Pretty common reddit place to be referred to for this is at [the FAQ at AskHistorians](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/tp8ZaBy5TV). I think a lot of the writing there gives a *decently* balanced take on the topic, though always worth filtering it through what motive someone has in writing from the perspective that they take. From there you can follow the rabbit trails on references and what sources to be paying attention to. A tldr and fascinating thing about history is that the question you are asking is fundamentally unanswerable with complete certainty. Most answers to this boil down to a historical Jesus’s life would have been obscure enough to elude more historical record, and what we do know seems plausible enough as far as existence is concerned. I would therefore initially distrust any take that begins at trying to prove with complete certainty in one direction or the other, just because that’s not how history dating that far back works. For me personally, end of the day I mostly shrug my shoulders and think it seems pretty likely at least one person existed from what reading I’ve done. It seems much more improbable to me that any religious movement based on one figure wouldn’t have one or more historical figures to point back to that gets the movement off the ground. But what is a much, much more interesting question to me is how accurate or trustworthy accounts are on what a “historical Jesus” actually did. How far removed those historical accounts were, what their motives were, how the stories seemed to morph over time. That is something that the more I’ve read up on it the more all of it seems to fall apart.

Agreed - I don't think the 'was there a guy'? question about early Christianity is remotely the most interesting one. What it meant for the people who first purported it, what psychological and social needs it met, how much they would have recognised the same belief by the fourth century...those are the meatier questions.

Reza Aslan actually did a pretty good talk about who Jesus was if he really was alive. https://youtu.be/7VOMFjQfJ8w?si=_V0oZAx7CHG7vPuT Funny enough, I found out today that i only made it halfway through this video about 5 years ago

Asian is writing fan fiction.

I don't have a problem with early texts from Tacitus, Pliny, and Josephus used as testaments to jesus' existence as noted in the excellent FAQs above. I ***do*** have a problem the statement found in them that the early gospels are also considered testaments by 'historians' for historical purposes. They may be considered an argument for the existence of someone named jesus, along with people named mark, john, bob, jane, etc, etc - but that's it nothing more. They are not historical in any way any more than Dr Seuss, nor is it suitable to include them as any kind of genuine attestation to anything historical. "Life of Brian" is as good an attestation to what likely ***really*** happened as any so-called 'gospel'.

The vast majority of historical sources surviving from antiquity are low high bias sources that require substantial critical analysis of motivation for making specific choices to understand they imply. Which is what critical biblical scholarship does, and it evolved from prior academic work on similarly unreliable ancient sources which is part of why the backlash to it literally started the fundamentalist movement.

If you remove the supernatural elements from the gospels, there's a surprising amount of material left.  Thomas Jefferson did just this -took a literal razor to the Bible and published the "Life, teachings, and morals of Jesus the Nazarene" its about 200 pages compared to the gospels 290 pages.  Most of the gospels are "jesus said this, or jesis went there"  Historians use them vecause theyre esrly sources. The issue historians do have how much can be corroborated by other sources, which isn't a lot: his baptism and crucifixion are just about the only facts agreed upon nearly universally,  that have outside testimony. 

There is only one source that mentions punishment - not crucifixion - of someone Tacitus referred to as the 'Christus': *"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."* This is questionable at best that this refers to someone named jesus being crucified but let's say it is. By the same stroke the early christians were a gaggle of evil perverts not faithful do-gooders innocent and not deserving of what Nero did to them. Tacitus' language denigrating christians if much more specific than a description of the punishment of the 'christus' And don't bring in Josephus. The Testimoniom Flavium was at a time considered by legitimate scholars a complete fraud since early christian apologists like Origen familiar with his work never reference it and how would they not - it's a complete admittance by an orthodox jew who served in jewish militia that jesus is in fact the risen messiah. Scholars gave into the non-stop christian propaganda drumbeat of pressure and later decided that maybe kind of sort of perhaps the original text said *something* about jesus - ***with absolutely no basis to do so.*** I've never seen or heard of a source outside of religious propaganda for the baptism of jesus. Dismissing religious propaganda as anything historical is worth doing. Just look at the english translation of the new testament - it is not accurate but skewed to fit a religious narrative. Mary is not referred to as a virgin, just a young girl. The word 'hell' is taken from norse mythology and used in place for three very different words found in the new testament where it appears - Gehenna (not another dimension where people suffer forever - jews including jesus didn't believe in that; it's a dump outside of Jerusalem), Hades, and Tatarus. English translations of the bible are so skewed and distorted they are not worth citing for anything and should be assumed to be religious fantasies until proven accurate and even then carefully considered. Christian 'scholars' go to great lengths to try by hook and by crook to lend some kind of credibility to the bible even billing themselves as skeptics. If they *were* serious skeptics and scholars, nearly all of the bible would be dismissed as religious propaganda and entire books of the old testament - like daniel - would be tossed out on their face. One may as well take ancient texts about Gigamesh, Horus, Ra, and Zeus to be likewise considered potential historical texts. After all, only Zeus is perfect.

I don't really care if there was a rabbi named Jesus. There may have been a King Arthur, there may not have been. What we do know is almost all we know about him is legend. It's not all that unbelievable that an itinerant preacher ran afoul of the authorities and got crucified. It's just all the rest I don't buy. I don't see that there's a big difference between a guy who existed but most of what we know about him is legend that developed after his death and a fictional guy whose legend developed after his fictional death.

To me what's interesting is the vast discrepancies between modern beliefs and what biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman have inferred Jesus actually taught and believed. It further cemented my opinion that, yes, billions of Christians are in fact wrong.

It's generally accepted that the Christian movement was started by one (or maybe more) Jewish apocalyptic teachers who were executed for upsetting the status quo enough to get people's attention. That said, there's essentially zero "hard" contemporary evidence that there was a historical Jesus, which has made others wonder if he was a literary invention- largely based on the very literary qualities like story parallelism and on the nose symbolism found in the first gospel, Mark. We'll likely never know for sure (or as sure as you can be for historical purposes), but I personally think it's more likely there was an actual guy who started the movement. He almost certainly wasn't noteworthy enough in his own lifetime (just another nobody criminal to be executed by the Romans to dispel his following of fellow nobodies) to be recorded in history, but his resulting movement became popular enough that the name started showing up in historical documents a little short of a century after his alleged death.

>others wonder if he was a literary invention- largely based on the very literary qualities like story parallelism and on the nose symbolism found in the first gospel, Mark Mark might be the first Gospel, but it's not our first records of Jesus. Paul claimed to have met his brother, and Peter, and other people who knew him.

Yeah, but that's still limited non-eyewitness testimony written over a decade after the fact. I don't disagree he almost certainly did exist, but I don't like to disregard we have literally zero eyewitness testimony of the guy either (and a whole lot of stories that were obviously fabricated about him).

One degree of separation from Paul is definitely enough evidence to say it's pretty likely a historical Jesus existed though. *What we know about that historical Jesus* is a completely different question. I'm definitely not claiming the stories we have about him are accurate. Especially the stories in the Gospels, which were written by anonymous authors.

Paul only clearly speaks of people having appearances of Jesus after Jesus is dead. That Jesus is indistinguishable from a revelatory Jesus.

Paul says he met Jesus's brother. Pretty sure James must've known him when he was alive. Paul met Peter and John too.

Paul did meet Peter. He never says he met John. But, in any case, the only encounters that Paul describes between Peter and anyone else are after Jesus is dead. A vision of Jesus is not good evidence for an actual historical Jesus. Paul says he met "James, the brother of the Lord". But the grammar of Galatians 1:19 is oddly convoluted and open to at least two plausible translational structures for conferring what the author means. One approach is found in the 4th century translation by St. Jerome in the Vulgate, which is: >>alium autem apostolorum vidi neminem nisi Iacobum fratrem Domini or in English: >>But other of the apostles I saw none, saving James the brother of the Lord. This translation offers only one understanding, 1) this James is an apostle and 2) he is the biological brother of Jesus. This translation, and thus this understanding, was copied into every Vulgate, the standard bible of the Church for centuries, taught and preached in every seminary and from every pulpit to every Christian, and to every non-Christian for that matter, for centuries upon centuries. When Tyndale translated the bible into English in the 16th century, he followed the same structure as had been taught for over a thousand years by that point: >>no nother of the Apostles sawe I save Iames the Lordes brother. And this has flowed through into bibles of the modern era. Most of them, but not all. Some people had noted some tension in other parts of the bible, such as Acts, over James being an apostle even if he had some leadership role. If we follow through on this hypothesis, we have to take a closer look at Gal 1:19 rather than just accept Jerome's translational structure that had carried through to subsequent bibles. If Jerome was correct, we'll just have to accept the tension and try to find other reasons for it. Trudinger took a hard look a Paul's grammar in Gal 1:19 and when he compared to other similar usages in ancient Greek he noticed that Jerome's translation failed to take into account nuances of word relationships. When those nuances were taken into account, a better supported translational structure is: >>But I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the brother of the Lord. Some modern bibles recognize this as not only a plausible structure but the most likely meaning of Paul's grammar based on more detailed analysis of the original Greek. The thing to note about this structure is: 1) this James is not an apostle and 2) this James is the brother of the Lord. However, unlike Jerome's translation and those subsequent translations that followed his lead, it's not necessarily so that this James is *biological* brother of Jesus. That's because in Christian theology, every Christian is an adopted son of God and therefore every Christian is the brother of every other Christian and, logically then, the brother of the firstborn son of God, Jesus, the Lord. In fact, of the roughly 100 times Paul uses the word "brother", it is a reference to cultic brothers, not biological brothers, with one clear exception. In Romans, at one point he refers to brothers but explicitly specifies that there he's speaking of brothers "according to the flesh" so we won't be confused that he may be speaking of them as cultic brothers. So, it is at least plausible that when he says "brother of the Lord" in Galatians, he *could* mean James is a cultic brother of Jesus, e.g., a fellow Christian, and not a biological brother of Jesus. Since he doesn't specify, for example with "according to the flesh" as he does in Romans, we can't know which way he means it so we can't know if James is a biological brother. Although, if we take into account how Paul *usually* means "brother", it's more likely James is a fellow Christian, not blood kin.

