The claims of ahistoricity (the lack of historical evidence) of the new testament’s christ are fairly well established. I doubt there are many secular historians who think that there is any contemporary historical evidence of christ. Even the gospels and other religious texts in the cannon date from decades after the alleged time. The historical figures in the text do not match up with actual historical figures, Herod dies years before the birth of the bible's christ as a notable example. The bible is not a historical work, it is a religious one. It was not written as a historical work and interpreting it as such is a misuse of the text. Arguing for the historical nature of christ is an extraordinary claim, and one that is not supported by contemporary accounts, even the single line reference to christ in Josephus work (which may have been added between the second and 4th century since Josephus scholars of the second century were unaware of it) was far from contemporary (dubiously attributed to a text from 93 C.E). Not being mentioned in contemporary historical accounts does not mean the man did not exist, lots of people fall through histories cracks. Just in case any one is offended I will repeat calling him ahistorical does not deny the existence of some guy called Jesus... it just points out that there ain’t any evidence that he was there until way after he supposedly lived, which is not historical evidence. If the topic was the historicity of king Aurthur I would bitch about that too.

The case for a roman plot... well that is another extraordinary claim. I would like to see the evidence he has to support that, I suspect his evidence is weaker than he thinks it is.

allenmaher said: The claims of ahistoricity (the lack of historical evidence) of the new testament’s christ are fairly well established. I doubt there are many secular historians who think that there is any contemporary historical evidence of christ.

Contemporary evidence.  No.   Though there isn't a lot of contemporary evidence for a ton of people widely accepted to have existed howver.

Which is generally why most secular historians do agree Jesus existed.

People who make the "Jesus never existed" arguement more or less don't understand how archaelogy and history works from a critical perspective, espeically from that early a time period.

 

To quote atheist historian Michael Grant.

"This sceptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth.... But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, 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. Certainly, there are all those discrepancies between one Gospel and another. But we do not deny that an event ever took place just because some pagan historians such as, for example, Livy and Polybius, happen to have described it in differing terms.... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serous scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

I think it fairly obvious that even before this evidence, Jesus  (at least the mythologized form that could walk on water and turn water into wine) never existed.. But even in light of this evidence, sadly the vast majority of Christians will be all like:

I am genuinely surprised buy how this is news to so many people. But I tend to live in a world where it's ok and encouraged to question things.

RCTjunkie said: This bell and whistle has been blown numerous times before and debunked over and over again. Nonetheless, I'll be sure to check this out.

Of course it was Just like the existance of jesus and Santa Clause :D

But this is such a worn out debate, thats its starting to get on my nerves. Im shockes that millions (billions?) are still influenced by it, and they are actually debateing it. Hell, even in the 21st century they still shed blood because of it.

Something like this, to still have power in a time when nano-technology and quantum computing are hitting their stride... sad.

Kasz216 said: allenmaher said: The claims of ahistoricity (the lack of historical evidence) of the new testament’s christ are fairly well established. I doubt there are many secular historians who think that there is any contemporary historical evidence of christ. Contemporary evidence.  No.   Though there isn't a lot of contemporary evidence for a ton of people widely accepted to have existed howver. Which is generally why most secular historians do agree Jesus existed. People who make the "Jesus never existed" arguement more or less don't understand how archaelogy and history works from a critical perspective, espeically from that early a time period.   To quote atheist historian Michael Grant. "This sceptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth.... But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, 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. Certainly, there are all those discrepancies between one Gospel and another. But we do not deny that an event ever took place just because some pagan historians such as, for example, Livy and Polybius, happen to have described it in differing terms.... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serous scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

The likelly hood of some messianic jewish figure in early 1st century pallestine and/or gallalee... pretty darn high.  Jesus was a common name at the time (Josephus mentions the name 20 or so times attributed to various individuals), so some figure combining the two is entirely possible.  Messianic jewish groups and early christians in the mid 1st century, that we have credible historical evidence of.  Speaking with certainty about life events and atriibuting them with certainty to a figure mentioned in passing 30 to sixty years post mortem, well that is what I have issue with.

When scholars consider the reality of pagan figures, even more recent ones like Ragnar Lothbrok  it is always with a certain scepticism as to the events surrounding the figure.  The two pagan historians in the quote were not writing religious texts but rather extensive histories of the Roman and Greek periods according to the standards of the time.  We don't atribute the same credibility to Homeric odysies or the Hyms of Orpheus for example in the helenistic period of Polybius. Nor are Plutarch's  works on Isis and Osiris given the same creedence as his Lives of the Roman Emporers.

The reason I chose ahistorical rahter than mythical as a term was because I don't consider the argument from absence to be substantive proof.  Calling a 1st century figure a myth requires much more proof than that line of reasoning.

The historian you quoted is very credible, but the work you quoted from Jesus: A Historians Review of the Gospels recieved this criticism from a christian historical critic who rather liked the work:

"By which I am certainly not arguing that there was no Jesus. I fully believe in Jesus and his ministry, although not entirely as it has come down to us through the Gospels. But I would be more comfortable with the work of an author designating himself a historian, calling his work a history, if he indeed relied on original sources. Of which there are none. Grant himself notes this, and seems to have realized the challenge any historian faces with this subject, as he ends his book with just such questions of validity as I am posing here. Any study of Jesus employing sources that come anywhere near to his own lifetime is limited to the Gospels. Moreover, we cannot even depend on the oldest versions of the Gospels as truly accurate evidence of the life of Jesus in that Jesus, his companions, and the people around him must have spoken primarily Aramaic, Hebrew, or Latin, while our oldest forms of the Gospels are in Greek. So already we have been as distanced from Jesus from a linguistic standpoint as we have been from a temporal one. Consequently, from my perspective at least, this book would have been better described as a literary analysis of the figure of Jesus within the Gospels rather than a history."

So many years of 'civilization' and we're still grasping at straws for proof of something that supposedly happened 2000 years ago?
Can't we all just get along and ban all talk about personal religious beliefs?

LOL! Gota love them internetz.

Flavius Josefo has written about Jesus Christ

But that's not the point

The Roman Empire invented many things in religion, and copied many things from other religions, but they didn't invent someone that has live 300 years before, they just changed its image

The Jesus of the paintings is not the same of the bible

The Jesus of the paintings is Tamuz/Mithra

lol... like anyone with 2 grey cells couldnt have figured it out already. :P

No... no... i mean its all magical and fluffy and convenient loving God. Its so easy to fool people with something they want.

Not to worry, religious people will find some convenient excuse or will deny all evidance to keep the dream going.