# Was Jesus Real or a Myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360 "2015-02-22T18:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/241 "2015-03-06T10:30:55Z")
> [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > Hear! Hear! Finally someone who sees through the bullsh\*t besides myself. You go the head of the class, Dinsdale. You are not paying attention. Lots of people here are way ahead of you. They are trying to figure out who exactly came up whith what bullshit and when. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/242 "2015-03-06T22:03:19Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The quest he refers to is, to my knowledge, the quest to discover what Jesus did and how this led to the origins of the church. The failure of this quest is just the failure to discover what Jesus did and how this led to the origins of the church. That is _not_ the same as determining that Jesus didn’t exist after all. It is just to say that, even if Jesus did exist, the quest has failed to figure out what he did and how the church started to any significant degree… > > … \ … Sorry for the long delay, but \*\*\*I’ve finally managed to buy some web host space and put up the extended fair-use quotations from Burton Mack. \*\*\* It can be found here at: [ambushed-pub.com](http://ambushed-pub.com) I’ll definitely return to this debate soon, but I can’t promise when… ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/243 "2015-03-07T00:18:24Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > Sorry for the long delay, but \*\*\*I’ve finally managed to buy some web host space and put up the extended fair-use quotations from Burton Mack. \*\*\* It can be found here at: [ambushed-pub.com](http://ambushed-pub.com) > > I’ll definitely return to this debate soon, but I can’t promise when… All of that is to indicate that the information we have does not reliably tell us anything about what Jesus actually did. None of it is to indicate that Jesus didn’t actually exist. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/244 "2015-03-07T01:46:17Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Ambushed: you are entitled to your opinion of the Testemonium Flavium. The majority of scholars who have written about it recently have taken the position of “partial authenticity”, acknowledging that some words or phrases in it are not genuine but that the bulk of the text is. I would suggest that anyone interested read [this article by Christopher Price](http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm). Oh, the painful Price of ignorance! Not that ludicrously desperate collection of regurgitated drivel again! :smack: > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’ve heard this argument countless times, yet when I ask, no one can ever explain it. Supposing for the sake that a Christian apologist did fabricate the passage entirely, it’s entirely unclear to me why he would find the passage “desperately valuable”. Come now, please. This is in no way hard to explain or understand! Let me try it this way: I and most other critical thinkers who contend that the astonishingly overwhelming preponderance of the evidence shows that Josephus wrote not a single syllable of the so-called “testonium” can very, very easily see that since Josephus is such a universally respected authority from near the time of the alleged (but non-existent) Jesus the alleged “Christ”, it would quite undeniable and easily grasped to be _ **desperately valuable** _ to find some ostensible “proof” of Jesus historical existence and wonder-working within Josephus! Do you doubt that? Is it not a fact that Jospehus’ disputed passages have been forced down skeptic’s throats since at least the time of Eusebius? Yet this blatantly obvious fact is truly hard for you to grasp? This Champion doth protest too much, methinks! That being the undeniable fact, and given the shocking “interpolations” (i.e., forgeries) in the books handed down from what is alleged to have been created during the first several centuries – but that have been demonstrated to all critical thinkers (see Ehrman, again!) to be plainly apocryphal – are you actually going to tell us that it is utterly inconceivable to you just WHY some forger would froth at the mouth to fabricate the entire alleged “testonium” from whole cloth? Really? REALLY?? And if you at least grant this premise as plausible, would you not further grant that when over the later centuries even quite devout Christian scholars demonstrated that a Roman Jew like Josephus – who hated ALL “messiahs” with a passion – could not possibly have written such infantile, gushing praise for yet ANOTHER “messiah”, such that in order to save whatever they could of their reputations damaged by their gullibility while protecting a key basis for their faith decided to reluctantly “admit” that the gushing was not original with ol’ Joe but the non-gushing blather was authentic they would not stoop to lick the floor with such pandering nonsense?? Or to put