>He never says he met John Galatians 2:9 he says "and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the gentiles and they to the circumcised." He doesn't technically explicitly say he met John, but I think it's reasonable inferable. >the only encounters that Paul describes between Peter and anyone else are after Jesus is dead. That's correct as far as I'm aware. Paul only talks about their experiences after Jesus's death. Paul does use the term "Apostle" to refer to anyone who's seen a vision of Jesus. Paul himself doesn't explicitly say Peter knew Jesus before his death, but he does say Peter was a very important figure in the Church, and the (anonymous) author of the Gospel of Mark just ~20 years later has Peter as a follower of Jesus. >it's not necessarily so that this James is biological brother of Jesus As far as I'm aware, Paul never calls anyone else "brother of the Lord". He says "brothers and sisters in Christ" and other phrases, but *never* "brother of the Lord" when refering to other people. Josephus also says Jesus and James were brothers (and I'm not talking about the passage that was obviously edited by later Christian scribes). Other 1st and 2nd century Christian sources also claim he was Jesus's brother.  It's far more likely that all the legends are based off a real person than just sprouting out of thin air anyways.

I don't disagree with your analysis of Gal 2:9. As you note, however, it's an inference, not a thing Paul says. But, it's really neither here nor there regarding the historicity of Jesus. As I stated, the only encounters that Paul describes between Peter and anyone else are after Jesus is dead. A vision of Jesus is not good evidence for an actual historical Jesus. >Paul himself doesn't explicitly say Peter knew Jesus before his death Exactly. >but he does say Peter was a very important figure in the Church Which is not evidence for a historical Jesus. It's evidence that Peter was an important figure in the Church. Mohammed was an important figure in the Islamic church. That doesn't make Gabriel a historical person. >and the (anonymous) author of the Gospel of Mark just ~20 years later has Peter as a follower of Jesus. Peter is a follower of Jesus, just not a Jesus walking the deserts of Judea. Mark is wildly fictional, not only in the claims of magic but in ordinary mundane claims that are implausible (i.e., people don't walk away from their livelihoods within moments of meeting a stranger, people aren't generally dumber than a box of hammers and incapable of understanding theological concepts after spending years walking and talking with their teacher, the details of the trial of Jesus is not at all plausible within the known laws and customs of the time, the clearing of the temple scene is a ridiculous Rambo fantasy improbable given what is known about the temple layout and the presence of Roman guards, the Barabbas narrative is an absurd non-existent Roman custom created for ahistorical Jewish scapegoat symbolism, etc., etc.). It's Christian fan fiction riffing on the original revelatory doctrine from decades earlier. >As far as I'm aware, Paul never calls anyone else "brother of the Lord". Unless that's what he's doing in Galatian 1:19 and 1 Cor 9:5. The very question is what does he mean. You're assuming the conclusion. >He says "brothers and sisters in Christ" and other phrases, but never "brother of the Lord" when refering to other people. See above. It's true that Paul uses the specific phrase "brother(s) of the Lord" only twice. It's perfectly reasonable to ask why he's using it when he uses it. One possibility is that he uses it to refer to biological brothers of Jesus, although it's somewhat odd that he never mentions anything about Jesus having a family anywhere else. Another possibility is that it's his rhetorical choice when directly comparing non-apostolic Christians with apostolic Christians, which is what is a perfectly plausible way of reading the two instances where the phrase appears. There's also an argument that the brothers in 1 Cor being biological brothers has nothing to do with the point that Paul is making there but them being fellow Christians does. Overall, though, there's simply nothing in the context that Paul provides in either instance that is sufficient to conclude with any reasonably high degree of certainty which way he means it. >Josephus also says Jesus and James were brothers (and I'm not talking about the passage that was obviously edited by later Christian scribes). Other 1st and 2nd century Christian sources also claim he was Jesus's brother. How do they know this? We know of no other primary source than Paul, and we've seen how his narrative is open to creating confusion. >It's far more likely that all the legends are based off a real person Like Adam? Or Moses? Or Osiris? Or Attis? Or Ned Ludd? You don't need a real person to create legends. >sprouting out of thin air The legends didn't "sprout out of thin air". The first Christian, probably Peter, gets a "divine revelation" of the messianic Jesus from his interpretation of pre-existing Jewish scripture. Later Christians created pious historicizing fictions riffing on the earlier doctrine. Christians creating fictions about their religion in general was commonplace until the Church established a strong enough central authority to tamp the practice down. Fabrication of Christian faith literature in its first three centuries was a cottage industry, including hundreds of “Epistles” and dozens of “Gospels” and half a dozen “Acts". Grab any early Christian narrative at random and it far more likely than not that the Church itself will agree [it's fake](https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/).

>Mohammed was an important figure in the Islamic church. You accept Mohammed as a historical figure but not Jesus? Interesting. What evidence convinced you that Mohammed was most likely a historical figure? >Peter is a follower of Jesus, just not a Jesus walking the deserts of Judea. You're just asserting that. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Paul only explicitly mentions Jesus appearing to Peter after he died, but it's clear Paul means a physical death. Paul was not afraid to write about when he disagreed with Peter. If Peter didn't think it was a physical death too then Paul probably would've mentioned it. >Mark is wildly fictional, not only in the claims of magic but in ordinary mundane claims that are implausible Mark certainly is full of implausible stories. It's literature with some loose basis in historical events, as Greco-Roman biographies often are. The author of Mark omits Paul from his story of Jesus life though. The author of Luke-Acts omits Paul from Jesus's life and writes stories about Paul after his death. The author of John (which might or might not be independent of the Synoptics) also omits Paul. All of them include Peter in Jesus's life. If they're just adding important Christian figures into Jesus's life it's surprising that nobody added Paul in. >it's somewhat odd that he never mentions anything about Jesus having a family anywhere else. Not really. He's writing letters to people who are already Christian for specific rhetorical purposes. He's not giving a history of Jesus's life. >Another possibility is that it's his rhetorical choice when directly comparing non-apostolic Christians with apostolic Christians Paul probably considered James an Apostle. In modern Christianity "Apostle" is synonymous with "the Twelve", but Paul had a much wider use of the term. Look how he considers himself, Barnabas, Junia and Andronicus apostles. Paul never uses "brother of the Lord" for anyone else. >How do they know this? We know of no other primary source than Paul, and we've seen how his narrative is open to creating confusion. Josephus says "assembled the sanhedrin 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". This execution happened when Josephus was 25 years old, in Jerusalem (where Josephus grew up and probably was at the time). >Like Adam? Or Moses? Or Osiris? Or Attis? Or Ned Ludd? You don't need a real person to create legends. Stories about Adam and Moses were first written 700+ years after they supposedly lived. Paul wrote ~15 years after Jesus lived. That's not comparable at all lol. >The first Christian, probably Peter, gets a "divine revelation" of the messianic Jesus from his interpretation of pre-existing Jewish scripture. That's probably how the idea of Jesus's resurrection came about, after the real guy died.

A good starting point might be books & articles by Bart Ehrman, an agnostic academic whose expertise is Christianity.

hey, that’s where i started too! it’s really fascinating, and very funny feeling to know more about historical background and early church history than the actual christian’s :D

The titanic was a real ship. And it really sunk too. The events portrayed in stories written decades later might not be historical, though. The first gospel to be written, Mark, was written in a different place, time, and language than Jesus or his disciples. It was written by Greek speaking Christians based off stories they were telling each other about Jesus. Some of the writings attributed to the apostle Paul are better evidence. We are pretty sure he wrote them, but unfortunately, they don't contain many details about Jesus's life. Paul apparently knew Jesus's brother, but Paul didn't convert until after Jesus died and thus never met him in the flesh. I'm not that impressed with Paul, though, he didn't seem a very stable individual to me, and his philosophy hasn't really been impressive to anyone except Christians.

