In other words, you’re asking: What evidence do we not have of Jesus’s existence, that we should have or would expect to have if he had actually existed (this lack being a reason to doubt Jesus’s existence); and do we or do we not have this kind of evidence for other historical figures of roughly the same era?
Is that a fair paraphrase?
Well, they have found a death certificate*, but it’s crossed out with “OOPS” written across it.
Seriously, I’m very heartened by all here who are treating this objectively. After spending time in the Pit, I was expecting “Well, since there is no God and Christianity is a cult…” or “You should just take it on faith, like my pastor/surrogate father figure says.”
*short form; still waiting for the Messiah to produce his long form certificate.
I mainly agree with UDS’ s posts. The premise of the question is flawed. And the basic reason is that within modern Western culture there’s an ongoing struggle, of some centuries cumulatively, about how Christianity either literally or its tradition fits in with ‘modern’ rationality. A non-Western non-Christian not part of or influenced by Western culture (perhaps a rare person, but still hypothetically exists) would have no reason to suppose Jesus never lived. Is it possible He didn’t (from a strictly historical non religious POV)? Yes. But the very high standard proof set up in the premise ‘lack of evidence Jesus existed’ is IMO an artifact of the above conflict in Western society. The simplest explanation of different writers telling different (in the details and setting at least*) stories written within the living memory of people who would have known Jesus of Nazareth or their direct descendants at least, some of whom comprised a community of His followers, and no known contemporary criticism along the lines of ‘hey this person did not exist, what are you talking about?’, is that they were writing about a person who had lived.
Or IOW the answer to the question is that parochial modern Western Christian/post-Christian debate sets a much higher standard for ‘evidence Jesus existed’ than for ‘typical historical figures from that time’.
*ie Paul writing about the concept of Christ mainly, the synoptic gospels a chronology/biography of Jesus of Nazareth and John writing something somewhat different from either.
Just because a large group of people believe in the existence of someone doesn’t necessarily mean that person ever existed, or was even partially based on a real person. Everyone before 1600 “knew” that Prester John existed, and there are still those that “know” that Pope Joan was real. Even today, there are those that believe that Betty Crocker was originally based on a real person(she wasn’t) or that there is a “Mavis Beacon”(there never was).
None of the sources are independent, but highly dependent upon accounts – very few, maybe only one – already in existence. Highly repetitive of many other religious and folklore accounts, so they aren’t original. Highly dependent upon pious imagination, often describing unlikely, impossible, or fantasy events. Highly inconsistent and often contradictory. They can’t all be right, and maybe none are.
In short, only the gullible would believe this story has any significant veracity. We have urban legends nowadays that are more believable. Jesus et al is an urban legend of the time. The only reason it is being defended so vociferously is the pious hopes and dreams of the defenders. Note that the existence of Socrates doesn’t have that burden, because he is not considered a god. If only Snopes were around then, they would make short work of it.
You said it. A religious aspect puts blinders on many.
The hell there wasn’t! She taught me the standard typing position!
I only have one question for you: Were you there? 'cause if you weren’t, then how could you know?!
I think there’s enough evidence to think that the Jesus myths and legends we have in the Bible stem at least in part from one or more itinerant preachers in the area and time at least one of which was probably names something like Yeshua Bar Yosef. I don’t think it’s a huge leap to believe it likely that he (or possibly some other popular preacher) died at the hands of Roman authorities, since, like itinerant preachers in first century Judea, executions of “trouble makers” were a dime a dozen.
I don’t think the rest f his life was anything like the Bible portrays though. In fact, we know with near 100% certainty that many events just never happened, or didn’t happen at the times described, or could not have happened as describe because there are contradictory stories int he Bible itself, etc…
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Thanks for the response guys. enjoying this thread.
This is my usual take on the issue. It is truly remarkable how little survives about a guy as significant as Pilate; you would not expect a person from the same era who was, during his lifetime at least, a fairly minor figure to have a recognizable contemporary historical “footprint”, except by lucky historical accident.
It doesn’t help that a gigantic and long-lasting industry of faking “relics” of the life of Jesus and his followers emerged a few centuries later. Any genuine remains of his life, if they ever existed, are likely effectively hidden in the “noise”.
ive wondered this my self … I mean if I went to one of his services or had dinner with him id of written the event down even if its alley dweller no 12 saying I seen him on this day id help …
Of course the claim that JFK was an alien is not evidence (or at least, very weak evidence) that JFK was an alien. But, it’s actually pretty decent evidence that someone named JFK existed, innit? I mean, since the underlying assumption of the question is that we both know that there was this person named JFK - you didn’t have to tell me who he was.
