during Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome or the Jewish revolt, as suggested by internal references to war in Judea and to persecution.[/li][li]Luke-Acts does not name its author. According to Church tradition this was Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but while this view is still occasionally put forward the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters. The most probable date for its composition is around 80-100 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into the 2nd century.[/li][li]John is usually dated to 90-110 CE. It arose in a Jewish Christian community in the process of breaking from the Jewish synagogue, and John, which regularly describes Jesus’ opponents simply as “the Jews”, is more consistently hostile to the Jews than any any other body of New Testament writing.[/ul][/li] An excellent resource is Schnelle’s [**The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings**](http://www.amazon.com/The-History-Theology-Testament-Writings/dp/0800629523). ---
**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, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/168 "2016-01-08T02:08:12Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Allegedly. > > I’m not saying that Paul was necessarily a con-man, I’m saying he was probably selling bunk. > > Allegedly. > > Allegedly. I understand that it might not be the same Pete. > > So? So it’s a lot of random details to have included - which you can then track further on through history - that don’t paint the founding of Christianity in a very favorable light. Allegedly or not, why would a huckster include it? It’s like a huckster trying to convince you to eat an apple, but before he does it, attaching a sticker to it that says, “Known to contain poisonous worms.” What plausible reason does the huckster have for including something that, so far as one can tell, is both extraneous and works against his own purpose? ---
**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, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/169 "2016-01-08T02:13:21Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > 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? > > 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. > > Which means that Josephus spoke to an early Christian at some point. That’s all. ^ totally irrelevant … ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/170 "2016-01-08T02:27:00Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > For the record: I’m Jewish; I have zero belief in the divinity of Jesus or in his purported miracles. … ok? ---
**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, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/171 "2016-01-08T02:29:36Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Proof of this claim??? > **[Brothers of Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_of_Jesus)** > > The brothers of Jesus or the adelphoi (Greek: ἀδελφοί, translit. adelphoí, lit. "of the same womb, brothers")\[a\] are named in the New Testament as James, Joses (a form of Joseph), Simon, Jude, and unnamed sisters are mentioned in Mark and Matthew. They may have been: (1) sons of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Joseph; (2) sons of Joseph by a former marriage; or (3) sons of Mary of Clopas, named in Mark 15:40 as the "mother of James and Joses", who has been identified as either the sister Those wh... > [@](#): > > So? If a false cult had already been started then these details are meaningless You’re going to have to give me more information. If there’s a cult worshiping Jesus, then why is that not evidence for Jesus? > [@](#): > > I’m not saying there was a false cult. I’m saying their - could - of been. The reasonable assumption seems to be, clearly, there was a preacher type dude named Jesus. But there is no proof, like there is/was for Cesar, Scipio, Cicero, Marius etc. You mean no proof like…ancient documents stating that certain individuals existed? We’re pretty sure that the oldest sections of the New Testament date to ~50 AD. That’s before the destruction of Jerusalem, and these are letters being sent all around the Mediterranean, so there’s nothing in particular stopping people from asking, “What’s going on in Jerusalem?” It would be a hell of a hoax, and to what aim? Why pick a guy who grew up in a shanty town and hung out with prostitutes as your mythical leader? > [@](#): > > When you base a whole world religion on one central figure, you need more certainty than the “most likely” existed. The burden of proof in this case should be higher than normal, not, less. I’m not basing my religion on him, so certainty has very little bearing for me either way. If Jesus had wanted to prove himself, he could just have told us about the presence of the New World and said, “But wear hazmat clothes before you go find them.” He could have told us the exact speed of light. He could have told people to wash their hands. He could have suggested democracy. He could have suggested the internal combustion engine. Instead, he accomplished some miracles that, if you weren’t there in that place at that time, you’d just have to trust. And, for whatever strange reason, no one seemed to notice a river turned to wine. He turned a whole river to wine, a river that presumably would have had thousands of people living alongside it, and yet he died with a cult of a dozen or so followers. The Bible is so full of holes, anyways, that believing the religion should come waaaaaaay before getting to the question of who Jesus was and how plausible his existence is. If he was all that magical, then one would expect his story to have come through correctly. Either because he’s actually God (or related), or because he scared the people he met on Earth with his freaky powers so extremely, that they wouldn’t dare messing with his story. Clearly, neither of those is true. ---
**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, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/172 "2016-01-08T02:34:22Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > As for Jewish belief, I will defer to your expertise on what Jews believe currently, but it seems only natural that they would want to take a very narrow view of verses that Christians claim are about Jesus. But if Wikipedia is correct, the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled around the 4th or 5th centuries, so it’s hard to know what was believed centuries earlier. A quick FYI … The Talmud has two components, the Mishnah, and the Gemara, with the latter being an authoritative commentary on the former. The Mishnah was redacted by Judah HaNasi around 200 CE. Interestingly enough, what cannot be found in either work (or, for that matter, in the Pagan polemics) is anything resembling a mythicist rebuttal to nascent Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/173 "2016-01-08T03:01:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Instead, he accomplished some miracles that, if you weren’t there in that place at that time, you’d just have to trust. And, for whatever strange reason, no one seemed to notice a river turned to wine. He turned a whole river to wine, a river that presumably would have had thousands of people living alongside it, and yet he died with a cult of a dozen or so followers. What are you talking about? Are you conflating Moses turning the Nile into blood with Jesus making a few pitchers of wine at a wedding? ETA: I’m generally sympathetic to your logic, but you seem to be grossly mistaken about the details. ---
**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, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/174 "2016-01-08T03:29:16Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > What are you talking about? Are you conflating Moses turning the Nile into blood with Jesus making a few pitchers of wine at a wedding? 