I'm not sure. Possibly to make Jesus more appealing to gentiles.

Using the BuyBull to prove Jesus exists is like using Gone With the Wind to prove Scarlet O'Hara exists.

No, it doesn't constitute "proof." Anyone can make up a believable character.

Not exactly. Do you know who actually wrote them? There's no evidence they were actually written by the people named. It also is pretty easy to collaborate to write different stories about the same person. Superman has the same characteristics in the comics over the years, with different writers. Does that mean Superman is real?

You're bordering on trolling by the way.

As I am saying, anyone can write a story about a character and have them have similar characteristics as an earlier writer did.

psssssst. I think he is suggesting that they were writing at the same time from different sources.

Edit:

 Wait, I think he'e suggesting that the writers had no contact with each other and could not have known these things unless there was a historical Jesus.  

Then you're forgetting that at least four of your sources (Mk, M, L and Q) are interdependent are so can't be considered as independent.

That aside, it's totally wrong to argue that the gospel texts automatically have to be ruled out of court in the question of whether Jesus existed or not. They are texts that indicate what people in the late First Century believed about this "Jesus" guy. So they are actually key evidence in relation to the question. If Jesus didn't exist, then the Jesus Mythers need to come up with an alternative explanation of who invented him, when, and why.

This explanation needs to be pretty good if it's going to stand up to Occam's Razor, because it has to achieve a number of very difficult things. Firstly, it needs to give us a good reason to assume that Jesus didn't exist in the first place, since our sources all state that he did and we have no sources saying that he had been invented, despite the fact both Pagan and Jewish opponents had big incentives to point this out if it had been known. Secondly, it has to explain all the evidence better than the default assumption that he did exist. Thirdly, it needs to account for elements in the stories which, because they were clearly awkward for the gospel writers, seem to have been left in the story because of their historicity - eg the fact Jesus was rather inconveniently from Nazareth rather than Bethlehem.

The fact that the alternatives presented by Jesus Mythers range from the creative but unsubstantiated (Doherty) to the barking mad (Atwill) explains why professional scholars simply don't find the Jesus Myth hypothesis credible. The idea that there was an historical Yeshua behind the Jesus of the gospels makes vastly more sense than the contrived and usually quite silly contortions required to maintain that Jesus never existed.

Smart atheists should leave the Jesus Myth nonsense alone. It is to atheism what Creationism is to Christianity - a kooky fundamentalist fringe idea that just makes all of us look silly.

Indeed.  The outspoken Jesus Myth apologists and evangelists on this board have fallen oddly silent lately.

Jesus Myth

Imagine it was claimed that in 1972 the moon exploded, and then reappeared. You would expect this claim to be verifiable, given the nature of the claim. So you look into this claim by researching all the astronomical data from that period and any other related information that could possible relate to the claim. You would expect such a claim to be noteworthy to Astronomers so not finding any information to corroborate the claim would be striking. It would lead you to think the claim is false, that the moon never exploded.

What happens when we apply this approach to the claims about Jesus? If the claims of the gospels were true, that Jesus the god-man walked the Earth, drawing crowds of thousends, casting miracles, raising the dead, raising himself from the dead, in addition to the strange activity of nature at his crucifixion (e.g. earthquakes, supernatural darkness, dead saints rising from their graves etc) then we would expect this information to have been written about by contemporise of this alleged god-person.

There were plenty of historians and writers who were living in the same region as Jesus, either during his purported lifetime (e.g. Philo; Pliny; Seneca the Younger) or just after (e.g. Josephus; Plutarch; Tacitus) who would have been interested, and who would have noticed, had these accounts pointed to actual historical events. These were people writing about Jewish history, the Jewish people, and the Jewish religion, in addition to issues pertaining to morality and philosophy, so the appearance of the Jewish messiah/god-man ought to dominate their work, yet none of these writers mention a single word about him. (In fact, Philo, who lived at the same time as Jesus, specifically mentions that no such person worthy of being called a ‘god incarnation’ or a ‘son or god’ existing, giving us a positive refutation.) Their silence is significant and should be of concern to every Christian.