it in simpler words: (1): Eusubius (or whomever) understood perfectly well that he desperately wanted more butts in the Christian pews (so to speak) (2): There was intense resistance to the Christian teachings (i.e., fables), particularly from the Jews, who knew far better than anyone else that Jesus never existed (3): Eusubius (or whomever) also knew that if they could force Jesus-worship into Josephus, it would be far easier to put those butts in the pews (4): So Eusubius (or whomever) simply got a hold of as many of the very small and priceless copies of the relevant works of Josephus, AND FORCED HIS FABRICATED NONSENSE RIGHT INTO THE BOOKS, and BURNED the rest of the copies he could get his hands on! (5): Problem with butts not in pews (or Jews not joining his “church”): SOLVED (6): Later, when the “testonium” was shown to be impossible for it to have been written by Joe, out comes the scissors and Presto! Only the plainer stuff is Joe’s and thus the “testonium” is salvaged as “partially reliable” or some such bullshit (7): Tada! Let me know if you need more spoon feeding of the very, very obvious… ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/245 "2015-03-07T02:00:45Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > All of that is to indicate that the information we have does not reliably tell us anything about what Jesus actually did. None of it is to indicate that Jesus didn’t actually exist. :sigh: You’re being extremely disingenuous, my friend. Did you really expect Mack to talk down to his audience of expert scholars and write like an 8 year old would: “Jesus was a myth! Jesus was a myth!” Sheesh! If you took the time to read Ehrman’s most recent book disingenuously defending a historical Jesus, you would discover endless page after endless page lambasting _anyone_ in the Jesus “guild” who did not mindlessly conform to the historicist dogma. Did you imagine that after such an extraordinary career, Burton Mack of all people would be so desperate to demonstrate his total reversal on this issue as to write like an 8 year old and be laughed out of the guild of “serious” scholars? Really? REALLY? No! He would use the gifts that made him such a respected master in the first place: Extreme subtlety and wit! He would not write like an 8 year old, he would present an entire BOOK’s worth of subtle, refined arguments establishing that since there is ZERO evidence that Jesus existed where there manifestly MUST be evidence that Jesus existed as a historical person, only ONE option is left to the honest person: **Jesus never existed!** Surely I don’t need to lecture you like I just did to Champion, do I? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/246 "2015-03-07T02:05:15Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Right… Bye then. > > Now, as a follower of the debate, I would like more actual examples of where the Jesus myth is supposed to be a simple rip off of other religions. > > No doubt that certain ‘pagan’ elements were absorbed and transformed within Christianity, like the Mother-Son theme/worship of Mary and Jesus or the celebration of christmass or the presence of so many Saints. > Other claims, like about Osiris, need some more explainatory work. What I recall is that Osiris was re-assembled by his mum, not a ressurection as such. > > So, yes more details please. It was Isis His sister wife that re-assembled Osiris, then conceived Horus, as I remember it. she flew over the pieces and that is what caused his Resurrection. except I believe there was apart missing? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/247 "2015-03-07T02:21:34Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > How exactly do we know that early Christians “would probably have cited Josephus’ Jesus-mentions”? Doherty says that several Christian writers referenced _Antiquities_ before Eusebius, which is correct. **IRRELEVANT and MISLEADING!!** How dare you obfuscate thusly! No one disputes that lots of writers referenced Josephus’ works from the first century onward. BUT what’s at issue is whether or not anyone reference the fabricated lies (such as the “testimonium”) that were forced into _Antiquities_ **by** Eusubius (or whomever) prior to Eusubius. And Doherty and many others have demonstated that NO - They did not! See, for example: [Chrysostom and Photius [and others who are falsely claimed to have referenced the so-called “testimonium” but who actually did NOT]](http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm#ChryPhot) Please try to be more careful and less disingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/248 "2015-03-07T02:32:15Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > It was Isis His sister wife that re-assembled Osiris, then conceived Horus, as I remember it. she flew over the pieces and that is what caused his Resurrection. except I believe there was apart missing? His penis. In the Isis/Osyris myth, Set kills Osiris and dismembers him. So Isis and Nephthys search all over Egypt, and put together the body, except for the penis, which has been eaten by a fish. So she creates him a new penis, and then has sex with his corpse, conceiving Horus. The sex brings him back to life. Then Osiris has to leave the earth and become the ruler of the dead, and Horus becomes the new king. So, as you can see, the parallel to the story in the gospel is just uncanny. