Did The Biblically Depicted Jesus Really Exist?

[stopbush]

What do you believe? Did the Biblical Jesus actually exist?

This poll goes to the question of historic fact. It does not address whether Jesus was actually god incarnate, etc., so there's no option of "he existed, but he was just a man," or "it doesn't matter, it's a question of faith."

Yes or No.

[megatherium]

1. The Gospels were written 4 - 7 decades after Jesus,

but certain letters of Paul were written within 25 years of Jesus' death. Paul includes few details about the life of Jesus (he is the source of the saying of Jesus, "it is better to give than to receive"), but his first letter to the Corinthians was written in the early 50s and contains a strong statement of the reality of the Resurrection (chapter 15). Paul addressed his letters to Christian communities which already existed; the Crucifixion was more recent to his original readers than Nixon's resignation is to us. None of this makes sense without accepting an early origin for the teaching of Christ's resurrection (and certainly his existence as a real person).

[DBoon]

2. Flavius Josephus?

Didn't a Roman historian provide some indenpendent corroboration of the fact of Jesus' existance?

[Az]

5. It is not very credible evidence

His writings have gone through the xian edit filter. Modern scholarly opinion is that the text mentioning Jesus does not correspond with his writing style. It is most likely a copiest edit.

[megatherium]

9. Another possibility is that Josephus does mention Jesus but

the text in question has been edited. It is suggested that a simple insert wouldn't have read quite as awkwardly as the text in question. But in another text, he mentions in passing James the brother of Jesus "who was called the Christ"; there is no suggestion that this was an early Christian edit.

text one: (http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-18.htm)
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.


text two:
Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, ; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king , desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent.

[gator_in_Ontario]

3. He was a prophet

he existed.

[HEyHEY]

4. For all we know he was part of a local ad campaign

[Goldberg]

6. Yes.

There were letters found that Paul wrote, many eyewitness accounts, etc. that Jesus had, in fact, existed.

[stopbush]

7. I see you've bought the dogma.

There are NO contemporaneous eyewitness accounts that Jesus existed. Who do you cite as eyewitnesses? If it's the usual team of snake oil merchants like Josephus, they've all been debunked long ago by Biblical scholars.

The 4 Gospels - which disagree with each other on major time-and-place issues (Ex: Mark puts the scene of Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple at the beginning of his ministry while the other Gospels put it in Holy Week...or right before his death) - were, at best, written over 100 years after Jesus supposedly existed. Most Biblical scholars agree that Mark was written first and the the other 3 Gospels are simply embellishments of Mark.

There is also some doubt as to how many of Paul's 13 epistles were actually written by Paul. AND, if you believe he wrote them all and if you read Paul's epistles, you'll find that he didn't believe in a corporeal Christ but in a spiritual Christ who battled and defeated the forces of death in heaven, not through an earthly death.

[megatherium]

11. The Gospels are not that late

They were written between AD 60 and 110, according to all the serious scholarship (Christian and secular) that I have read. Mark is the first Gospel, Luke/Acts the last; but John is clearly a largely independent tradition (it's much different than the synoptic gospels).

If memory serves, seven of the thirteen letters (don't quote me on these numbers) of Paul are believed by modern scholars to have been written by him. The remaining letters are called the pastoral letters because they refer to church structures believed to have developed well after Paul's time.

Paul did not know Jesus personally; there is very little information in his letters about Jesus' life, and there's a lot of elaborate theology. But it is clear from reading Paul that he believed that Jesus was a real person who had within recent memory been alive. Paul worked and argued with the Apostles, those immediate followers of Jesus who were still alive.

[Xithras]

8. Yes, I believe he was an actual physical man

I don't believe that the biblical stories of his life are 100% accurate to the letter, but I DO believe that he existed. After his death it's apparent that the various apostles went their own ways, but look at what they did: they ALL went on to preach this "new religion" to the masses. Their stories varied, sometimes widely, about what actually happened to him during his life, but they were all adamant that he had existed and had died for them.

One of the most convincing arguments, in my book, is the way those apostles later died. With the exception of John, all of them were later executed for their preaching of the Christian faith. Some of these events are somewhat well documented (the inverted crucifixion of Peter in Rome, Nero beheading Paul, the flogging death of Bartholemew in Armenia, the hanging of Luke in Greece), while others are somewhat more legend than factual history. Nobody really disputes the existence of the apostles because, unlike Jesus, they DID leave a paper trail.

The common theme between these executions was this: Not ONE of them ever professed against Jesus before their deaths, and all steadfastly maintained their faith until the very end. If Christianity was an invention or a scam of these twelve men, as some nonbelievers state, is it really reasonable to believe that ten of them chose to die rather than admit their scam? I could see, one, two, or even five fundies swearing to their faith in the face of the executioner, but is it really reasonable to believe that NOT ONE of the ten would recant their false tale when facing death?

I believe that THEY believed that he existed, and they knew him personally. The stories in the Bible are a mix of truth, parable, and exaggeration, but the man himself DID exist.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

13. I tend to agree with this view. It would be hard to die for

a hoax, even an elaborate one.
They were clearly driven, focused men on a mission for this new sect of Judiasm, Christianity.
Now, did the medieval Church embellish some of the translations and ignore some books they did not like? Yes, most likely. But that has nothing to do with actions of the apostles.

[Deja Q]

10. Dunno. If other passages of the bible had been changed or mis-translated

for political or other causes...

We truly have no concrete idea of any of the Bible, let alone the Jesus segments, is correct.

[rustydog]

12. How does it matter? if 10,000 yesses appear on your poll

does that "prove" he existed?
children believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny...does that mean they exist?
If 10,000 people say no, he did not exist...what if he did? what does the poll show...only someones opinion on the issue and nothing more.'
It is like the "if God is so powerful, can He make a rock so heavy even He can't lift it?"

[fortyfeetunder]

14. I have problems with the immaculate conception & resurrection

1) Virgins *can* get pregnant.
2) The resurrection thing...did a medical examiner pronounce Jesus dead, you know all the end-of-life details?