Here are the complaints Christian’s usually give:

1) Jesus was not a noteworthy figure.

The problem with this that is it is not Biblical; in fact, it directly contradicts what the gospels say of Jesus! This was a man who amassed crowds into the thousands, such as when he entered Jerusalem and when he had to give a sermon from a boat due to the growing crowd. This man was a miracle performer, raising the dead and feeding thousens with scraps of food.

So you cannot hold that Jesus was not a noticeable person AND hold that the gospel accounts are true.

2) These writers would not have been interested/would not have believed.

This simply ignores the very point under contention (!)… that these were people who would have been very interested in the appearance of the Jewish messiah/god-man. These were people who where writing about morality, philosophy, the Jewish people and their religion, so to suggest that they would not have been interested is simply absurd! (Unless of course you’re actually willing to argue that what Jesus purportedly said or done was of no interest to matters relating to morality, philosophy or religion, which is even more absurd!!)

This also begs the question that if the gospel accounts are historical, these writers, and other doubters, would not have changed their position/beliefs when confronted such overwhelming evidence. It assumes that they would remain doubters, that they were dogmatists… that they could have clear knowledge of this god-man, his miracles and resurrection as per the gospels, and yet not become believers in him themselves. This would be a refutation to Christianity! If the acts and miracles of Jesus were useless, why did god even bother sending Jesus to begin with!? If these events were not compelling enough to cause conversion then it cuts the legs from right under Christianity. It is far more parsimonious to say that these writers never converted because the events didn’t happen to begin with.

Also, to say they didn’t convert because they were dogmatists ignores the fact that the original Christians were Jews, or rather converts from Judaism, so clearly, people in 1^st and 2^nd century Judea were not all dogmatists, even someone as staunch as Paul couldn’t resist, and he was not even an eyewitness!

3) “Josephus wrote about Jesus and that’s proof.”

A short passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, in Josephus’ work, “The Antiquities of the Jews” is often called upon by Christians as proof Jesus existed.

Josephus was not a contemporary of Jesus, and so even if he knew about and wrote about Jesus the account could not have been that of a first hand eyewitness (nor could he have considered Jesus as the messiah, for reasons I will outline). Josephus is of interest to us since he was a Jewish historian and as such he would have been greatly interested in the appearance of the Jewish messiah - had he known about him, and had Jesus existed as per the gospels Josephus certainly would have known. Josephus wrote pages on petty criminals (making the claim that Jesus wasn’t noteworthy irrelevant since Josephus was not merely concerned with noteworthy figures!), he wrote chapters on the life of a mortal king, yet we’re told to believe that he knew of Jesus the messiah, and yet dismisses him in a few lines! This is patently absurd.

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."
-- The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books, New York, 1994, pages 171-3.

Whilst Jesus is mentioned in Josephus’ writing, there is good reason to hold this as either a radical alteration of a passage that originally referred to a purely human Jesus, or a completely forged interpolation altogether, most likely in the 4^th century by the Christian scribe Eusebius. According to Jeffery J. Lowder: "There are many scholars who believe the original text contained an authentic reference to Jesus but was later embellished by Christians.”

Here is the Testimonium, with the parts which are widely regarded by scholars as interpolations underlined:

”Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.”

Josephus’ work is cited numerously by early Christians yet none ever cite this alleged passage, at all, not even when they were in need of extrabiblical historical proof of their claims, such when they were accused of making Jesus up. For example, Justin Martyr, the prominent Christian apologist wrote “Dialogue With Trypho the Jew”, an account of a dialogue between himself and a Jewish rabbi named Trypho, in which they discuss whether Jesus was the messiah. Justin makes no mentioned of the Testimonium, despite the fact that 1) he was well versed in the works of Josephus, 2) the passage was directly relevant to their discussion, and 3) having the evidence of his argument from the greatest Jewish historian would have certainly impressed the rabbi he was in conversation with.

