Did Jesus exist?

Claiming he wasn't really God is one thing, but claiming he never existed at all is hard to argue. Who created and taught Christianity if Jesus never existed?

What is more likely is he was just a sand Jew who made a bunch of claims and tricked people into thinking he was the messiah of Judaism.

>Who created and taught Christianity if Jesus never existed?
It developed naturally over time just like other myths.

Why can't myths be taught by one original source such as a smelly desert man? Why can't myths be loosely based on true events? They're still myths even if they are not completely untrue.

Because le edgy Veeky Forums atheists are so desperate for ammo against a metaphysical enemy they think clutching to his real world presence will give their arguments the substance they desperately need, otherwise why be so petty?

Even if there was one person who was the original source for the myths he propagated the myth of Jesus, he wasn't himself Jesus since that is part of the myth as well.

You're from Texas

I just don't see why you have such a hard time believing that a guy existed who people mistakenly thought was the God of Abraham in the flesh.

A guy who managed to trick people into thinking he's God and gained followers? History is full of this stuff. It's not THAT hard to believe. You seem determined in your disbelief.

In fact, it sounds like this guy might be onto something.

Wrong. No evidence he existed and plenty of evidence that he didn't exist.

what I don't get is why myths are always insisted to be based on real events so long as the myths aren't based solely on the actions of the gods. People will insist that the Trojan war happened, King Arthur existed, etc using the same level of evidence that biblical studies is often plagued by: such as the mere existence of the city of Troy

people in judea weren't as dark skinned as palestinians and their neighbhours are today. Arabs invaded and migrated from the Arabian Peninsula with the spread of the Islamic empire. Plus, being muscular is hardly unlikely considering he was a carpenter

jesus wasn't a desert man though

The best evidence for Jesus' historicity is that rabbis never, until very recently, disputed it.

I'd like to know which rabbis are disputing it

Phoneposter right now, Google might help you if you don't have a rabbi next to you

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Testimonium_Flavianum

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ

patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/09/04/an-atheists-defense-of-the-historicity-of-jesus/

>"He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees"

- Bart Ehrman

>"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.

- Michael Grant

>"In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.

- Richard Burridge

He certainly existed but he was not Gd

Those accounts are considered inauthentic by serious scholars though. Jesus's existence doesn't hinge on those accounts but mainly on the existence of his following and the testimony of their existence by contemporary writers.

No.

Yes but only in title.

Jesus was a title given to advisers or priests in certain upstart sects within the jewish comminty.
He was a man who would be pure by being a virgin birth, also worked becuase he wouldnt have to fear retribution on or from his real father.
Jesus was considered compassionate and the one deemed of protecting the interests of the sect by laying his life on the line.
If he got too old he would martyr himself at the hands of society since the sects believed that society with mans rules causes misfortune and misery, but the reign of the kingdom of god is perfect and everlasting.

Yes and he was Logos incarnated

...

Who is more real?

Jesus or King Arthur?

Arthur.

Yes.

Love the ashkenazi Jesus. Nice touch.

Jesus by far, It's a fact he existed, no credible scholar disputes this in the current year.

I agree

t. Jesus mythicist

How is this evidence of anything? Are Rabbis the most accurate source of this type of knowledge? Under what metric? What is this I don't even.

At this point I'm leaning towards a 'no'.
The main reason why is because of an early church debate on the subject.

please find one accredited historian who believes that he didn't

Richard Carrier

>unemployed blogger
???

You asked for accredited, not employed.

not him but is Carrier really "accredited"? he has a Master's in Ancient History but he's never had anything published in a respectable journal and only started submitting his work to peer review when people pointed out that he was avoiding it.

Also if I remember correctly he had to spend 10 years trying to get his degree, and his Master's thesis was so bad that he had to defend it in front of a panel to get a pass.

I really don't get the whole jesus myth thing. You guys do understand that history is the study of the probable right? I cannot prove with absolute certainty that a religious/political dissident name Yeshua existed in roman palestine some 2000 years ago, but there's really nothing improbable about him existing, being killed by either the romans or the jews for pissing them off and then being dumped in a ditch or some shit.

What's improbable is all the magic and mysticism that christians claimed happened.

There's archaeological evidence for the Trojan war.

Dude, even when I'm going full fedora mode I wouldn't claim something like this.

Yes, he has always existed.

No it was code for psychedelic mushrooms

nonsense

no body ever doubted His existance in the first four centuries, as anyone could look into the Roman administration, early Christians like Justin Martyr frequently pointed to that.

Fucking edgy revisionists.

not even baiting, but what's the evidence of abraham existence outside of bible?

lolno

The Archangel Gabriel delivered the Quran from God to Muhammad (pbuh) so we have proof that Abraham (pbuh) existed.

>Those accounts are considered inauthentic by serious scholars though

No

I have no wish to defend Carrier's mythicist claims because I think he is wrong, but this smacks of childish character assassination. A quick check of his career shows he has a BA, an MA, an Mphil and PhD and has plenty of peer reviewed publications and that he had an earlier career before moving into history rather than taking 10 years to a get a degree.

It's also completely normal to present your master's thesis before a panel.

It's not that hard to follow the logic. Jews and Christians didn't get along in the early's church's history, and both groups wrote things to try to discredit each other. Jews never claimed that Jesus didn't exist, even though that was be a super easy argument to make if it was true. Instead of coming up with claims about why people shouldn't follow him, they could have just said "Hey, remember that this guy didn't exist? You people are ridiculous, we all know he didn't exist." That they seemed to agree he existed is pretty important if you're arguing that the founders of the church consciously created mythology out of nowhere.

Yes, Carrier has legitimate scholarly credentials (also, it's not just normal to present a thesis before a panel, it's standard procedure). But, early church history isn't his field of study, and it has really nothing to do with the areas of his MA and PhD work, which should raise some red flags. So should the motivation behind his mythicist works: he only got into it because people who followed his blog started paying him to write a book about how Jesus didn't exist. So there's a pretty heavy bias there. And in debates I've seen between him and serious biblical scholars, he tends to soften and admit he can't prove anything and is just making counter arguments because it's possible.

evidence for his existence

pls no bible because

1st nobody who has written the bible has ever met him
2nd it woul be like saying HarryPotter books are evidence for magic and wizards.

you realize that christianity didn't exist for a pretty long time after his death so no even if he existed he didn't create or teach christianity

fucking religious people knowing nothing about "their own thing"

>Those accounts are considered inauthentic by serious scholars though.
Yeah a whole two of them, one that was laughed by every single scholar in the 5 views of Jesus. Two the scholar who flip-flops cause his hypothesis on the mythical Jesus was terrible that exposed his bias.