Was Jesus a Historical Figure?

I can´t find any links to The Jerusalem Town Crier.
I doubt very much that a born again Christian can translate the Bible without putting his/hers Christian oppinions into the text instead of the original Jewish meaning of the words.

There is no such thing as the Jerusalam Town Crier, I was having a little fun at your expense....I am stuned that you are so dull-witted that you did not see the humor..But to not have any knowlege of "Misquoting Jesus" informs me that you have no intellectual curiosity. Do I need to mail you a copy or have you already concluded the book cannot tell you anything? No matter, doesn't impact my life or my research.

There is a Los Altos Town Crier so why should there not be a Jerusalem town Crier.
Because I don´t know a book published in USA and I don´t even know if it is translated into Swedish At least I can´t find any links regarding him in Swedish.
Lack of knowledge about something specific in one country does not mean a person is not intellectual curious.
Have you ever heard about Bo Brander?

saab, please provide some information that you are not a chowder-head. I stand by my original thought, you have no intellectual curiosity, and you wouldn't understand a joke if it bit you in your butt. I will not engage you any longer, people to see, places to be....No child left behind is not my program...and I sincerely hope you acquire an education, or the desire to at least to aquaint yourself with the diverse opinions that are available in the academic community. I have no interest in trying to influence you, I just hope you have the courage to investigate viewpoints that conflict with yours.

B. Ehrman is trying to write sensional things about the Bible in order to sell books.
It is interesting that he comes from fundamental protestant background and now has seen the light.
Actually he has not discovered anything. No scholars ever denied that Christian teaching have been controversial from the very beginning.
As far as I know there are no European university professors that would take his ideas seriously because they are nothing new and mainly journalistic.
Regarding the NT he bases many of his ideaas on a German theologian Walter Baker born 1877.
Also C.G Jung the psychologist born 1875 often stressed that the Orthodox Christians decided what was genuine litteratur for the NT.
I don´t know what all the exitment is about. Nothing is perfect and nobody is perfect. As a Lutheran I am very relaxed about all of this. We don´t have to be true believers and if church history is complicated that is just life.
We try to make the best out of this and enjoy religion instead of attacking the NT and Jesus.

What books do you concider intellectual people read? These are some books I have read lately or am reading at the moment. My books might not belong to your idea of intellectual reading but I at least enjoy reading them.
Benedict XVI "Jesus from Nazareth" ?
Peter Höeg: "Sophie´s Verden" "Forestillinger om det tyvende arhundrede"
Simon Winchester "The professor and the madman"
Alexander Solsjenitsyn "Den första kretsen"
Fjodor Dostojewski "Der Spieler"
Georg Schmid "Im Dschungel der neuen Religiosität"
Elin Wägner "Pennskaftet"

Well I see that the discussion of Jesus as a historical figure has dissolved into the inevitable Christian bashing and Bible bashing, and that's a pity. Saab is a thoughtful and obviously well educated person providing reasonable observations and not disparaging anybody while he is now being subjected to unkind ad hominem arguments. The Atheist fanatics demand proof of the most insignificant minutiae of religious beliefs while using the 'not required to prove a negative' line to duck any request to support their own opinions.

Saab is right that there has never been agreement on Christian doctrine or dogma from the beginning. The New Testament reports disagreement between Peter and Paul. Some of Paul's letters included warnings of the Gnostics and false prophets whom he accused of promoting corrupt teachings of Jesus. By the Second Century, the Church fathers were beginning to hammer out what they hoped would be a consensus of doctrine but on several issues were unable to come to agreement and the first schisms in the Church developed.

But despite all the disagreements, all the squabbles and controversies, all the difficulties and impossibilities of separating myth from fact, the persecutions, and book burnings and banning of the religion by various dictators, corruption among the popes and other church leaders, times of apathy and falling away folowed by times of revival, the efforts of Atheists to kill it, the Church has survived and grown and thrived and has been perhaps the single largest influence on the peoples of the world. While at times being used as a vehicle for the forces of evil (the Crusades, the Inquisitions, et al), the Church has also been a source of hope and benevolence on a scope and scale that can be claimed by no other. And billions of Christians know in a very personal way what a positive difference it has made in their lives.