We can conclude that they never referred to the Testimonium for two possible reasons: because it didn’t exist, or, at best, because the short account was actually just a second hand reference to merely a human Jesus. This is explained here:

”There's really only one way to salvage the Testimonium: to use Jeffery J. Lowder's argument that the Testimonium was radically altered by christians, and that the original Josephus passage was a second hand reference to a purely human Jesus who, while worthy of a brief note, did not merit more than a few lines of text, let alone consideration as the Jewish Messiah. This would explain why christians did not cite it until it was radically altered: because it was an actual refutation of the gospel claim of Jesus the Christ.”[Bold emphasis added]

Lowder writes: "If the original passage contained only the non-[underlined] text, then it becomes quite easy to explain why the passage was not widely quoted during early Christian history. In its "pure" form, the passage would have only proved that (a purely human) Jesus existed, not that he performed miracles, rose from the dead, etc."
- http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_silence_that_screams_no_contemporary_historical_accounts_for_jesus
(and http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/mckinsey.html)

Also consider that had the Testimonium referred to merely a human Jesus, why didn’t the enemies of Christians use it to their advantage? Why did Trypho not use it in his debate with Justin Martyr?

In any case, neither option – a complete or partial forgery – is helpful to the Christian.

In addition to all this there is another damning issue… Josephus lived and died a Jew! How could he have had knowledge of Jesus the messiah, as per the gospel accounts, yet not convert to Christianity? If he did have knowledge of a Jesus, he clearly didn’t have knowledge as per what the gospels suggest he would have had - knowledge of a crowd drawing, miracle working, god-man. So suggesting that Josephus, a Jew, knew of Jesus is a refutation to the claims of the gospels!

Finally, some also mention that Jesus was indirectly referred to elsewhere in Antiquities (section 20.9) however there is good reason to hold that the reference to a Jesus here was not ‘Jesus the messiah, son of Joseph’ but rather ‘Jesus, son of Damneus.’ This claim is examined [url=http://www.atheistnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?p=38864&sid=eae887916e8679c9cd9fd7af5fc065e5#38864]here.[/url]


So to sum up, the forged account in Josephus’ writings would be akin to a music historian writing a history of British music in the sixties and failing to mention The Beatles (!) or at best making a brief reference to the band as if they were of no importance to music.

4) The Jesus in the gospels could have been based on a 1^st century Jewish rabbi called Jesus or Yeshua?

Sure, this is certainly a possibility, but it misses the point. Finding such as person is a refutation of the gospels and the Jesus of Christianity! We are not looking for a historical human ‘Jesus’; we are looking for a Jesus vis-à-vis the gospel accounts. Don’t present a ‘human Jesus’ and think your “half way there,” you’re not.

Thought experiment: Imagine trying to prove that Superman existed – a man who could fly, was super strong, super fast, had super sight and super hearing! So you research and you find a 1950s journalist named Clark Kent, whose aggressive socially responsible reporting helped overthrow a weapons manufacturer called Luthor. You’ve just disproved the existence of Superman! You proved that Superman was just a story based on a normal person.

So just as ‘Superman’ is a referent to a superhero, and not a human journalist called Kent, ‘Jesus’ is a referent to a god-man, not a human rabbi named Yeshua.

5) How can you use the gospels in your argument when you reject them?

In order to study claims about Christianity we have to begin with the source books of these claim, but this does not entail accepting the gospel claims as literal fact. In order to explore the historical and logical ramifications of these claims we just have to hypothetically accept them as true. We can say: “Let’s hypothetically assume that the claims in the Gospel of Mark are true; what sort of history should we expect if this was the case?” Then we can look at history to see if it meets the prediction given to us by ‘Mark’. And clearly, the gospels claims are in contradiction to the historical data.

6) “Your argument is an argument from silence and arguments from silence are not valid.”

Wrong. An argument from silence is valid if you can show that the silence is significant.

