Jesus: mythologized history or historicized mythology

I'm sure the question of whether Jesus was a real person has been debated here ad infinitum, but I thought the following article makes some compelling arguments.

5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed

For the other side of the argument, I found the following article.

8 Reasons Jesus Definitely Existed

Which arguments do you think carry the most weight and why?

 

The argument for him not existing is better. The article sites historical evidence from multiple sources.

The argument for him existing depends on a lot of rationalizations and biblical references. The historical evidences that it does use have mostly been debunked and the article strains to make them relevant.

 

The 'work' stands or falls on its merits, whether the characters in it were based on real people or not.

 

Of course Jesus wasn't real. No one had any names that started with the letter "J" until the 16th Century. It wasn't until 1633 that the first English words that used the letter "J" were written in books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J

So whoever the Jesus character was his name wasn't "Jesus". He might as well have been called "Purple Pickle".

I know some people don't like to watch YouTube videos but this one recaps the history of the letter "J". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XACkEEfwgaM

 

[video=youtube;Ant5HS01tBQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ant5HS01tBQ[/video]

 

Neither of those articles are great but in general it seems to me likely that the man did exist but none of the purported details of his life are at all clear and at least some must be incorrect due to the inconsistences.

While there are obvious reasons for some people to want him to have existed, I've never really understood those who are so determined to establish that Jesus never existed at all in any manner.

 

Neither text gives any compelling arguments. The first mostly takes up counterarguments against arguments which it itself postulates should be the important arguments (like do we actually expect scriptural accuracy from a historical Jesus?) and while the second source at least addresses questions which deal with the likelihood of a historical Jesus, its arguments are very weak and just like the first one, does not take into account what would be expected if it was false (for instance, how likely are poignant contradictions to show up without historicity?).

Both sides are clearly just trying to stack arguments and are not really interested in formulating or able to formulate a coherent argument based on their ideas. Which is a shame, I mean you can make some kind of assessment based on the ideas they present, but any article displaying only one side of the argument are almost always obviously going to be biased.

My personal belief is somewhere in the middle. I believe there are historical bases for the Jesus character in the Bible, but judging from the generation of urban myths and other stories, these bases do not need to have been the same person, but only being put together a few generations after the events took place.

 

I agree. Based upon what we do know about mythology in general, it is most likely that the "Jesus" legend is an amalgamation of stories associated with numerous early Jewish rabbis leading apocalyptic sects of Judaism. The same is probably true of the "Moses" character in the OT.

 

Why is it that so many folks assume that quoting Richard Dawkins is an appeal to authority? It is as if people see him as the spiritual leader of some kind of atheistic cult. This very concept is an oxymoron.

 

The Pagan Christ.
by T. Harpur

Essentially he postulates that the story of Jesus is a compilation of then contemporary pagan myths. He concludes that regardless of whether Jesus existed or not, it is the teachings of the faith that are its most important element.

IOW it doesn't matter what the details of the story are, just the lessons to be learned from them. Aesop fables for religion if you will.

 

The Jesus character was very slim on his teachings. Some of what he said was simply good manners. Everything else that he said was ethnocentric racist bigotry. None of it was worth basing a religion on.

 

I wasn't quoting Richard Dawkins so much. My focus was more on John Lennox. I guess the historians he spoke to were their shared colleagues from Oxford. Seems they came to a similar conclusion as Bart Ehrmann.
What's really funny is that the arguments the OP against Jesus' existence cite Ehrmann as suggesting Jesus did not exist, when in fact he wrote an entire book arguing for Jesus' existence:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

 

None of these arguments hold weight what would is independent collaborative evidence from historians or records from the people of the region. We have this for other religious figures one clear on is Confucius we have his work, historical accounts and writings from reliable sources support he was a Philosopher and wrote these texts and since it is a religion although a philosophical one makes him a religious figure.

If Jesus was active then it should be simple did any historical record clearly in the time he lived support him preaching and causing trouble?

 

What difference does it make whether there was a 1st Century rabbi named Yeshua if he was a mere mortal preaching a false doctrine?

 

Does this mean that there were no Jalapeno Peppers either until 1633?

 

Of course there were, they were just called huachinango peppers.

 

An idiot must realize that the Jews, themselves, wrote in their Talmud about Jesus, however adverse they might have been.
That the arch enemy of Christianity mentioned Jesus and called his mother a fornicator with Roman soldiers should be evidence enough when the early Rabbi, themselves, wrote these things.

 

"I am the Truth,... and the way and the life" is a false doctrine?

You should have told the rev Martin Luther King that before 1965.

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The Talmud of the Jews recorded much specific stuff about Jesus and his mother.

 

No serious historians doubt the existence of Jesus, believer or nonbeliever. There is a ton of evidence Jesus existed, when historians seek to confirm the existence of ancient figures...they look for disinterested commentary about them from contemporaries who lives at the time. Like when Paul talked about "James, the brother of the Lord". Only people looking to make a quick buck push the nonsense that Jesus never existed or was a mix of different rabbis at the time. They're not to be taking seriously.

 

Please present your "ton of evidence".

 

The Talmud originated 200 years after Jesus, so it's no more a contemporary account of Jesus than the New Testament or Josephus. And I thought it was the Romans, not the Jews, that were the arch enemy of Christianity.

 

Yes. If a mere mortal said that, then it is a false doctrine. MLK Jr. is totally irrelevant to this issue.

 

So George Albert Wells, the Reverend Tom Harpur, professor of theology Thomas L. Thompson, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, and D.M. Murdock are not "serious historians"?

 

They are probably about as serious as scientists who deny climate change, or even less so.

If I remember right George Albert Wells is the reference Dawkins gave. He’s not even a historian, but Professor of German.
Earl Doherty and D.M. Murdock never got past their bachelor’s degree.
Richard Carrier can at least sport an Ph D (wow! ), but just as the two others doesn’t make his living as a historian, but running an atheist fanzite.
And Robert M. Price works for the “Center of Inquiry”, which makes him about as unbiased as a lecturer in the “Institute for Creation Research” can be expected to be.


Just one example of the unsound conjectures atheist "Jesus myth" bloggers come up with: Your OP's list of arguments against the existence of Jesus cites Ehrmann, who - whilst being an agnostic religiously, believes very much that Jesus exists. He's quite pissed off about that:

[video=youtube;WUQMJR2BP1w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w[/video]

Seriously guys: get real.

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That’s a question you ought to ask the atheist internet crowd that eagerly spreads fantastic conspiracy theories about that 1th century person’s inexistence.

See: I’m a Christian and I am rational enough to accept the fact that we don’t really know all that much about the historical Jesus: He lived, got baptized, was probably a wandering preacher and got crucified. Anything beyond that is a matter for scholarly dispute. His existence is not. Live with it - it doesn't mean you have to believe he was the son of God.

 

I'm not obligated to live with your beliefs -- whatever they are.