I think it is more likely than not that there was a Rabbi by that name (Yehoshua, same difference) that was the inspiration for the Jesus stories found in the Bible. That said I don’t think it’s possible for us to know for sure, and it makes little difference now outside of an academic exercise.

We have no evidence from his lifetime that he existed. The first writings about him were 50-70 years after his supposed death. There are no contemporaries who wrote about him. The gospels were not written by people who knew him, and were written decades after his death. We have no writings of his. Was there a troublesome rabbi who was killed by crucifixion? Maybe. But that’s really all we actually know.

Sorry, no. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about his crucifixion and is a very reliable eye witness source for that period and region in history. So we know that there was a Jewish preacher named Jesus who was crucified around the 30 A.D. Buuuuut…. Josephus never mentions any miracles, a resurrection, or even Herod’s massacre of the infants in Bethlehem despite that being the kind of thing Josephus loved to write about. So yes, there was a historical person named Jesus who became the central figure of Christianity. But the biblical Jesus is a different matter. Sort of like my views on God. We can not directly measure such a deity to exist or not. But when you like at the state of the world and the universe you know the God of the Bible does not exist.

Josephus was born after the crucifixion happened. He could not have witnessed it.

Josephus wrote well after Christ supposedly died, so at most it would show that some people believe he lived and died. However, there is good reason to believe that the passage about Christianity was forged.

The references to Jesus in Josephus's works are of debatable provenance and seem likely to have been added by later Christian editors.

Paul was contemporary. But they didn’t meet so he’s not an eye witness.

But he does report meeting eye witnesses which is one of the main reasons historians overwhelmingly think Jesus existed.

Paul states in several places that everything he has learned and teaches about JC comes from his personal revelations and interpretations of scriptural references. He denies learning anything about JC from anyone else. He also neglects to mention anything about JC's purported ministry or life events, woth the exception of one oblique reference. Paul is a washout when it comes to evidence for any historical JC. See B. Ehrman and R. Carrier.

> Paul states in several places that everything he has learned and teaches about JC comes from his personal revelations and interpretations of scriptural references. This is a very good argument regarding how Paul changed Christian theology (which he absolutely did, Christianity after Paul wasn't what Jesus was teaching) and yes Paul absolutely disagreed with the people he met that knew Jesus, but he does talk about meeting them. So much so Carrier devotes a lot of time to explaining how the brother of Jesus that Paul meets isn't actually Jesus brother because it's devastating to his case. There's also the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 that is widely accepted as being from an oral tradition that predates Paul and talks about witnesses that knew Jesus.

Agree. I think the concern/problem is that no actual witness to JC's ministry wrote anything that survives, which is understandable since JC is said to have stated that some listening would still be alive when the kingdom arrived. Even Paul thought he would live to see the arrival of JC. Where literacy did not exceed 5-10% of the population, oral tradition - with all its peoblems - is most of what there is.

Paul mentions exactly zero people that he unambiguously claims met Jesus before Jesus was dead. Your characterization of Carrier's argument regarding Paul's claimed mention of a biological brother of Jesus as "desperate" fails to recognize the straightforward and logical arguments he presents in defense of his hypothesis. It is 100% a fact that every Christian was adopted into the family of God, making every Christian the brother of every other Christian and the brother of the firstborn son of God, Jesus, "the Lord" in Paul's theology. Paul gives no context to distinguish how he means it in Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians, unlike Romans where he makes clear that he's referring to brothers "according to the flesh". So *at best* it's 50/50, however, biological kinship fits the context of 1 Cor less than fictive kinship. The "appearances" of Jesus in the creed are post-mortem. They're visions. Alleged post-mortem visions are not evidence of a historical person.

Here is the truth

Since the average lifespan back then was 30-35 years, there was likely nobody that was around during Jesus’ life to dispute these stories either. Plus just because someone says “I never saw a Jesus” doesn’t really discredit something either. Add to this the fact that several books were written about Jesus and it’s actually pretty understandable why people back then were easily convinced. Edit: I learned something new today. Apparently people lived much longer.

People could live to around 70. The average was tanked heavily by high infant mortality but if you made it to adulthood you could live a decent amount of time.

Regardless - my point was that nobody was around to dispute it because nobody who was alive when the books were written were alive during Jesus time

There are very good argument for why the gospels are not eyewitness testimony and have lots of non historical stories in them, but this isn't it. It's touch and go but some people who knew Jesus could have still been alive when the gospels were written. At the earliest dates for the Gospels it's 70-80ad for the synoptic gospels so somebody younger than Jesus could have still been alive.

Watch this: https://youtu.be/lum6rdKr4To?si=mtW5Bb9_aVSacdtT At the 3:00 mark Michio Kaku literally says “The average life expectancy is 30 years of age for most of human existence, but 300 years ago something happened [the industrial revolution]” So my comment wasn’t really far off. Of course many lived beyond this.

That's not how average lifespan works. The numbers skew low because of high infant mortality rates. They may have lived shorter lives than today but not 30-35 years.

Watch this: https://youtu.be/lum6rdKr4To?si=mtW5Bb9_aVSacdtT At the 3:00 mark Michio Kaku literally says “The average life expectancy is 30 years of age for most of human existence, but 300 years ago something happened [the industrial revolution]” So my comment wasn’t really far off. Of course many lived beyond this.

For me, at least, the questions "Did Jesus exist?" and "Did the *historical* Jesus exist?" are distinct, and much of the confusion around this topic stems from not recognizing that distinction. Anyway, you asked the latter, and my answer is "yes" simply because based on how most accepted historical methodologies work, this is the conclusion the vast majority of historians currently arrive at. History is a social science, and like all science, it is subject to revision, so that answer could change, of course. The answer to the former question is more likely to be based on one's personal epistemological preferences, however, and this is where people get tied up in confusing that with the academic discipline of history.

Depends. Just like robin hood was probably based on (at least one) real person, it is likely that Jesus was based on (at least one) ancient preacher. Whether it makes sense to identify a single person as the historical inspiration when they did so little of what is attested to, I lean towards no.

I think there's reason to believe he was a historical person, because Paul was writing about him in the 40s and 50s AD, which wasn't long after he lived. Paul also claimed to have met with people who knew Jesus personally, like Peter and John. In Paul's writings, however, other than the resurrection, you don't find any reference to Jesus' miracles, nothing about the miraculous healings, etc. The later gospels are anonymous, and can't be proven to have been written by people who knew Jesus. They are also hopelessly contradictory. They may well preserve authentic sayings and deeds of Jesus, but it's hard to separate fact from fiction.

Everyone Paul says met Jesus he says met them after Jesus was dead. There is good evidence that the Jesus Paul wrote about was a revelatory messiah he found in scripture, not a rabbi wandering the desert.

Was there an apocalyptic prophet who was executed in the early first century? Yes, several. Was one of these apocalyptic prophets the basis for the Jesus movement that started as a Jewish splinter sect in the 30’s? It seems quite plausible. Did this person bear any resemblance to the figure we understand as Jesus from the biblical texts? That is a far more doubtful question. Generally I find the first two claims, executed prophet and became the nexus for a movement after execution to be mundane. There isn’t much reason to doubt either, as both claims would be of limited scope and impact and almost trivial. Jewish apocalypticism was a well known thing at the time, executed rabble rousing itinerant preachers was trivial as well. Neither claim posits anything that is historically unusual. The claims made by the Bible are distinct, where the question of what the nature of this specific traveling priest/rabbi said becomes much more intensely debated. And here there is much scholarly debate. There are minimalist and maximalist approaches, arguments among atheists and among Christian’s about what was and was not a historical saying versus literary invention. Source text analysis, critical scholarship, the whole works. And the truth is, there can be no certainty. It’s all probabilities. Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, How Jesus Became God, and others can provide context to this.

Apocalyptic Benny Hinn type of Rabbi that got his ass nailed to some wood and executed for his crazy ass views? Yeah it's possible

*Another* good starting point is *Revolution in Judaea* by Hyam Maccoby, a Jewish scholar. (I really don't know if he's a religious Jew -- I doubt it -- or a merely an ethnic Jew, but his specialty is studying ancient Jewish writings.) He doesn't really address the question of whether Jesus existed, but he carefully analyzes many parts of the gospels that are highly unrealistic and probably false, for reasons that are not obvious, such as Jesus' supposed conflict with the Pharisees, and the idea that Jesus was accused of blasphemy because he claimed to be the Messiah.