I think some folks in this thread are holding on too tightly to the supernatural claims about Jesus missing the point. Not that he was a god, but for someone living in the first century, we actually have remarkable attestation to his existence. The fact that we have at least three independent gospelers plus Paul talking about him - mostly within a few decades of his life - is better evidence than we have for most other historical figures. But I don’t want to repeat UDS’s arguments.
Now, there’s no argument that the reason word of Jesus spread so far and wide so quickly was because of the supernatural claims about him and the religious fervor of his followers. But that’s beside the point – the fact is, we have several independent sources that either declare or assume that Jesus existed in some form - and that’s before we even get to sources further removed. If Jesus had just been a teacher/rabbi and not been attached to performing miracles and rising from the dead, nobody would think of disputing his existence.
I think it is more likely that a historical Jesus exists than that he doesn’t, but the Gospels themselves aren’t the best of sources - they are arguably not disinterested, independent accounts, but rather all written by a small group of followers of a particular budding religion. The counter-argument to using the Gospels is that they reflect different perspectives on an essentially agreed-on body of mythology among this in-group.
My own opinion is that it makes more sense for the mythology to be based on an actual preacher who actually lived, named Jesus, and that there is nothing whatsoever inherently improbable about that claim; also, that the obviously supernatural aspects of the story are just basic mythologizing of an essentially historic account. However, this theory would be more convincing if there was any contemporary hard evidence of his life - which, unfortunately, is most unlikely, whether he really existed or not.
Yes, but in those days, what are the chances that you’d’ve been literate? and had access to something to write on? and that it would have survived 2000 years, or at least long enough for someone to notice that you’d written it?
Sure, you’d think that someone who saw or heard Jesus in person would have written something down; but what are the chances it would have survived? So I don’t know that the fact that we don’t have any such writings means anything. Do we have such eyewitness accounts of other historical figures? (which I guess is part of what the OP was asking.) Is it possible that Q (the hypothetical source material used by Matthew and Luke) included such writings?
There may be a fifth (if not more). There’s several references to an original Gospel of Matthew or a Gospel of the Hebrews (as it is sometimes known, to distinguish it from the orthodox version), that was used by the non-Paulian churches. Though, it’s possible that the GoH is what formed the basis of Mark, John, the Diatessaron, or some of the bonus materials which were added into the various gospels.
Many of the letters in the New Testament, and many of the first Christian writers, Justin Martyr, Iranaeus, etc., were explicitly writing against a diverse set of beliefs about Jesus and his teachings, and imply the existence of many other documents and letter writers about him.
It seems likely that there was a reasonable body of work dedicated to Jesus before the end of the 1st century, but we’re not sure which quotations from the anti-heretical works are references to 1st century writings, and we don’t know how early any of the Nag Hammadi works may have been. Though, there are a good number of them that don’t seem to have any particular reliance on the known works. A lot of them are “Valentinian”, and Valentinus was writing around 130 AD, so we can exclude those from the running as being particularly knowledgeable of Christ. Many also seem to be aware of the destruction of Jerusalem, so they’re at least later than 70 AD. But that still leaves a few where there’s no reason to discount a 1st century origin or, at least, an extension of a 1st century document. For example:
Apocryphon of James
Apocryphon of John
Dialogue of the Savior
Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
Teachings of Silvanus
Gospel of Thomas (possibly related to the Q document)
Ophite Diagrams (they’re just drawings - no Jesus - but indicative of a wider body of texts within the Christianitic communities early on. The Ophites are dated to the mid-1st century)
Etc.
We can certainly say that by the early-mid 2nd century, there was a rich variety of interpretations of Jesus’ teachings, largely classifiable into three groups: Paulian, Jewish, and Gnostic. We’re aware of 1st century Gnostics, many of whom were positively connected to Jesus and the early church:
John the Baptist
Tatian
The Ophites
Philo
Nicholas (of the Seven Deacons)
(I could probably list another half dozen names)
Overall, I think that we can be pretty sure that there was a wide variety of works related to Jesus in the 1st century, beyond the ones that have survived until today. But, we mostly just have references to those works and the people who were writing or using them. And from that, we can infer an even greater number of early attestations, which are independent of the Gospel works, beyond just the 4 that you’ve noted.
Richard Carrier (On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt), Robert M. Price (The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, Jesus is Dead), G. A. Wells (The Jesus Myth), many others.
But that has jack shit to do with whether or not Jesus existed. The question is whether he existed, not whether there were miracles. His divinity is not a question for history, and thus has nothing to do with this question.
