Jesus was a historical person. This doesn’t mean Christianity is correct, but there is sufficient historical evidence and most mainstream scholars of the era agree on this.

Fuck off! He'd definitely have been a member of the Peoples front of Judea

Exactly, and at that point, does it make sense to consider that person the same as the one from the new testament?

I think a big point of contention in the debate is that people say 'Jesus was(n't) real' without clarifying whether they mean the former or the latter bit of your comment. I have a hunch there'd be more agreement if everyone was more clear. Thanks for the helpful comment!

I think even "vague Jesus human person existed" is maybe too much confidence with nothing to back it up. Don't even know if it was a singular dooms day death cult leader or an amalgamation.

The entire myth was also borrowed from Zoroastrianism, but let's just pretend that never happened I guess

Yeah - it is an unpopular opinion on Lemmy though. I’ve been accused of being Christian for making this argument, as if accepting the historicity of the figure inherently means accepting the claim that he was a divine being.

All legitimate historians doubt that. You're referring to RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS, who are just lying priests and followers, desperate to make any bullshit into something more than bullshit. You're fucking delusional.

Celsus, a second century author and critic of Christianity, did not make the claim that Jesus did not exist. Early Roman and Jewish critics of Christianity did not make the claim that Jesus did not exist. Instead, their claims were that he was the son of a Roman soldier (no virgin birth) and that his miracles were attributable to the same common magic that everyone believed in at that time.

If I were writing in 170 CE, and wanted to prove that Christianity was false because Jesus was made up, then I would probably say that.

Historians are aware of the fact that texts can be altered or manipulated or untrue. That’s part of the process of reading a primary source - thinking critically about what your source is saying, what biases they might have, and yes, if there were alterations or manipulations. There is ample study and linguistic analysis to determine those kinds of changes.

A Jesus who had an apocalyptic ministry, some amount of followers, was executed by the Roman state and said at least some of the things recounted in the Gospels. Matthew and Luke are clearly pulling from some sort of earlier source, which likely had at least some accurate accounts of his teaching.

Well, the followers of Joseph Smith spent a great deal of money back in the early ‘oughts against gay marriage. Perhaps looking into things like the Book of Abraham (a “translated” copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which wasn’t able translated until after the Rosetta Stone, and clearly does not say what Smith said it did), genetic testing of Native American tribes showing no Middle East inheritance, the various anachronisms (iirc, pre Columbian horses?) and the precedence of “KJV’ism’s” in the text might be important. We can debunk a lot of what Smith said, which might have significance for a religion that has a stranglehold over the politics of Utah.

Why do we care about history in general?

It provides us with some patterns in human behavior, things that cannot really be studied in a lab. You could approach early Christianity as a way to better understand mass movements, or the different coping strategies of an oppressed/conquered people. You could read the text of the New Testament and ask yourself why these ideas were appealing and what that might say about human nature.

As part of the study of ideas, Christianity is a really interesting expression of how Hellenistic thought mixed with Judaism. There’s a reason a lot of Neoplatonists were Christian.

The early conflicts with Judaism as Christianity developed its own identity have pretty far reaching impacts, with the death of Jesus being placed on all Jews and being used to justify atrocities to this current day.

Or, as a guy that thinks about the Roman Empire at least a couple times a day, it’s a great window into the experience of a backwater Roman province that eventually revolted and was absolutely crushed.

Because people made religion out of it? A religion from a Canaanitic people, who never set food in the desert they claim to have walked in for 40 years, but hey, we can't all worship the same Canaanitic Storm God Elohim, amirite?

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your 1961 statement, but from Wiki on Pontius Pilate:

Surviving evidence includes coins he minted and the Pilate Stone inscription. Ancient sources such as Josephus, Philo, and the Gospel of Luke document several incidents of conflict between Pilate and the Jewish population, often citing his insensitivity to Jewish religious customs. The Christian gospels, as well as Josephus and Tacitus, attribute the crucifixion of Jesus to Pilate’s orders.

This passage in Josephus’s Antiquities would be the best evidence outside of the New Testament texts. Josephus refers to “Jesus, who was called Christ”’s brother James being executed, likely due to his role in leading an early group of Christians.

You can also read Bart Ehrman for some analysis and arguments from a professional historian.

Don’t some scholars suspect the Biblical Jesus was an amalgamation of a number of itinerant preachers?

I haven’t seen this idea seriously suggested. Perhaps some of the ideas are an amalgamation - I suspect Paul had to do with a lot of softening of anti-Roman rhetoric. But the mainstream consensus suggests an individual.

Also, why is he referred to as being from Nazareth when the Bible clearly states he was born in Bethlehem? Was Nazareth a state in which lay Bethlehem? I thought Judea was the state.

What seems to be likely is that he was from Nazareth (tiny, backwater town), but prophecy would suggest he needed to be from Bethlehem, which explains the ridiculous “go to your homeland for the census” thing. (This also is sorta evidence for the historicity of the individual - what we might call a “criterion of embarrassment” - if they were just going to make the guy up on the spot they’d have had him just born in Bethlehem.)

My background is that I have a BA in history, and have done a little graduate level study of religion and historiography. I’m not a professional academic but I’m enough of an armchair enthusiast to have studied a little Koine.

Yeah afaik the earliest record of the gospels and Jesus date to 90AD, which is of course beyond the memory of a single generation. Either the stories were passed down orally that long (telephone game), or the whole thing was really invented around that time, since there are multiple written records suddenly appearing in the early 2nd century.

The creation of Christianity around 90-120AD makes more sense than anything to me, given the geopolitics of the time.

A stroll through any necropolis back then would reveal many tombs marked Yeshua and Miryam and Yosef. Just common names. If someone were to invent myths around that time, they might just pick names like that, especially given the hebrew meaning of Yeshua (salvation through god).

I not a biblical scholar so grains of salt.

Price is specifically referring to the “Testimonium Flavianum“ there, which most scholars agree was altered. The part of The Antiquities that refers to “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James” most scholars think is original, and I don’t know if Price has made an argument about that quote.

Price is probably the only person with enough background to be a mythicist, but his arguments still just don’t seem to match how people act. “Oh, the Egyptians have Osiris, let’s make up our own god who gets resurrected!”

The evidence just seems more likely to show that the man existed, and had more elaborate details added to his biography as time went on. You can see a much higher “Christology” as you read each Gospel in the order they were written (details in the resurrection story, how many angels were at the tomb) until you get to John which makes Jesus the logos itself. The story needs to start with some sort of nucleus, something real, that has things added to it step by step.

“Miracle workers” were not that uncommon during the era - see Apollonius of Tyana who lived around roughly the same time.

Very convincing argument./s

Can you provide evidence of a 1st century conspiracy to make such a figure up? What was the purpose of that conspiracy?

Just because Jesus could have existed, doesn't necessarily mean that he did

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

Again, the existence of a historical Jesus does not mean miracles or resurrection or God. This is childish, reactive anti-theism.