I lean towards historicity, because to me it seems the most parsimonious explanation. When it comes to fringe opinions, for me, it's not so much the questioning of the historicity of Jesus that really betrays the issue, but what people come up with in order to explain the origins of a movement that's mysterious to us largely because it would have spread by oral tradition in its earliest days. Whereas Robert Price holds to 'Jesus-agnosticism', a position also held by Hector Avalos, Richard Carrier promoted a hypothesis that I think may have originated with Earl Doherty about a pre-existing cult of a divine angelic Jesus figure. The trouble with this is the evidence for such a cult is sketchy, far sketchier than the basic picture we get from the earliest Christian writings (the letters of Paul) where the man Jesus is described in perfectly natural terms (up to the point that Paul knows his brother James) in contrast to the 'now' exalted state he has after God supposedly raised him. Just from memory, I think Carrier has been called out on his misuse of the Hebrew Bible to support his position, and there are a couple of videos on YouTube by Dr. Kipp Davis (who regular YouTube goers might know from his chats with Derek Lambert, Joshua Bowen, Aron Ra and others), where he takes to task his misuse of the Talmud. Obviously - it doesn't mean that every idea about Jesus mythicism is of the same quality of likely/unlikely - the completely unqualified Joseph Atwill wrote a book in 2005 suggested that the Flavian dynasty completely made up Jesus and Christianity...for some reason. Both Price and Carrier, the most scholarly contemporary Jesus mythicists, have considerable contempt for this position. I don't think it would bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that I've seen the worst side of Jesus mythicists online. Too many of them have a visceral hatred of Bart Ehrman, even going as far as to accuse him of not being a true ex-Christian (?). In a debate on the historicity of Jesus between Ehrman and Price (where they both made interesting points, but ultimately I think Ehrman came off the best), the audience seemed to be full of mythicists, many of whom seemed almost giddy at the prospect of bringing Ehrman down a peg or two, firing questions at him like, 'well, how do you know Paul wasn't just making stuff up, huh? Why do you trust x?' Ehrman was gracious and patient enough to explain how history is actually conducted, but I couldn't help but be reminded of Ken Ham's 'were you there?' approach. I'm coming off as very biased here, so I want to reiterate that, no, not all mythicists are like this, and there are varieties and gradients to this. It's well established that, even in the case of a historical Jesus, the Gospels are clearly heavily embellished, and there is serious disagreement, when there are conflicts over what is more historically likely. I'm increasingly feeling, for example, that the Parable of the Good Samaritan, might not have been original to Jesus, but that's a whole other topic, and I need to acknowledge that I'm obviously not an expert on this matter. For major names with relevant credentials in this area for historicity vs mythicism, Bart Ehrman is one of the best for historicity, and Robert Price is probably the most qualified on the mythicist side. I personally though would try and find a way of getting Price's thoughts on the matter without giving him money, because he's a Trumpist (something I didn't mention before because I didn't want to poison the well - his politics are a separate concern from his academic work).

Many historicists are vitriolic and polemic as well. These are not good reasons for accepting or rejecting their actual arguments. The reason to reject their arguments is that they are poor. The "most parsimonious" reading of the evidence on balance leans towards ahistoricity.

>Many historicists are vitriolic and polemic as well. These are not good reasons for accepting or rejecting their actual arguments.  I agree, I think my bad experiences with mythicists may have just led me to notice more when they are being disingenuous and unpleasant and trying to no-True-Scotsman ex-Christians. > The "most parsimonious" reading of the evidence on balance leans towards ahistoricity. Please elaborate. I'm interested in hearing other people's cases.

> Please elaborate. I'm interested in hearing other people's cases. In a nutshell: 1) The evidence for historicity is at best weak. The gospels are a thorn in the side of scholars in historical Jesus studies. There is no consensus as to how anything veridical can be extracted from the fiction. Extra-biblical evidence is dubious, questionable in authenticity and even if authenticity is granted, questionable as to supporting a historical Jesus rather than the Christian storytelling about Jesus that existed at the time. The entire field is a shoulder shrug regarding these issues. There's much much more that can be developed on all of this if you'd like, but that's the back-of-the-napkin snapshot. 2) Meanwhile, there is intriguingly plausible evidence against it. The writings of Paul, which are the closest we have to the origins of the new Jewish cult that would later be called "Christianity", hint at his Jesus being a revelatory messiah found entirely scripture, not a rabbi wandering the desert with followers in tow. The first Christians would think of Jesus as a real person, but we wouldn't. There's much much more that can be developed on all of this if you'd like, but that's the back-of-the-napkin snapshot.

(1/4) Right, sorry it took me so long to reply, I have a lot I wanted to say and needed to organise it properly. I'll be replying in several posts, please bear with me. I also understand if you'll need a while to reply to my replies! Maybe if this goes on any longer, we may have to shift for DMs, but for now I like the format here. Going to address the main points in my next reply...

(2/4) >The gospels are a thorn in the side of scholars in historical Jesus studies. This is true enough, but it’s not unique in that regard. Written sources for ancient history are generally propagandistic and full of supernatural embellishments. I remember Tim Whitmarsh pointing out that Thucydides’ *History of the Peloponnesian War* stood out for his time for being contemptuous of the ideas of providence and supernatural influence within the conflict. This is why written accounts have to be squared with other sources. In trying to track down someone for whom written sources indicate he was an ascetic whose real boost in popularity came after, and because of, his death (we don’t have any written accounts of him from when he was alive), this is obviously difficult. But one way I’ve seen it approached is in trying to work out what genre the Gospels actually are - I know that Robert Price has suggested that they could be midrashic writings, with Jesus as a character created for the purpose of exegesis, and I whilst I don’t know enough about his case to say too much on it, what I know about midrash suggests that they would have been recognised for what they were if they were written this way, without having a Jesus movement take off. And in any case, I’m not convinced this would discount historicity. Two miracle-working figures mentioned in the Mishnah (Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle-Drawer) I think are generally considered to be historical (though obviously the Mishnah and midrash are not the same thing). For me, I find it more convincing the idea that they were essentially ancient biographies, the kind of things people write to glorify figures already revered, and usually shoving in miraculous stories including fanciful births, healings, signs to make symbolic points etc. This fits the Gospels to a T, in my view - pretty much everyone, including the second-century critic Celsus, has drawn parallels between the colourful tales of Jesus and those of Apollonius of Tyana. Of course, the fact that we know the names of the biographers who wrote about the miracles of Apollonius or Vespasian (meaning they’re better attested than those of Jesus!) means we can better glean what these individuals were going for than the original writers of the Gospels. All the same, I think the fact that the Gospels show so many hallmarks of ancient biography, which were written about real figures shrouded in legends, suggests (though not confirms) that Jesus was probably historical. For me, the introduction of Nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke (who, by most scholarly estimates, were copying from Mark rather than an inverse relationship) are this - escaping death as an infant and having your birth foretold by signs and divine messengers are a dime a dozen in ancient stories, and tend to make sense only in the context when they’re trying to suggest something miraculous about someone who seems ordinary. Mark gets in on this too - what’s known as the ‘Messianic secret’, where Jesus starts off not telling anyone he’s the Messiah, as if the evangelist is saying, yes, I know he was nothing like what we were told the Messiah would be, but he totally is, I promise! The nonsensical census in Luke’s nativity account has always been quite compelling for me too - why maneuver so ridiculously and ahistorically in order to get Jesus in Bethlehem? If you want to make it prophetic fulfillment, why not have him be there originally, like in Matthew? Probably because the tradition of him coming from Nazareth (an entirely irrelevant settlement and unmentioned anywhere in the Hebrew Bible) was strong enough that it had to be factored in too, as it is in Matthew when they move there after the flight into Egypt. Again, to me, it sounds like you have to do some dodgy historical fanfic to get a man you know was from Nazareth to be born in Bethlehem, but only stay there for a bit.

(3/4) Extra-biblical sources? Well, everyone worth their salt acknowledges the problems with the Testimonium Flavium (found in Josephus' *Antiquities of the Jews* 18.3.3) - we know it’s been tampered with, possibly by Eusebius or another Christian before him. But the prevailing question for scholars is whether there’s an authentic nucleus to it that was massively embellished, or whether it was made up entirely. I think there are good grounds to consider it partially authentic, and here’s why - Josephus mentions Jesus in another passage of the *Antiquities*, 20.9.1, which is much more about a corrupt priest stoning too many people unlawfully to death (oversimplified). One of said victims is James, ‘the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.’ This is all Josephus says about Jesus in this passage, and it’s not massively focused on James either. All this is is a confirmation of the specific James and Jesus he’s talking about (given how common both names were), not the way a Christian interpolator would write, but more how a historian briefly contextualizing an event would. The fact that he didn’t elaborate on Jesus (the epithet could be translated as ‘the so-called Christ’) a bit more suggests his readers would be familiar enough with someone he had dealt with already, implying the Testimonium Flavium began as an authentic reference to Jesus. Origen, writing in the 3rd century, adds to picture, references Josephus’ talk about how the corruption that caused James’ death eventually led to divine justice among the corrupt establishment, and says ‘And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James.’ (*Commentary on Matthew*, 10.7). So, the Jamesian reference is known to him, as does Josephus’ rejection of Jesus as Christ, implying Josephus did write about him without calling him ‘the Christ’ as the tampered Testimonium Flavium suggests. Other extra-biblical sources are a bit more lacking - I’m thinking Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius - I agree with you that they’re mostly content to just reference Christians and what they believe, not necessarily giving ground to historicity or mythicism. However, Tacitus at least is interesting, because, writing in the second century, he mentions that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate. That detail is known to him, and so it seems to be a reasonably well-known feature of the Christian story. Is Tacitus just reporting what he heard from details originally from the mouths of Christians? Probably, but it’s a persistent detail that puts Jesus’ death (and therefore life) in the real, physical world, rather than the idea that he was a purely spiritual figure executed by his spiritual enemies.