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/249 "2015-03-07T02:42:36Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heck, people talk all the time about people who don’t exist. Superman. Wolverine. A viable Republican candidate for 2016. _Constantly._ I’m still not sold on the idea that Christ did not exist. However there is still the strong possibility IMHO that what we remember now of Jesus is not exactly what he was. Maybe it was that back then he was seen more as a magician than a founder of a new religion. > **[Earliest reference describes Christ as 'magician'](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna26972493)** > > A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could... > [@](#): > > A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world’s first known reference to Christ. > > If the word “Christ” refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world. > > The full engraving on the bowl reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.” > > “It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said. [ Cue the classic bit of Rowan Atkinson about Jesus the magician. 🙂 (starts at 40 seconds)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umRRCkspaQU) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/250 "2015-03-07T04:00:23Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > …the first point you feel needs to be brought up is that my views have revised (actually become far more cautious, sophisticated and nuanced)… No, no: FTR, you referenced your earlier thread, so I threw in a quote from you back then. That was all. Seriously. And we’re on the same page with regards to minority positions. > [@](#): > > But I must also add this extremely important addition to the list of very highly respected current ahistoricists: The justly renowned Christian writer and former historicist [**Burton Mack**!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_L._Mack) Interesting. Let me quote from your webpage. [INDENT]To read these texts only in the interest of the quest to know the historical Jesus has been to misread them, to misuse them. They simply do not contain the secrets of the historical Jesus for which scholars have been searching… [/INDENT] I’m not sure what to make of the first sentence. But personally I suspect that the historical Jesus ultimately can’t be recovered from the source documents. I still find the quest interesting though. Q: Is your position that Burton Mack is an _implicit_ mythicist? Upthread you characterized him as an ahistoricist. Could you define that or tell me what you mean? > [@ambushed](#): > > But I must admit that I absolutely **crave** the occasion to participate in a primarily _mano-a-mano_ Great Debate on this whole historicism vs mythicism topic, sorta like a Dope equivalent of the recent Bill Nye/Ken Hamm ‘debate’… There was a nice discussion with the former poster **Diogenes the Cynic** a few years back. He was midway between historicist and mythicist, while I lean heavily towards the historicist camp (my upthread caveats emphasized). Alas, he’s no longer posting at this board. > [@ambushed](#): > > So anyone with well-justified skepticism on such an enormously weighty matter has no recourse but to obtain and read the entire book him or herself (or french-fry-self?) - it’s just $14 USD on Amazon! If he’s a mythicist (or ahistorist) why doesn’t he come out and say it? I’m guessing that he’s in the “Mug’s game” camp. Frankly though, my knowledge of this area is pretty sketchy. So if a big gun signs on to the mythicist position, I find it interesting. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/251 "2015-03-07T04:46:34Z")
I’m undecided. The idea of Jesus being a fabrication would be one of the biggest hoaxes in history, but at the same time the evidence he did walk the Earth is extremely scant. I put him in the same category as King Arthur. My hunch would be he’s very very loosely based on a real person in the same way John Frum is, but the real Jesus was almost nothing like the person in the Gospels. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/252 "2015-03-07T06:39:00Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > :sigh: > > You’re being extremely disingenuous, my friend. Do you understand that [“disingenuous”](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous) means dishonest? Or did you not mean to call me dishonest? As to the rest of your post, it is not appropriate to read between the lines with scholarly writing and on that basis make strong claims about what a scholar “really believes.” In scholarship, what is “real” is what is on the page. Even if what you’ve given us were good evidence that Mack is a _secret_ mythicist (it’s not) this would not justify claims, outright, that “Mack is a mythicist.” To say “Mack is a mythicist” is to imply that in his scholarly work he states straightforwardly that Jesus did not exist. ---