😃 ---
**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, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/175 "2016-01-08T03:36:54Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > What are you talking about? Are you conflating Moses turning the Nile into blood with Jesus making a few pitchers of wine at a wedding? > > ETA: I’m generally sympathetic to your logic, but you seem to be grossly mistaken about the details. You are correct. This is why I should never post anything without a cite. I fear that my memory has become too full of random factoids over the last few years to keep any of it straight… :o Swap it out with the feeding of the multitude: [Feeding the multitude - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_the_multitude) ---
**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:** [January 8, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/176 "2016-01-08T03:51:31Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > This is intended as a thread about historicity, not divinity. Was there a sect leader named Yeshua (or some variant o Yeshua) that directly or indirectly inspired Christianity? Here are some good books from mainstream scholars on the subject of historical study of the life of Jesus: _[Jesus as a Figure in History](http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Figure-History-Historians-Galilee/dp/0664257038/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452224301&sr=1-2&keywords=Jesus+as+a+Figure+in+History)_, by Mark Allan Powell. A survey of recent scholarship. _[Lord of Legend](http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Legend-Wrestling-Jesus-Dilemma/dp/0801065054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452224398&sr=1-1&keywords=Lord+or+Legend)_, by Greg Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy. Written for a general audience, presenting a wide variety of analysis of whether Jesus existed. _[The Historical Reliability of the Gospels](http://www.amazon.com/Historical-Reliability-Gospels-Craig-Blomberg/dp/0830828079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452224548&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Historical+Reliability+of+the+Gospels)_, by Craig Blomberg. A scholarly book by an evangelical professor. Obviously the author leans towards reliability, but the book is very strong. There is a strong argument to be made the gospels are historical writings about a figure named Jesus, whose life did meet the general outline therein. There was a well-established genre of historical biography by the first century AD. All four gospels fit well within that genre, in terms of length, organization, and style. They fit much less well within any other genre present at the time. One way that historians can separate ancient writing that is genuinely historical non-fiction versus fiction is to examine levels of detail. Historical works tend to be rich in detail of all kinds, such as direct quotes versus short summaries of what a character said, named versus unnamed characters, exact locations versus unnamed locations, and the level of physical detail in the writing. By all of these standards, the gospels are rich in details, especially when compared to the majority of other writings from around the same time period. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/177 "2016-01-08T03:52:01Z")
Of course we forget there’s more to the NT than just the Four Gospels (of which John was the only one “written” by a Apostle) and Acts. There’s the Epistle of James, which is generally agreed to be written by James the Just, the brother of Jesus, who was stoned about AD 64. wiki:\*Rather, evidence points to James the brother of Jesus, to whom Jesus evidently had made a special appearance after his resurrection described in the New Testament. This James was prominent among the disciples.[7][8] The writer of the letter of James identifies himself as “a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”, in much the same way as did Jude, who introduced the Epistle of Jude by calling himself “a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James”. (Jas 1:1; Jude 1) Furthermore, the salutation of James’ letter includes the term “Greetings!” in the same way as did the letter concerning circumcision that was sent to the congregations. In this latter instance it was apparently Jesus’ brother James who spoke prominently in the assembly of “the apostles and the older men” at Jerusalem.[9] From the middle of the 3rd century, patristic authors cited the Epistle as written by James the Just, a relation of Jesus and first Bishop of Jerusalem.[3] Not numbered among the Twelve Apostles, unless he is identified as James the Less,[10] James was nonetheless a very important figure: Paul described him as “the brother of the Lord” in Galatians 1:19 and as one of the three “pillars of the Church” in 2:9. He is traditionally considered the first of the Seventy Disciples.\* The Epistles of Peter- possible written by Peter. ---
**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, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/178 "2016-01-08T03:59:48Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > ^ totally irrelevant … You’re asking if Jesus was real or not, and someone is demanding that because Josephus mentions something he heard, Jesus must be real. I’d say explaining why that’s shoddy reasoning is pretty fucking on point. ---
**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, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/179 "2016-01-08T04:03:13Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So it’s a lot of random details to have included - which you can then track further on through history - that don’t paint the founding of Christianity in a very favorable light. Allegedly or not, why would a huckster include it? It’s like a huckster trying to convince you to eat an apple, but before he does it, attaching a sticker to it that says, “Known to contain poisonous worms.” What plausible reason does the huckster have for including something that, so far as one can tell, is both extraneous and works against his own purpose? The random details are more likely, in my estimation, to be the result of the early Balkanized church and a thousand different voices selling Jesus in a thousand churches. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392/180 "2016-01-08T04:06:56Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > No. > > He has, as far as I know, no credible source. A passing reference, to some dude, brother of so and so 2 towns removed, 2 decades removed… is not what most historians consider a credible source. He was there in Jerusalem at that time, and was a leader of the Jews. Hardly “2 towns removed, 2 decades removed”. :rolleyes: In any case, whoever he heard it from\*, was certainly not some “early Christian”. :rolleyes: You clearly know nothing at all about Josephus. Or Roman history. - Likely other members of the Sanhedrin, to whom he was related and met with regularly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-myth-or-man/742392.md?page=10)