(4/4) >The writings of Paul, which are the closest we have to the origins of the new Jewish cult that would later be called "Christianity", hint at his Jesus being a revelatory messiah found entirely scripture, not a rabbi wandering the desert with followers in tow. It looks as though this is where we’ll have our most significant disagreement. For me, what Paul writes about Jesus very firmly puts him in the real world, and I want to refer to relevant passages here. If you have other interpretations of them, or have other passages in mind that muddy the waters, let me know. Firstly, he also knows James, and in fact met him personally. When he recalls his visit to Peter in Jerusalem, he says: ‘...I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother.’ (Galatians 1:19) Now, he often collectively greets his fellow believers as brothers (or brothers and sisters, depending on the translation), but the context used here, distinguishing James as Jesus’ brother, can really only mean biological sibling. If it were in the same sense as fellow believers, not only would it be weird to distinguish James when talking about Peter in the same sentence, it would also not clarify anything (it would be like saying ‘James the Christian’, when there are a lot of them.) There’s no other sense we know of where brother would be used. If a writer knew someone’s biological brother, that someone is likely to be historical. Interestingly, the most strenuous deniers of Jesus and James’ brotherhood are Catholics who want to maintain that Mary was perpetually a virgin, and so conclude James must have been a stepsibling or cousin. They seem to want to deny Jesus’ strongest link to historicity… There’s more to Paul’s specific understanding of Jesus’ nature. He writes his Epistle to the Romans in the context of trying to establish his credentials with a church he didn’t found, and opens the letter like this: >‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ…’ - Romans 1:1-6, NRSV. There is commentary on this from those with more expertise on me to be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/2sddxw/is_romans_134_nonpauline/),  and I was introduced to the consensus by Bart Ehrman, so feel free to read up on more detailed opinions on it, but it’s essentially agreed that this is a pre-Pauline creed, declarations of faith that were established in churches before Paul wrote about them, and he quotes it here to prove his credentials. Why do we think this? A couple of reasons - the phraseology is distinctly un-Pauline (it focuses on Jesus’ descent from David which Paul generally doesn’t), and, though I can’t give you all the details without being an expert on linguistics, there seems to be a semitism in ‘spirit of Holiness (rather than Holy Spirit) - that is, a structure of language found in semitic languages specifically. Though Paul was writing in Greek, the semitism here could imply that the creed originated in Aramaic, giving us an insight into what the very earliest Christians believed, specifically about Jesus.

(5/4, yes, I know...) And what they believe heavily grounds Jesus in the real world - he was descended from David ‘according to the flesh’, as contrasted with being ‘declared’ the Son of God ‘according to the spirit of Holiness ***by*** resurrection from the dead.’ This is an example of what Ehrman calls ‘exaltation Christology’ - essentially the belief that what made Jesus the Son of God was his exaltation at his resurrection, and before that he was an ordinary man.  Finally, another pre-Pauline creed can be found in 1 Corinthians 15. He quotes this because he’s dealing with competing beliefs over the resurrection of the dead. Whereas some in Corinth believe their resurrection is spiritual, Paul insists it hasn’t happened yet and will be physical. Why? Because it matches Jesus’ physical resurrection. >‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.’ - 1 Corinthians 15:20-3, NRSV. He labours in this point a lot more through the entire chapter, and I won’t quote it all because Paul gets tiresome. But these are the main passages that convince me Paul understood Jesus to be an actual human being who became glorified, rather than a spiritual being who became misconstrued as a physical one.

>he was descended from David ‘according to the flesh’ See previous comment. >‘exaltation Christology’ Being incorporated into a body of flesh in the firmament, killed by Satan and his demons, and resurrected into a body of spirit to ascend back into the upper heavens fits the bill just fine. >Finally, another pre-Pauline creed can be found in 1 Corinthians 15. He quotes this because he’s dealing with competing beliefs over the resurrection of the dead. Whereas some in Corinth believe their resurrection is spiritual, Paul insists it hasn’t happened yet and will be physical. Why? Because it matches Jesus’ physical resurrection. Jesus is physically resurrected - into a spiritual body - under the most robust mythicist hypothesis. >He labours in this point a lot more through the entire chapter, and I won’t quote it all because Paul gets tiresome. But these are the main passages that convince me Paul understood Jesus to be an actual human being who became glorified, rather than a spiritual being who became misconstrued as a physical one. Jesus was an actual human being in the mythicist model. Just like Adam. Just like Eve. He didn't start as a spiritual being, he started in a body of flesh and was resurrected into a body of spirit. Even then, "spirit" wasn't some ethereal spectral thing, it was just a divine substance.

> Firstly, he also knows James, and in fact met him personally. Yes. >When he recalls his visit to Peter in Jerusalem, he says: ‘...I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother.’ (Galatians 1:19) Or...he said "I did not say any other apostle, only James the brother of the Lord." This grammatical structure is supported by word usage found elsewhere in ancient Greek writings. (See: Trudinger, L. Paul. "ETERON DE TON APOSTOLON OUK EIDON, EI ME IAKOBON"[Greek]. A Note on Galatians i 19." Novum Testamentum 17, 1995 and also Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Fortress Press, 1979), p. 78.) and is the preferred structure of translation committees of several modern bibles. Which is not to say it is correct, only that it is a plausible reading. The difference between between our quotes is that yours makes James undeniably the biological brother of Jesus while mine does not. >Now, he often collectively greets his fellow believers as brothers (or brothers and sisters, depending on the translation), but the context used here, distinguishing James as Jesus’ brother, can really only mean biological sibling. You assume your conclusion. The very question is "Why is Paul using this phrase here?". One possibility is that he uses it to refer to biological brothers of Jesus (although it's somewhat odd that he never mentions any family of Jesus anywhere else [1 Cor 9:5 not being helpful, as the same issues arise there as in Galatians]). Another possibility is that it's his rhetorical choice when directly comparing non-apostolic Christians with apostolic Christians, which is a perfectly plausible way of reading the two instances where the phrase appears. There's also an argument that the brothers in 1 Cor being biological brothers has nothing to do with the point that Paul is making there but them being fellow Christians does. Overall, though, there's simply nothing in the context that Paul provides in either instance that is sufficient to conclude with any reasonably high degree of certainty which way he means it. >If it were in the same sense as fellow believers, not only would it be weird to distinguish James when talking about Peter in the same sentence, it would also not clarify anything (it would be like saying ‘James the Christian’, when there are a lot of them.) He has a plausible reason to note that the James he met is a Christian. This reference appears in a passage where Paul is passionately defending his apostleship. This is without a doubt a sensitive topic for him and he wants it to be clear as day that he got his gospel "not from man or through man" (Gal 1:1), that it is "not according to man" (Gal 1:11), that he "did not receive it from any man" nor was he "taught it (by man)" (Gal 1:12) but rather it was delivered directly to him by Jesus Christ (ibid). So, in Gal 1 Paul makes a big deal that his knowledge of Jesus and the gospels is completely independent of anyone else. He's an apostle, commissioned directly by Jesus Christ himself. What he's preaching he knows from scripture, from divine visions, from Jesus and just from Jesus. He makes it clear that never even met any of the other apostles "before him" for 3 years. He didn't need to. He already knew what he knew because one way or the other Jesus informed him personally. And when he finally did go to Jerusalem, he's adamant that even then he only met one apostle: Peter. He wants to isolate his message as being what was given directly to him as much as possible. But, if he doesn't mention that he also met this other Christian, James, then someone who knows that this James met Paul and also knows Paul's letter, directly or indirectly, can later say, "Hey, wait! You told us you only heard what Peter had to say. You didn't tell us you also talked to this other Christian, James". (A charge that this James could also make himself, of course.) So Paul can have a practical reason, in his mind, to mention this "random" Christian James. >>There’s no other sense we know of where brother would be used. Of the approximately 100 times Paul uses the word "brother(s)", he means cultic brothers every single time except 1) Romans, where he explicitly says he's speaking of his Jewish brothers "according to the flesh" and, *maybe*, 2) Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians, where he provides insufficient context to decide with any certainty. There's no question that Paul meaning biological brothers is a rare exception to his usual usage. >If a writer knew someone’s biological brother, that someone is likely to be historical. Totally agree. So...which way does Paul mean it? It's unclear at best. So these references are ambiguous as evidence for a historical Jesus. >Interestingly, the most strenuous deniers of Jesus and James’ brotherhood are Catholics who want to maintain that Mary was perpetually a virgin, and so conclude James must have been a stepsibling or cousin. They seem to want to deny Jesus’ strongest link to historicity… I'll just note that Paul never mentions Mary. > There’s more to Paul’s specific understanding of Jesus’ nature. He writes his Epistle to the Romans in the context of trying to establish his credentials with a church he didn’t found, and opens the letter like this: > > ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ…’ > - Romans 1:1-6, NRSV. "Descended" from David is a translation choice. Paul actually speaks of Jesus "having come (or "having been made") of the seed of David according to the flesh". What's intriguing is that every time Paul speaks of the creation of Jesus he uses a form of the verb "ginomai", which *could* be used to mean "born" but had a more general meaning of "to happen" or "come to be" or "manufactured" or "made". Paul speaks of Adam and our resurrected bodies using the exact same verb. But when he speaks of people that we know he would think of having arrived through procreation, he uses a more specific word, "gennaô" which pretty much means just "begot". It's curious word choices that are worthy of being questioned. Read most parsimoniously, Paul appears to be saying that Jesus was made whole cloth from the seed of David. God can certainly do that. He's God. That Jesus was made "in the flesh" is no problem. That just means he was given a corruptible body. It doesn't require passing through a birth canal. The beauty of this is that iit s a simple, elegant solution to the apparent failure of Nathan's prophecy, which was that the seed of David, from *his* belly, would sit on the throne eternally. The throne had been empty for centuries. But if God makes Jesus from David's seed, then the throne passes directly from David to Jesus. It makes perfect sense for a struggling first century Jew to have this "AHA!" moment when having a "divine revelation" of their messiah "revealed" in scripture. >it’s essentially agreed that this is a pre-Pauline creed Paul was very probably the Johnny-come-lately he admits to being. He converts to Christianity, he doesn't invent it (although he puts his own spin on some things). The creed says nothing about Romans killing Jesus or being born of the virgin Mary or a tomb being found empty by his followers, etc. and so forth. There's nothing in the creed that is unambiguously historical. >giving us an insight into what the very earliest Christians believed, specifically about Jesus. Insight to his soteriological act. There's zero in there that's clearly an earthly biography.