**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:** [March 7, 2015, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/253 "2015-03-07T09:27:34Z")
What about Saint Peter the Apostle, allegedly crucified in Rome circa 64 A.D.? Do those who doubt Jesus was real also doubt Peter was real? I assume Paul of Tarsus, roughly contemporaneous with Jesus and Peter, is considered real, no? > [@protoboard](#): > > I’m undecided. The idea of Jesus being a fabrication would be one of the biggest hoaxes in history, but at the same time the evidence he did walk the Earth is extremely scant. I put him in the same category as King Arthur. > > My hunch would be he’s very very loosely based on a real person in the same way John Frum is, but the real Jesus was almost nothing like the person in the Gospels. The comparison of Arthur with Jesus seems apt, except for one big difference: AFAICT, there are zero known _contemporary_, or nearly contemporary, references to Arthur. Saint Gildas the Wise, born about when Arthur died, _never mentions Arthur_, referring instead to Ambrosius Aurelianus as victor at Badon Hill, right? Contrast this with Paul, Luke and Peter(?) who spoke of a Nazarene at a time when living Nazarenes could have rebutted with “Hey, Nazareth was a very small town and the only carpenter Joseph I remember was that drunkard who never married … what gives with this Jesus story?” According to Wikipedia, the earliest known mention of Arthur may be this poem: (Gododdin is near present-day Edinburgh) [QUOTE=translation of Y Gododdin] He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress Though he was no Arthur Among the powerful ones in battle In the front rank, Gwawrddur was a palisade [/QUOTE] Maybe I’m gullible, but one construction that seems plausible to me is that Arthur was son of Aidan, an historic(?) 6th-century King of Dál Riata. Placing Arthur in the north, rather than the southwest as in Monmouthian legend, solves several problems. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/254 "2015-03-07T11:25:13Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Maybe it was that back then he was seen more as a magician than a founder of a new religion. > > [Earliest reference describes Christ as 'magician'](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26972493/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/earliest-reference-describes-christ-magician/#.VPpiwDWVthF) > > > [@](#): > > > > A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world’s first known reference to Christ. > > > > If the word “Christ” refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world. > > > > The full engraving on the bowl reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.” > > > > “It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said. Interesting find! A couple of odd things about the write-up, though. First, how would the find “provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world”? As if Christianity was necessarily “non-magical,” and “magic” was necessarily “pagan”! Also, Christ as “the primary exponent of _white magic_,” based on a fragment using a term derived from _góes_? That term often had negative connotations, or was used neutrally, as a perfectly non-judgmental job description. Now, my knowledge as an amateur doesn’t go much deeper than that. Googling around, I find people claiming that “chrstou” might simply be _chrestou_, i.e. kind(ness), helpful(ness), [like so](http://EzineArticles.com/1593610): > [@](#): > > The archaeologists have apparently forced their translation, as if _goistais_ is genitive singular, like _chrestou_, and functions in the phrase as an appositive. The word _goistais_, however, is dative plural, making their suggested translation impossible. The phrase _dia chrestou goistais_ probably means “[Given] through kindness for the magicians.” If we have a bona fide expert on board, I’d love to hear from ya. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/255 "2015-03-07T19:35:28Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I’m undecided. The idea of Jesus being a fabrication would be one of the biggest hoaxes in history, but at the same time the evidence he did walk the Earth is extremely scant. I put him in the same category as King Arthur. > > My hunch would be he’s very very loosely based on a real person in the same way John Frum is, but the real Jesus was almost nothing like the person in the Gospels. I’m pretty much in agreement with this post, but I take a slight issue with “fabrication…biggest hoaxes…”. We have no evidence that one person (or even one coordinated group) sat down and worked out all of the details in the story, starting from scratch. Most likely, a germ of an idea was repeated, augmented, embellished