Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that a historical human Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, “we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”
Virtually all scholars of antiquity dismiss theories of Jesus’s non-existence or regard them as refuted. In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.
Claiming that Jesus of Nazareth existed is not extraordinary at all though. It’s hardly far-fetched to claim that he was real.
Claiming that he was the son of God and could perform miracles however, is - as someone else pointed out.
Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
First off you do have evidence of his non-existentence. Which I gave you. No one can keep their story straight about him. Secondly even if you didn’t have that you can say the same thing about unicorns.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary. Billions of people have existed and will exist. The extraordinary part is the sin of God thing, which we don’t disagree on.
Unicorns , much like “The Messiah”, are certainly extraordinary claims that would require proof. We have seen nothing to support the existence of anything even resembling unicorns. We have forever seen plenty to prove that humans exist. A specific human some thousands of years ago, is not unlikely.
And?
And so, the claim that he exists is hardly extraordinary.
Regardless, most historians agree that there was a human historical Jesus. Whether you think it’s all a conspiracy or scam or whatever is another matter I don’t care to get into.
I haven’t dug into this what-so-ever, but how would it even be possible to identify whether a specific person with that name existed 2000 years ago? It’s not like you could just Google the guys Facebook profile or social security number back in 200AD
If you ask Mormon historians whether the particular figures in the Book of Mormon exist, they mostly all agree too. Perhaps a better metric is the number of secular historians who consider Jesus to be a historical figure. Or suppose that he is a historical figure, how many things can you say about him that are definitely true?
Tell that to the scholars of antiquity. I’m just reporting what the prevailing thought is by people who study such matters because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
Historians generally agree that Jesus existed. But regardless, the Christ of Christianity exists as an ideal they’re supposed to follow. They do not.
What historians are you talking to?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ#Non-Biblical_evidence
Outside the bible there is very little or no evidence for the existence of a Jesus.
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Some dude who started a personality cult around himself that grew out of control once he died. Like the warlord paedophile Muhammed after him.
I’m sure there was no shortage of “sons of god”, but for some reason, this guy’s claim stuck.
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Claiming that Jesus of Nazareth existed is not extraordinary at all though. It’s hardly far-fetched to claim that he was real. Claiming that he was the son of God and could perform miracles however, is - as someone else pointed out.
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Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
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You’ve got a comment-reader, no magic required.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary. Billions of people have existed and will exist. The extraordinary part is the sin of God thing, which we don’t disagree on. Unicorns , much like “The Messiah”, are certainly extraordinary claims that would require proof. We have seen nothing to support the existence of anything even resembling unicorns. We have forever seen plenty to prove that humans exist. A specific human some thousands of years ago, is not unlikely.
Regardless, most historians agree that there was a human historical Jesus. Whether you think it’s all a conspiracy or scam or whatever is another matter I don’t care to get into.
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It doesn’t really matter if a “historical human Jesus existed” because the Jesus that Christians worship, the Jesus of the Bible, is a fiction.
Absolutely, but that’s not the claim I was refuting.
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I haven’t dug into this what-so-ever, but how would it even be possible to identify whether a specific person with that name existed 2000 years ago? It’s not like you could just Google the guys Facebook profile or social security number back in 200AD
That’s the thing. Anyone who knows how history works, knows that it’s extremely hard to prove someone existed that long ago.
Most things we have to prove if someone existed is if other people talk about them or mention them in their writings.
Other than the bible, no one really talked about a Jesus existing at that time. Which makes sense, since if a Jesus did exist he would be a nobody.
If you ask Mormon historians whether the particular figures in the Book of Mormon exist, they mostly all agree too. Perhaps a better metric is the number of secular historians who consider Jesus to be a historical figure. Or suppose that he is a historical figure, how many things can you say about him that are definitely true?
These ARE secular historians the Wikipedia article is referring to. As you say, any Christian ones would be too biased to be reliable.
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Tell that to the scholars of antiquity. I’m just reporting what the prevailing thought is by people who study such matters because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
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Preach!