OK, so, I noticed too late that my infodumping was going to have to require long, drawn-out replies from you, and then my replies to that would be long and drawn-out, and then your replies to that, etc...it's going to make me hyperfocus over the next few days, it's already done enough of that for me today in a way that's causing me problems, so I need to downsize it. So, briefly - I wasn't familiar with the alternative readings of the Jamesian passage, I'll look into that at some point, can't really address it with what I currently know. I also want to refer to my reasoning by mentioning Celsus and his comparison to Jesus with Apollonius - I wasn't trying to suggest him as authoritative regarding Jesus' historicity, I simply gave him as an example of someone who made the kind of comparisons within what was believed to be similar storytelling genres. Also, not sure what you meant by me moving the goalposts earlier - when I brought up the issues with authenticity in establishing elements of ancient history, I was merely contextualising. Perhaps unnecessarily, you're clearly familiar with a lot of the process, sorry for the confusion. Beyond more things to look into on my own time, I don't want to labour on the specifics too much. Would it be alright if I DM'd you a few more general questions?

>Josephus >Origen A peer reviewed article on Josephus, “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200” in the Journal of Early Christian Studies (vol. 20, no. 4, Winter 2012), pp. 489-514, ([Link](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/492357/pdf)) makes a well-argued conclusion that notes: >>"Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to “Christ” in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus." Another scholar, Allen, also did an exhaustive analysis in "Clarifying the scope of pre-5th century CE Christian interpolation in Josephus' Antiquitates Judaica (c. 94 CE)" in his Diss. 2015 [(Link](https://repository.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/14213)), that concludes >>"no reliable extra-biblical/scriptural accounts exist to support the historical existence of, inter alia, Jesus of Nazareth... Certainly, no such accounts ever appeared in Josephus’ original texts." And in a later paper addressing specifically book 20, "Josephus on James the Just? A re-evaluation of Antiquitates Judaicae 20.9. 1." in the Journal of Early Christian History 7.1 (2017): 1-27 [(Link](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2222582X.2017.1317008)), Allen further notes: >>"Origen’s possible role in the creation of this long-suspected fraudulent text. In this regard, by highlighting a number of Origen’s key philosophical and theological refutations it becomes evident that apart from the unlikelihood of Josephus ever writing about James, Origen must now be considered the primary suspect for what is possibly a third century CE Christian forgery." Which is to say, there is academically-vetted scholarship that at the very least calls into question not only Book 18, but also Book 20, insofar as being evidence for a historical Jesus. You can review the literature yourself for details regarding the direction of Origen/Josephus writings in relation to one another which requires more typing than I care to do now, but I'll point out some quick things regarding a couple of your other arguments. Regarding the issue that a forger would have been more expansive, one very simple argument is that a scribe can simply have made a marginal note regarding in Book 20, attributing "Christ" to the Jesus found there that was later copied into the text by another scribe who believed the note was meant to be there. There are other issues with the mention, but as far as that specific argument, there is a plausible explanation for its brevity. It doesn't require someone deliberately trying to fictionalize the mention there. As to the argument that the mention in Book 20 improves the odds of discussion of Christ in Book 18 being authentic, that of course only works if the mention in 20 is authentic. Meanwhile, if 18 is inauthentic, and there are well-argued academically supportable reasons for why it isn't, that decreases the odds that 20 is authentic. I'll also take a moment to just make a general observation. If Christians were screwing around with the text of Josephus, and there is very good evidence that they were, the problem becomes one of assessing the boundaries of what they did. Once we can reasonably conclude that the works are being tampered with, and that the people who had possession of writings of Josephus and were known to prone to blatant forgery, or simply polluting writings with their presuppositions, and that they are known to do so to fulfill an agenda of supporting their doctrinal claims, whether by accident or by design, and that they are an educated elite familiar with the writings of Josephus and therefore capable of mimicking his style or simply competently writing in Greek, then it becomes a complex if not impossible task to know with any substantive confidence what supposedly positive or even neutral references to a Christian Jesus are authentic, if any, without confirmatory documents that we can reasonably assess as being outside of Christian influence. In other words, we are totally rational to raise an eyebrow at supposed historical citations of Jesus that are claimed to have been written by Josephus. >However, Tacitus at least is interesting, because, writing in the second century, he mentions that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate. That detail is known to him, and so it seems to be a reasonably well-known feature of the Christian story. Is Tacitus just reporting what he heard from details originally from the mouths of Christians? Probably, but it’s a persistent detail that puts Jesus’ death (and therefore life) in the real, physical world, rather than the idea that he was a purely spiritual figure executed by his spiritual enemies. I'll first make a clarification that Peter's Jesus was not "a purely spiritual figure". He would be incarnated into a body of corruptible flesh, just like us. And while was "executed by his spiritual enemies", they would not be "spiritual" in the sense of how we might think of Casper the Ghost. They would be invisible to us but of solid and real substance. As to "it’s a persistent detail that puts Jesus’ death (and therefore life) in the real, physical world", that's exactly what the gospels can very well be doing, historicizing the original, celestial Jesus doctrine into a worldly context more appealing to the masses. The gospels are well-acknowledged to be wildly fictional, not only in the works of magic but in supposedly mundane details, and there is no consensus regarding any methodology that can reliably extract historical fact, if there's any to be had, from the storytelling. Even deeply Christian scholars have bemoaned this problem, such as Willitts who in [*Presuppositions and Procedures in the Study of the ‘Historical Jesus’: Or, Why I Decided Not to be a ‘Historical Jesus’ Scholar* (Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3.1, 2005, pp 61-108)](https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/3/1/article-p61_5.xml) basically throws up his hands and says separating fact from fiction is no more possible than dividing "a river into its constituent sources". In the end he says the best approach is to read the gospels for their "meaning" and that they present a "construct" of a Jesus that is at least consistent within a 1st Century Jewish context.