How to make an argument from silence:
From: http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_silence_that_screams_no_contemporary_historical_accounts_for_jesus

According to Gilbert Garraghan (A Guide to Historical Method, 1946, p. 149)

“To be valid, the argument from silence must fulfill two conditions: the writer[s] whose silence is invoked would certainly have known about it; [and] knowing it, he would under the circumstances certainly have made mention of it. When these two conditions are fulfilled, the argument from silence proves its point with moral certainty.”

In addition, the historian Richard Carrier suggests two additional criteria to strengthen an argument from silence:
”1) Whether or not it is common for men to create similar myths.

It is prima facie true that this is the case. History is replete not only with 'god' claims, but with claims for messiah status.

2) The claim is of an extraordinary nature, it violates what we already know of nature.

(Important note: this is not to rule out extraordinary claims, a priori.)

The miracle claims in the book of Mark violate what we know of nature.”

Also see: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.html#General

Carrier writes:
”There are two ways to "prove" ahistoricity:

(1) If you can demonstrate that there is both (a) insufficient evidence to believe x and (b) sufficient evidence to disbelieve x, then it is reasonable to disbelieve x. This is the "Argument from Silence."

(2) If you can demonstrate that all the evidence can be far better accounted for by a theory (y) other than historicity (theory x), then it is reasonable to believe y and, consequently, to disbelieve x. This is the "Argument to the Best Explanation."


This post is based on the following two essays which delve into this topic in much more depth:

Secondly, your long post does nothing to disprove my hypothesis. The fact that similar sayings can be found in independent sources (Mark, Q, Thomas) implies a historical person to begin these sayings.

I am not a Christian, I'm just proving the obvious...there was a historical Jesus. Even though that Jesus did not perform miracles or rise from the dead.

What is your point here?  Is it that someone actually said at least some of the saying attributed to Jesus of Nazareth?  You do not assert that such a person did any miracles.  You do not assert that any of the supposed biographical facts given about him in the four gospels (Thomas is just a collection of sayings, if I remember right) are reliable. 

 This kind of reminds me of the argument that Shakespeare didn't write his plays.  I suspect Shakespeare wrote them and have no reason to believe otherwise.  But someone wrote Shakespeare's plays.  Whoever that person is--probably William Shakespeare--was a talented playwright.  Jesus of Nazareth--or whoever said what is attributed to him--said some good things, some bad things, and not a few bizarre things.  Someone said all of them.

I guess if your point is that someone (who didn't do miracles and may or may not have even been called Jesus) said some of the sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, I'm not sure I disagree.  I just don't know why that would be significant.  Many writers are inspired by real life people.

I think it is possible that there were wandering preachers and magicians whose teachings may have served as an inspiration for whoever first compiled the Jesus story.  Maybe one or more of them was called Jesus.  I just think the records are too limited to draw any conclusions.

It would be significant if a son of a god came wandering around on earth and did miracles and taught a unique, powerful, and true set of lessons.  It is not significant if a wandering itinerate preacher said about 18% of the things attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.

Thandarr

Hey Carl Sagan, what part of "I am not a Christian," do you not understand? I'm not trying to prove the Jesus of the gospels. All I am saying is that there was a historical Jesus who was wrapped in miracles and Jewish history in the gospels.

The very fact that there are common characteristics in independent or interdependent sources implies a historical person to initiate these sayings.  

 What you say here is that arguing for a historical Jesus is not the same as arguing for the Jesus of the gospels and you do this while using the gospels as evidence ofr a historic Jesus. Is this correct?So if one is not arguing for the Jesus of the gospels as the historic Jesus then what Jesus are they arguing for? The Jesus of all the other Jesus references that are floating around out there? This is a sincere question. It seems odd to argue for the historicity of a person from a particular source and then claim the person in that source is not the actual person whose historicity you are arguing.