UDS is explaining the actual process for determining historicity. The one actually used by the experts. And the scholarly consensus is that he existed.
There are some people who try to argue he didn’t, but it’s a fringe theory. And seeing as this is GQ, it doesn’t seem to me like this is the place for you to put forth those arguments. (I will note that said arguments are about the value of the attestations, not the attestations themselves, which is what the OP asked about.)
Even the books that come out now that say he didn’t exist admit that they are going against the scholarly consensus.
Not to mention the sweeping geo-political changes that occurred in the wake of his armies. Someone sure as hell led a Macedonian army east, conquering most of the known world, died prior to establishing a succession, and left several Hellenistic empires sprawling across the Middle East until the Romans came along.
This is not analogous at all to Jesus. What we can deduce from the societal changes following the purported life of Christ is that someone sure as hell evangelized the crap out of Asia Minor and Greece, spreading a new religion called Christianity through much of the Roman Empire. That guy is generally called Paul of Tarsus, whose existence is attested by a bunch of his own writings.
The parsimonious explanation for early Christian writings is indeed that Jesus is a historical figure, even if only a few details of his biography are accurate. But the idea that his historicity is more firmly established than that of Alexander is a bit out there.
Then you need to describe the Jesus that supposedly existed before claiming that these bits of evidence show that he did, in fact, exist. When it comes to a “scholarly consensus”, what exactly is that consensus? That Jesus Christ did what was written? That Jesus Christ did some of what was written? That Jesus Christ existed? That there were on or more preachers at the time that his adventures were based on?
I believe that the consensus is something along the lines that:
Anything beyond that is pretty debatable. And, of course, there is some debate about this basic biography.
If it’s claimed that Paul simply invented Jesus, then the necessary implication is that all the people named by Paul who are said to have known Jesus (a) must also be inventions of Paul, or (b) must be playing along with Paul to maintain the Jesus-fiction. Mark and our other sources must also be part of a conspiracy.
The basic problem is this: if Paul simply invented Jesus, then we have to come up with an alternative history to explain the emergence of the Christian movement. And the problem with this is that, however badly you may think the conventional account of the emergence of Christianity is - that’s the account that starts with a historical Jesus - the alternative account is unsupported by any evidence at all. If Jesus never existed, how come there were communities of Jesus-followers for Paul to write to? If Jesus never existed, how could Paul confidently name James as the brother of Jesus, Peter as a leading follower who knew him, the Twelve as people who knew him, etc? Paul must have had some reason to think that these people would back him up; hence, conspiracy. And if the origins of Christianity are rooted in such a conspiracy, this would conveniently explain the complete lack of evidence to support his alternative account.
Which is not consistent with the idea that Paul simply invented Jesus in his letters, which is the position I was challenging.
Is it possible that the communities regarded Jesus as a purely supernatural figure, an angel, and Paul invented the notion that he was human? Well, it’s not impossible, but it doesn’t seem very plausible, for a number of reasons:
(a) However badly we may think the historical Jesus is evidence, the angelic Jesus is not evidence at all. (NB: I’m not saying that there is no evidence that Jesus was an angel; I’m saying that there is no evidence that the first Jesus-followers believed him to be an angel.) We cannot, if we wish to avoid derision, simultaneously object to the historic Jesus on the grounds of paucity of evidence, and advance the angelic Jesus instead.
(b) You concede that the first Jesus-followers considered him to be the Messiah. We know that in Jewish tradition the Messiah was expected to be an entirely human figure, not an angel. Hence if they regarded him as the Messiah, but an angel, that would be pretty startling. We’d have to explain why we think they believed that, and how they came up with such a view. And we’d have to explain why nobody commented, either favourably or unfavourably, on such a heterodox position.
(c) If Paul is trying to sell the humanity of Jesus to a community that regards him as divine, he goes about it in a very odd way - his own encounter with Jesus, which he refers to repeatedly, is entirely mystical. Wouldn’t he be laying more stress on events showing Jesus to be distinctively human? But, as already noted, he says practically nothing about this, and the few references he does make do not appear to be persuasive or polemical in tone. They make much more sense if we assume that (a) the humanity of Jesus was already common ground between Paul and his readers, and (b) readers already had all the biographical information they wanted, or had better sources for biographical information than Paul (who, as already noted, would have been a poor source for biographical information).
But if we found that large numbers of people did in fact accept your claims that Joe Schmoe was a historical character, and others opposed the whole Joe Schmoe movement and all its works and pomps, wouldn’t we be a bit surprised if nobody attempted a takedown of your claims? If you named lots of people who you said had known Joe personally, and they never contradicted you?