I understand how difficult or impossible it seems for some people to believe and I understand how some can focus only on the negatives and block out all the good.

But in the category of intellectual curiosity, I still wonder why the idea of a historical Jesus is so threatenening?

Fundamentalists have a tendency to throw mud at others when they run out of arguments. Whatever these people are religious fundamentalists, political fundamentalists or Jesus as historical person deniers.
Some believe he is a historical person, others have their doubts and others denie it. As it is the first time I ever met anyone who completely deneys it I am rather suprised and find it strange that mud throwing has to start because of that.

I am not worried about not having any intellectual curiousity or that I know little or don´t understand a joke or have no humour at all. Despite that I wrote an article some years ago which I found both fun and with a certain knowledge about the subject. I sent it in and it happened to land at the desk of an editor who probably was just as boring as I am as it was published right away in Boston Globe. It is nice to meet a soul mate now and then.
A few years ago I got letter regarding an article about Swedish church art to which I was asked to take pictures matching the article. I did and the whole thing was published in glossy magazine.
So some people appriciate my lack of this and that.

Foxfyre we have two questions here one of your believe in a supernatural story and the other in a claim driven by your need to find some backing in the real universe for your god/human existing at least as a man.

Could a religion/cult leader had existed by the name of Jesus in that area and in that time period yes he could indeed had existed without question. No one on this thread had said otherwise.

The problem you seem not to be able to get over is that there happen to be no solid evidence and in fact little evidence of any kind that such a man did in fact exist unlike many others religion leaders in history such as Muhammad.

You do not sadly have the comfort of knowing that your human/god for sure was at least a man in the historic records but then why would you need such comfort as you need to take his supernatural components on faith alone in any case?

Your assumption that I 'need comfort' is in itself an ad hominem argument. It more especially is when I previously very explicitly said that I did not. I am on much firmer ground stating what I think, believe, need, want than is your presumption of what I think, believe, need, or want when I have not advised you of such.

I believe there is more evidence for the physical existence of Jesus than there is for many historical figures for whom you (or anybody else) have not cast doubt as to their existence. That does not suggest that those other historical figures do not exist.

I believe there is more evidence for some historical figures than what we have for Jesus, but you to therefore infer that Jesus did not exist is not a reasonable argument. For you to state that there is little or no evidence for the existence of Jesus when such evidence has been clearly presented on this thread is in my opinion an example of stubborn denial.

Who I or anybody else believes Jesus to have been is irrelevent to this thread. Whether he did or did not exist is the question. In my opininon, no serious scholar has ever concluded that he in fact did not exist even when some set out to prove that he didn't.

So my question to you remains. Why are you working so hard to insist that there is little or no evidence that he lived? Why would that be threatening to anybody?

I sad that people have such a strong history of lying for Jesus.

You gentlemen and ladies must lack faith if you have to turn to nonsense in order to confirm that Jesus even exist.

Oh well if your repeat misformation long enough and loud enough maybe you can drown out the truth.

I sad that people have such a strong history of lying for Jesus.

You gentlemen and ladies must lack faith if you have to turn to nonsense in order to confirm that Jesus even exist.

Oh well if you repeat misinformation long enough and loud enough maybe you can drown out the truth.

Perhaps, this thread's question is really a check-mate for atheists? Now if Jesus IS a historical figure, then he might just be a man, and not of divine nature. And, if Jesus IS NOT a historical figure, then he never existed, and Christianity is basing its faith on being followers of someone that did not exist. The question in this thread is a check-mate only for atheists, therefore it can only be asked to other atheists. The thread cannot be an open thread since either conclusion can only lead atheists to believe they are correct. The question cannot be asked to Christians, if it is to be a real question for a Christian.