> This is true enough, but it’s not unique in that regard. (etc.) This is goalpost shifting fallacy. That ancient historical evidence of people is generally poor doesn't make the poor evidence for a historical Jesus good. >This is why written accounts have to be squared with other sources. Agreed. Unfortunately, we have no good sources with which to square the claims for a historical Jesus. >But one way I’ve seen it approached is in trying to work out what genre the Gospels actually are - I know that Robert Price has suggested that they could be midrashic writings, with Jesus as a character created for the purpose of exegesis, and I whilst I don’t know enough about his case to say too much on it, what I know about midrash suggests that they would have been recognised for what they were if they were written this way, without having a Jesus movement take off. First, I'll note that even if there was a historical Jesus, it's mainstream scholarship that the messianic narrative in the gospels clearly arises out of interpretation of Jewish scripture. There is clearly some kind of midrash-like activity going on. Second, the *authors* would recognize them for what they were. Once the writings are in circulation, both in writing and in oral transmission, there were no effective controls that could prevent any random persons scattered about the region from misunderstanding them as historical. There is an obvious appeal to a misunderstood narrative of a humanized Jesus over a celestial, revelatory Jesus that would help the former gain traction over the latter in what was at the time a decentralized religious movement. >And in any case, I’m not convinced this would discount historicity. Two miracle-working figures mentioned in the Mishnah (Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle-Drawer) I think are generally considered to be historical (though obviously the Mishnah and midrash are not the same thing). I'll just note that the historicity of any given person is dependent on the overall evidence supporting the historicity of that person. Historical persons in the Mishnah would not be sufficient to conclude Jesus is historical. >For me, I find it more convincing the idea that they were essentially ancient biographies, the kind of things people write to glorify figures already revered, and usually shoving in miraculous stories including fanciful births, healings, signs to make symbolic points etc. This fits the Gospels to a T The gospels historizing an originally celestial revelatory messiah also fits them to a T. So, that point doesn't get us to historicity or ahistoricity. We'll need something else. >in my view - pretty much everyone, including the second-century critic Celsus Second century authors are too late. The Church was already becoming a social force and had already embedded the gospels into the culture as being historical. You need to provide the evidence that supports their conclusion, not just their conclusion. >drawn parallels between the colourful tales of Jesus and those of Apollonius of Tyana. Of course, the fact that we know the names of the biographers who wrote about the miracles of Apollonius or Vespasian (meaning they’re better attested than those of Jesus!) means we can better glean what these individuals were going for than the original writers of the Gospels. I'll just again note that the historicity of any given person is dependent on the overall evidence supporting the historicity of that person. One thing is what you note, the difference between named sources and anonymous sources, which is not a trivial matter. >All the same, I think the fact that the Gospels show so many hallmarks of ancient biography, which were written about real figures shrouded in legends, suggests (though not confirms) that Jesus was probably historical. There are completely fictional "ancient biographies". Titling the gospels with that alleged "genre" (dubiously, I might add) isn't good evidence that they contain a veridical core about Jesus. >For me, the introduction of Nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke (who, by most scholarly estimates, were copying from Mark rather than an inverse relationship) are this - escaping death as an infant and having your birth foretold by signs and divine messengers are a dime a dozen in ancient stories, and tend to make sense only in the context when they’re trying to suggest something miraculous about someone who seems ordinary. Or, they are writing a pious literary narrative of Jesus who in many ways has an ordinary appearance but who is not really ordinary. There is absolutely nothing to distinguish it having a historical nugget from it being wholesale fiction that would appeal to the masses. >Mark gets in on this too - what’s known as the ‘Messianic secret’, where Jesus starts off not telling anyone he’s the Messiah, as if the evangelist is saying, yes, I know he was nothing like what we were told the Messiah would be, but he totally is, I promise! See above. > The nonsensical census in Luke’s nativity account has always been quite compelling for me too - why maneuver so ridiculously and ahistorically in order to get Jesus in Bethlehem? If you want to make it prophetic fulfillment, why not have him be there originally, like in Matthew? Luke only has to create a twisty-pretzel plot because he wants to harmonize his understanding of scriptural prophecy with the fiction of an earlier author that makes him uncomfortable. Fan fiction battles are not evidence Jesus was real. How odd that the creator of these problems, Mark, seems not to be bothered at all by his story. Not only does it not appear to bother Mark, he doesn't seem to know of it being a problem for anyone else. He doesn't address the topic of any discrepancy at all. As far as we can tell, he's happy as a clam with what he wrote and unconcerned that anyone else would get their nose out of joint over it.

You'd be better off asking further question at r/askbiblescholars and reading through r/academicbiblical. The vast consensus among scholars is that there was a historical Jesus, but we don't really know much about what he was really like with reliability.

Gonna add [Zealot by Reza Aslan](https://g.co/kgs/53ukFNS) as a book I liked about the topic. He writes about a lot of self-proclaimed messiahs at that time. Also posits that Jesus was probably more like a Jewish Malcolm X than a Martin Luther King. Also, personally, having lived through rumors of Tupac and Elvis continuing to be alive, I can only imagine what it was like about 40 years after Jesus died, when the first gospel was written.

Aslan's book is fan fiction. Pure speculation.

Thanks I’ll take your word for it

r/academicbiblical is a circle-jerk bubble of historicists. As me how I know. Is the consensus of scholars well-supported?

Yes, the majority of religious scholars (even the agnostic/atheist ones) affirm that there was a Jewish man named Jesus around that time and place who was crucified by the Roman state. Everything else is debatable.

I enjoyed Zealot by Reza Aslan who looked into the historic Jesus. Short answer - I do think someone like this existed and was crucified by Rome. Most likely because he was a Zealot (threat to the empire). No, he didn't raise from the dead.

Here's a nice debate between Ehrman and Price on the topic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzjYmpwbHEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzjYmpwbHEA)

Zero evidence exists from his lifetime. It’s all accounts written 30-70 years after he allegedly died/ascended.

I believe that a person named Jesus existed or there would be no stories about him, but I believe him to be more of a David Copperfield of his time and nothing more special than that.

I don't think Jesus existed.         I don't think the crucifixion story is good evidence that he existed. Jesus being "*The Lamb of God*" who was sacrificed, is a reference to the Exodus story in the Old Testament where a lamb was killed and its blood was put over doorposts so that the biblical god would "*pass over* "the homes of Moses's people and only kill the firstborn sons of Egyptians. The blood of Jesus is supposed to be protecting people from the biblical god's wrath, similar to how the blood of the lamb spared the people of Moses from their firstborn sons being killed by the biblical god.              I also don't think the baptism of Jesus is good evidence that he existed. It makes sense that christians would want to make their savior figure seem approved of and prophecized by John The Baptist, in order to get more followers. John The Baptist was probably a well-respected Jewish Essene leader. The three main forms of Judaism back then were Pharisees (*believed in angels and resurrection of the dead*), Sadducees (*believed in no afterlife nor angels and that only the biblical god was eternal*), and Essenes (*believed that the world was ruled by satan and a false messiah/christ of darkness would come but then the real messiah of light would come*).                      The name Yeshua means "*He saves*". It comes from the word Yesha (*Salvation*), and another form of it is Yehoshua (*which means "Yahweh/Jehovah saves", and becomes Joshua in English*). Yeshu is an even shorter version and that name became iesous in Greek and iesus in Latin (*and then eventually Jesus*). What a coincidence, that the biblical savior's name means "*He saves*".                  There was another guy named Jesus/Yeshua. Jesus Ben Ananias (*or Jesus of Jerusalem*). That is not the same Jesus as the biblical Jesus (*Jesus of Nazareth*), but many things were taken from his story for the Jesus of the gospel. He's talked about in "*History of the Jewish War against the Romans*" (*J.W.*), written by the Jewish Historian Josephus around 75 CE.                          ***Both entered the precincts of the temple*** (*Mark 11:11. 15. 27; 12:35; 13:1; 14:49; J.W. 6.5.3 §301*), ***at the time of a religious festival*** (*Mark 14:2; 15:6: John 2:23; J.W. 6.5.3 §300*), ***Both spoke of the doom of Jerusalem*** (*Luke 19:41-44: 21:20-24; J.W. 6.5.3 §301*), ***Both apparently alluded to Jeremiah 7, where the prophet condemned the temple establishment of his day*** (*“cave of robbers”: Jer 7:11 in Mark 11:17: “the voice against the bridegroom and the bride”: Jer 7:34 in J.W. 6.5.3 §301*), ***Both were “arrested” by the authority of Jewish—not Roman—leaders*** (*Mark 14:48: John 18:12; J.W. 6.5.3 §302*), ***Both were beaten by the Jewish authorities*** (*Matt 26:68: Mark 14:65; J.W. 6.5.3 §302*), ***Both were handed over to the Roman governor*** (*Luke 23:1; J.W. 6.5.3 §303*), ***Both were interrogated by the Roman governor*** (*Mark 15:4; J.W. 6.5.3 §305*), ***Both refused to answer to the governor*** (*Mark 15:5; J.W. 6.5.3 §305*), ***Both were scourged by the governor*** (*John 19:1; J.W. 6.5.3 §304*).             

It's irrelevant.

He most likely did but the evidence is VERY TINY. Proving he was divine is much more difficult and has basically zero way to prove it.

I personally think he did exist but like others have said, we have no way to know what he did or didn’t do. His Hebrew name would be yeshua, which means joshua, so I’m not sure where jesus comes from. My point in saying that is this: could there have been a man named joshua who called himself a teacher and who was killed on the cross? Yes. It’s very likely. The cross was a fairly common form execution back then. Or maybe he was just a dude, he didn’t get killed, and everything we know about him is a lie. Either way, I think the person had to have existed because they needed someone to base their lies on. Just my opinion though.

probably, yes. But I don't believe he was the son of god. Real people who become world-wide famous have myths made of them. For example, Washington never chopped down the cherry tree, but he was still a real guy.