over time, like 200 years, by many scribes, tale-tellers, pious redactors and perhaps a few weirdos and mentally strange types. cf. _Revelation._ At that time in history there was nothing like today’s science or skeptical movement to call into question anything about the story. About the only parts that were discarded when the church gathered many works to make a single volume were the farthest-out-there elements such as the Infant Gospel. The books remaining, while having considerable inconsistencies, had enough in common that they were kept and the inconsistencies explained away. It’s not surprising that many parts were in common, as they are now thought to have been largely derived from each other. It doesn’t require a leap of faith nor a concerted effort to hoax for all this to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/256 "2015-03-07T23:06:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Contrast this with Paul, Luke and Peter(?) who spoke of a Nazarene at a time when living Nazarenes could have rebutted with “Hey, Nazareth was a very small town and the only carpenter Joseph I remember was that drunkard who never married … what gives with this Jesus story?” How likely do you think it would be 1. for a Nazerene to be walking around in Rome or Korinth, some 30-50 years later, and go like “oh my God, they’re talking about our Yeshua!!” 2. That the religious’ reaction on hearing this would have been: “Oh I guess we’ll toss all this into the bin then.” 3. For this other Nazarene’s account to survive 2000 years of copyist activities. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/257 "2015-03-08T00:20:46Z")
funny: 250+ posts and still no proof for Jesus ---
**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:** [March 8, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/258 "2015-03-08T02:27:27Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > Oh, the painful Price of ignorance! Not that ludicrously desperate collection of regurgitated drivel again! :smack: So your response to Christopher Price’s article is to insult it, but not to provide any reasons to doubt the facts and logical arguments presented in it. > [@](#): > > Come now, please. This is in no way hard to explain or understand! > > Let me try it this way: I and most other critical thinkers who contend that the astonishingly overwhelming preponderance of the evidence shows that Josephus wrote not a single syllable of the so-called “testonium” can very, very easily see that since Josephus is such a universally respected authority from near the time of the alleged (but non-existent) Jesus the alleged “Christ”, it would quite undeniable and easily grasped to be _ **desperately valuable** _ to find some ostensible “proof” of Jesus historical existence and wonder-working within Josephus! > > Do you doubt that? Yup, I sure do. Do you have any evidence that “most critical thinkers” agree with you on this matter? Have the majority of the world’s critical thinkers appointed you as their spokesman? Christopher Price actually looked at every scholarly citation regarding the Testimonium in the past few years, and found a majority in favor of partial authenticity. He’s got data on his side when making statements about what scholars believe, while you obviously have got nothing. As for your claim that it would “be desperately valuable to find some ostensible proof of Jesus [sic] historical existence and wonder working within Josephus”, that’s just a restatement of your claim, not an explanation. We have no evidence from the ancient world that anyone in the ancient world ever questioned the existence of Jesus. As far as we know, there was total agreement that Jesus existed. If that’s the case, then what value would there be in a statement from Josephus saying that Jesus existed? It would only confirm what everyone already knew. > [@](#): > > Is it not a fact that Jospehus’ disputed passages have been forced down skeptic’s throats since at least the time of Eusebius? Yet this blatantly obvious fact is truly hard for you to grasp? I’m not aware that any passage from Josephus has ever been forced down anybody’s throat, so I’d say that’'s not a fact. I’d say it’s more like a fiction on your part. > [@](#): > > That being the undeniable fact, and given the shocking “interpolations” (i.e., forgeries) in the books handed down from what is alleged to have been created during the first several centuries – but that have been demonstrated to all critical thinkers (see Ehrman, again!) to be plainly apocryphal – I don’t suppose you’d care to explain what you’re talking about here. > [@](#): > > And if you at least grant this premise as plausible, would you not further grant that when over the later centuries even quite devout Christian scholars demonstrated that a Roman Jew like Josephus – who hated ALL “messiahs” with a passion – could not possibly have written such infantile, gushing praise for yet ANOTHER “messiah”, such that in order to save whatever they could of their reputations