The thread's question is like asking, "assuming Jesus was not a historical figure, what is Christianity based on?" Well, Christianity is based on Jesus as a historical figure, and of divine nature, so the question is based on a false premise to a Christian. The problem here is that atheists and Christians are attempting to argue in context of divergent beliefs, in my opinion. Sort of like the "who's on first" routine of Abbott and Costello. Having differing semantics they could not agree with each other.

To me it is even simpler. I don't know why the existence of a man called Jesus seems to be so threatening to some who seem determined to discredit any evidence that he in fact lived. That kind of denial is foreign to me and I don't pretend to understand the basis for it.

You seem not to be Christian--or at least I am unaware that you have professed a Christian faith--but you seem not the least bit threatened by the idea that a man called Jesus once lived and many believe that he was divine. Nor do you attempt to discredit what evidence there is for his existence. That, to me, is the reasonable view. I think those secure in their own beliefs are not threatened or insulted by the understanding or beliefs of others.

But as Saab suggested, fanaticism tends to bring out hostility in people and perhaps there are none so fanatical as those determined to discredit Christianity or any other faith to which they do not subscribe. Certainly the Jews and Christians alike have been victim of such fanaticism.

It's not in the least threatening, and you make a grievous logical error in your blithe assumption that people critique the alleged historical evidence of his existence because of some imagined threat.

Whether or not there was a historical Jesus makes no difference to religious arguments, since there is no way that one can prove he did NOT exist.

It is, however, interesting to weigh the evidence...and only christians can be "threatened" by doing so, since only they have anything potentially to lose if all apparent historical references to him are effectively debunked.

You know what is somewhat confusing to this evil atheist is why Christians with all their faith seem still to have a need to re-write history times after times.

Why try to claim that there is solid proof of Jesus in the historic records when there is not?

Why try to claim that the founding fathers of the US was all good Christians when any number happen not to be such as Jefferson?

Why try to claim that scientists such as Einstein was believers in a personal god when they was not?

Why created a “science” out of thin air and try to get it taught in the public schools as a real science?

Is it perhaps because in your hearts of hearts you good Christians know that you are believing in fairy tales?

So you are claiming to be representative of all described as 'some'?

I was actually interested in weighing the evidence, and did so. It was a subject that actually does interest me. But so far nobody has even tried to dispute any of the evidence presented but some do keep insisting over and over that no evidence exists. And that's why I think it must be threatening to those who have no argument other than that.

To Bill: One unsupported statement and five non sequiturs. That's pretty good in six lines. Takes talent

But anyhow there's enough stuff to quarrel over without including religion and I am not interested in quarreling over that. So I'll be moving on. Ya'll have a good one.

What nonsense.

I have only begun reading this thread, and I have already seen Setanta, for instance, disputing your evidence with what appears to me to be great knowledge.

You have just kept posting the same stuff as "evidence" without ever addressing the counter arguments, as far as I have seen so far...at least once immediately after a post disputing the provenance of the very writer you were using as a basis for your arguments!

Then you decided to fall back on amateur psychobabble in a post breath-taking in its poor logic.

There's simply no historical evidence upon which to call Jesus a historical figure.

His life story parallels that of other person who was the son of Mary and Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, who raped Her.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the purity of Jesus’ birth has been challenged or, that Jesus’ father was really a rapist.

You lie, you lie, you lie like a rug. I immediately disputed the evidence, and have done so repeatedly. I have repeatedly said that i don't know or care if your boy Jesus actually existed, only that there is no reliable contemporary evidence to that effect.

The one threatened here is you, because you desperately cling to "evidence" which has been shown again and again to be unreliable, and, as Miss Wabbit points out, you are the only one here (or, rather, you and your new buddy Kenson) who really cares, who really has a stake in it.

For shame, Church Lady--lies, lies, lies . . .