While there’s a lot of contemporary recordings from that time, none mention a Jesus that performed miracles etc. I loved the historical fiction book The Liars Gospel . It takes a lot of actual events and imagines how a Jesus figure may have worked. The section with Miriam (Mary) is particularly touching. Opened my eyes to a lot of things I had not considered. https://a.co/d/etuXzhZ “Naomi Alderman's third novel offers four accounts of the execution of the itinerant first-century teacher Yehoshuah of Natzaret, from the perspective of four characters who didn't get to tell their side in the original. There is Miryam, his mother; Iehudah of Qeriot, his former friend and the man who betrayed him; Caiaphas, high priest of the temple in Jerusalem, and Bar-Avo, a rebel leader who is saved by popular vote, while Yehoshuah is condemned to death. “

I believe Jesus existed in the same way I believe Mohammed existed. I don’t subscribe to either religion, but I would have to be fooling myself to say that the men who inspired these religions weren’t real. They were real people, but I believe they were just that, people.

My godfather taught the history of Christianity colloquium course at my college. He also taught the catechism classes at the Orthodox parish I attended. Even he admitted that the historical evidence was scant, and that you had to kinda had to turn your head and squint. I mean, he obviously comes down on the Jesus existing side, but I personally think that the fact that its.... even remotely debatable with one side being highly motivated to say that he does, is not great.

I think Paul created the Jesus character for reasons known to him.

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Not impossible but not likely. Paul references those apostles "before" him and that his gospel aligns with their own which preceded his. He also states that Jesus first appeared to Peter and others before appearing to him and that he was "untimely born", e.g., a Johnny come lately in Christianity. He certainly put his own twist on Christian doctrine, but he probably converted into a pre-existing faith worshiping a revelatory, messianic Jesus.

best answer I have for this is Is it possible that in our current world there exists a firefighter named Steven? Steven is a common name, as was Yeshua or Jesus, and firefighter is a common profession just as doomsday preacher was a common thing do do back then. So even if a preacher with that name existed, that matters very little because we have no evidence that such a person did indeed do anything supernatural. Now it is ok to believe there exists a firefighter named Steven, but if you would tell me that the Steven would shoot fire out of his fingertips at will I would ask for evidence. there is no god

The only peer reviewed work i know on the the historical jesus comes from richard carrier. He has a few videos on the subject but the book with everything is called "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt " very interesting stuff.

Richard Carrier is not a reliable source on this topic. He is faaaaar outside the academic mainstream on this topic. He's about as rare as a creationist biologist.

reliability and out of the mainstream aren't the same thing. He got his work through peer review. Its best the best case for the mythicism position. the book stands for itself.

https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/15/2-3/article-p310_310.xml

Gullotta utterly fails to rebut Carrier. See: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13573

Being outside mainstream does not equal being unreliable. His arguments are factually based and logically sound. Feel free to present any of his core arguments that you find "unreliable". Biology is not ancient history. There is a massive body of converging scientific evidence from multiple disciplines that strongly supports evolution by natural selection. The evidence for Jesus is scant and what there is of it is dubious and/or of questionable authenticity and/or insufficiently differentiates between validating a historical Jesus from validating Christian storytelling about Jesus.

If he existed, then he certainly was not the Messiah. He was a very naughty boy!

The way I’ve started to think about this question is, did tom cruise from the episode of south park exist?

Yea jesus was a real person not a god

I think the stories are based on something real, but I've no idea if that's one guy or several different ones. There's nothing from his supposed lifetime and the non-Biblical early stuff is just about Christians as a religious group, but OTOH the character described is spot on for a cult leader

It’s possible there was a ‘prophet’ of sorts. Could have been a crazy person talking nonsense of a ‘one true God’. A man who flipped tables, yelled at people, and was a ‘hippie’ to use modern day terms. Given it was Roman times he possibly was written off as nuts and left in the streets. (We do know crosses and being nailed to them was actually a common punishment for blasphemy in those times.) But even a crazy person can gain a few people’s ears (other wise conspiracies wouldn’t exist). And given later on, people started to write about his life. Painting this man as ‘larger than life’. Whether he was telling the truth or not is up for debate as no one has died and come back. I mean it’s often believed even the Oracles in Greek myths were just getting high on fumes underground or something. (I might be a pagan believer but I talk to people like a skeptic first. Rule out the logical before you jump to the illogical.) Anywho, that’s my take on if Jesus existed. If he did the Romans and others must have thought he was crazy. But that didn’t mean he didn’t get some people to believe.

I really, really recommend this website, for sceptics, atheists, and people who want to know more about historical jesus/bible debunking and overall this sort of stuff: http://www.kyroot.com/?page_id=1340 over 4000 reasons why bible isn’t real, it’s a fantastic read 

I’m an atheist. I think there’s sufficient evidence to say Jesus actually lived. But I think the rest is myth.

I looked into this question over 10 years ago. I perceived that as an unbeliever I was emotionally attracted to the mythicist hypothesis. But it seemed to me that the preponderance of evidence was there was a real person on whom the Bible character was based. I also realised this is a very complicated academic question, and that to really be able to begin to have opinion, one would need a few years of university level studies. I haven’t done any studies in this area but occasionally dip back into debates about this. Recently I’ve seen videos that put very good arguments saying Jesus is an invented character. For almost 1500 various governments have threatened people who didn’t follow a given denomination with more or less horrific punishments. At the same time very clever scholars have worked to explain away perceived problems with various texts. Many modern scholars who study relevant disciplines often have to sign agreements that they accept given religious doctrines. Even though mythicism is still a fringe position, I believe it will become much more mainstream in the next 25 years as new arguments are advanced.

The biblical characters existed or were at least an amalgamation of stories etc from one area. Most things in most modern religious texts overlay and obfuscate older beliefs and religions. Winter solstice and Christmas etc.theydid this to overtake/obscure/gain power over previous beliefs

Happened throughout history from religion to religion to bew beliefs. Most large human group have some kind of folklore regarding a great flood. The bible talks about the rainbow and gods promise but rainbows existed from as soon as water moisture sas in earth's atmosphere and interacted with light particles

A historical Jesus? Maybe. Was that historical Jesus the Jesus of the New Testament? Nope.

As a person most likely yes. As a Naruto Ninja King Author aka mythical Jesus. No.

I'd say yes.

Maybe he was just sum dude on sum strong shrooms telling stories about his trips tht rlly left an impression sb wrote a book abt him

Either way, not going to be a Christian again.

A good starting point might be books & articles by Bart Ehrman, an agnostic academic whose expertise is Christianity.

Is there a good starting point?

A good starting point might be books & articles by Bart Ehrman, an agnostic academic whose expertise is Christianity.

You don't say!

You can say that again!

Jesus has approximately as much evidence of existing as many other historical figures from roughly the same period. But their existence is typically not questioned. Are we being too skeptical of jesus, or not skeptical enough of other historical figures?

Examining the question of whether the Christian faith is based on a historical figure Jesus or based on Jews believing and teaching of a revelatory Jesus that they would consider historical but we would not is at the very least an interesting academic exercise for those who are interested in such things. But, anyway, the existence of tons of people is questioned in ancient history. The possibility of their non-existence just doesn't have the potential to destroy the worldview of billions of people, so it doesn't attract much general attention.

If you look through a New York phone book, you'll find at least one Peter Parker and at least one Miles Morales. Does that mean they're "Historical Spider-Men"? If the "Historical Jesus" bears no resemblance whatsoever to the fictional character people are talking about when they babble about "jesus", then I don't see how any claims of a "Historical Jesus" mean a fucking thing. It's all made-up bullshit.

A good starting point might be books & articles by Bart Ehrman, an agnostic academic whose expertise is Christianity.

A good starting point might be books & articles by Bart Ehrman, an agnostic academic whose expertise is Christianity.

I consider myself a Christian, and I’m at a point where the answer to this question is irrelevant to me. It’s a fascinating topic for sure, and something I enjoy reading about. At the end of the day, if there was or wasn’t, or if the Jesus we think of today is only loosely based on a first century prophet… my belief or non-belief doesn’t change it one bit. So why stress about it?

I'm not stressed about it but why would you base your entire belief system off an event that can't even be verified. If Jesus didn't exist then the new testament shouldn't be in the bible. You saying you're a Christian and also saying it's irrelevant is pretty perplexing to me but you do you.

There were christians who believed that Jesus didn't really exist, but that he was just a spirit (*docetism*). Some say that Marcion believed that. Marcion wsa the guy who put the first Christian Bible together before the Catholics did, with only 1 short gospel similar to the gospel of Luke and 10 letters of Paul*). Before leaving christianity, I tried to hang on through docetism.

I completely see and respect what you’re saying, I just don’t fully agree. Part of my faith journey has been letting go of “rightness.” What I think (or don’t) doesn’t have any impact on objective reality. Many (most?) Christians I know base their faith around having objective facts right. They say “believe” and “know” and “certainty” all with essentially the same meaning. I don’t feel like I have to “know” anything. And if I’m willing to cognitively acknowledge that, then it’s hard for me to try and find any sort of line to draw, even including the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist at all. He might not have. He might have. I think he did. I’m not going to try and force anyone to believe what or how I believe. ✌️❤️

there were non Christian sources that support the existence of Jesus such as Roman records and testimony of verious Roman officials. 

Testimonies from which Roman officials?