damaged by their gullibility while protecting a key basis for their faith decided to reluctantly “admit” that the gushing was not original with ol’ Joe but the non-gushing blather was authentic they would not stoop to lick the floor with such pandering nonsense?? This would seem to be a further demonstration that you like insults and don’t have much in the way of facts and logic on your side. > [@](#): > > Or to put it in simpler words: > > (1): Eusubius (or whomever) understood perfectly well that he desperately wanted more butts in the Christian pews (so to speak) > > (2): There was intense resistance to the Christian teachings (i.e., fables), particularly from the Jews, who knew far better than anyone else that Jesus never existed > > (3): Eusubius (or whomever) also knew that if they could force Jesus-worship into Josephus, it would be far easier to put those butts in the pews > > (4): So Eusubius (or whomever) simply got a hold of as many of the very small and priceless copies of the relevant works of Josephus, AND FORCED HIS FABRICATED NONSENSE RIGHT INTO THE BOOKS, and BURNED the rest of the copies he could get his hands on! > > (5): Problem with butts not in pews (or Jews not joining his “church”): SOLVED > > (6): Later, when the “testonium” was shown to be impossible for it to have been written by Joe, out comes the scissors and Presto! Only the plainer stuff is Joe’s and thus the “testonium” is salvaged as “partially reliable” or some such bullshit > > (7): Tada! I note without surprise that you didn’t provide any evidence for any of your seven points. (1) Cite, please? (2) You say that the Jews “knew that Jesus never existed”. You said this before. I and other posters have responded by asking you for a cite. You haven’t provided a cite. I hereby renew that request for a cite. (3) Cite, please? (4) Cite, please? Do you have any evidence that Eusebius ever burned a single copy of Josephus? > [@](#): > > Let me know if you need more spoon feeding of the very, very obvious… Another insult. At risk of giving stating the obvious to you, I know far more about both the _Testimonium_ and the topic of historical Jesus studies than you do. That’s why I’ve already corrected several glaring errors on your part. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/259 "2015-03-08T02:44:29Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > **IRRELEVANT and MISLEADING!!** > > How dare you obfuscate thusly! > > No one disputes that lots of writers referenced Josephus’ works from the first century onward. BUT what’s at issue is whether or not anyone reference the fabricated lies (such as the “testimonium”) that were forced into _Antiquities_ **by** Eusubius (or whomever) prior to Eusubius. And Doherty and many others have demonstated that NO - They did not! > > See, for example: [Chrysostom and Photius [and others who are falsely claimed to have referenced the so-called “testimonium” but who actually did NOT]](http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm#ChryPhot) > > Please try to be more careful and less disingenuous. So, you offer more insults and still no logical arguments. What did I say that was misleading? Why was it misleading? Doherty argues that there were many early Christian writers who quoted from the works of Josephus, but never mentioned the _Testimonium_. This is true, and was known to scholars long before Doherty was born. It adds nothing to the debate about the authenticity of the _Testimonium_. Here’s what I wrote in my last post: Typically those Christian writers brought [Josephus] up in disputes about Jewish law or Jewish history from Old Testament times. Since they were discussing issues far removed from the life of Jesus, there’s no reason to expect that they would have mentioned the TF. Roger Pearse makes this argument thoroughly by listing every early Christian reference to Josephus. Needless to say, you didn’t respond to what I said, nor did you respond to the point Roger Pearse made. Instead you scissored out the first line of my post, and completely failed to address or even acknowledge the main point of my post. And then you accused _me_ of being “misleading”, “obfuscating”, and being “disingenuous”. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/260 "2015-03-08T05:42:01Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > 250+ posts and still no proof for Jesus As we’ve already had the discussion of defining “proof” in this thread, there’s surely no need to repeat it. We have established that when historians write, they typically don’t classify any ancient event as “proven” or “disproven”. You yourself posted a definition of the word “proof” that makes it obviously a matter of preference whether a historical statement is proven or not. Plainly the evidence in favor of Jesus existing is ample to qualify as proof for the enormous majority of scholars in relevant fields, even if not for you. What’s the point of continuing to say “proof”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360.md?page=14)