Thanks. I'm not really up on the whole Jesus Myth/Historicity thing as I don't see how it is really relevant to the atheism/theism discussion unless there actually was a 'god'. Then I would probably care more whether he had ever existed or not. But thanks for the clarification as I now understand the context in which you were making what I found to be a confusing statement.

Sorry, but I don't see anyone on this thread who is carrying a torch for Christianity.  Why do you feel the need to point out that our position doesn't help Christianity?  We don't give a stuff about Christianity.

To get you started, explain "Blessed be the poor," found in Q (Matt 5:3, Luke 6:20), and Thomas 54.

Next you can explain Emperor and God in Mark 12:17b, Thomas 100:2b, Luke 20:25b, Matt 22:21c.

Finally, explain the mustard seed in Thomas 20:2-4, Mark 4:30-32, Luke 13:18-19, Matt 13:31-32.

Remember, your challenge is to show where these sayings or parables can be found in other religious traditions. If you can figure these out, I've got 88 more. 

So, if Jesus was a figment of fiction, why create this problem by having him come from Nazareth in the first place? Nazareth had zero significance of any kind, so why the hell is it in the story; especially considering it caused such a problem? Why not just create a Jesus from Bethlehem and save all the trouble?

 

One suggestion would be that the Greek-speaking authors of the Gospels mistakenly believed "He will be a called Nazirite" (I think that's from Judges 13 referring to Sampson) for "He will be called a Nazarene. Mt. 2:22.   To catch all the references they could think of, Jesus needed to be from Bethlehem, out of Egypt, and a Nazirite.  They confused  Nazirite and Nazarene, just as they mistakely thought Isaiah said that a virgin would give birth to a child Isa. 7:14 (the Hebrew is young woman, but the Greek Septuagint version said virgin and apparently the authors of some of the Gospels relied on the Septuagint.

So the reason they made up that Jesus and his family moved to Nazareth was to fulfil another prophesy.  That it was a prophesy that wasn't actually made is irrelevant since the scripturally semi-literate authors of the Gospels thought there was a prophesy about a Nazarene.  It wasn't a pointless fabrication.

 Dude, relax. There is simply no need to be so hostile my friend. And such accusations that I would make things up are baseless. Let us not get off on such a bad foot, ok?

1. I never said "lot's of religions have the golden rule." As actually all the other religions golden rules that I have come across speak not in the positive sense that Jesus did. (Do unto others) But rather the negative sense. (don't do) So let us avoid assumptions before the discussion begins, cool my friend?

2. On a personal note, for someone whom isn't a christian, it would appear my words struck a nerve, no?

3. I find it odd that you insist I prove my claims about redaction without coming anywhere close to proving an historical Jesus. Unless you ignore any refutations made on said subject, to which I wouldn't assume so my friend.

4. If you can display a level of decency towards me, whatever the opinion expressed, then I will respond in kind. Until then, based on the evidence of your reply to me riddled with presupposistion on my character, we will not be exchanging ideas. So far, however, I fail to see the loss in that.

You realize that buddhist monks take a vow of poverty, right?

 Do you really think these stories/points are original to christianity?

That question would be answerable: we'd merely see which story predated which, and we know that the buddhists were around long before christianity.

To, me, the best defense for a christian would be to argue "of course some of these ideas existed prior to christianity: truth is truth, and the important ones will be discovered and rediscovered everywhere".

It means atheists are blessed.

Yes, but the problem with that suggestion is that, unlike Is 7:14, Judges 13:7 was never considered a prophecy about the Messiah, nor were there any prophecies about the Messiah being a Nazarite ascetic. The idea that they would introduce a bungled “fulfillment” of Judges 13:7 – a verse with no Messianic associations or traditions – despite the considerable difficulties it caused for the far more important prophecy about the Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem – a key Messianic prophecy – stretches reasonable credulity.

So does the idea that this “misunderstanding” of Judges 13:7 was the sole reason Nazareth appears in the story at all. It’s not as though it’s simply a town that gets mentioned once or twice: it appears in the story over and over again. Not only is he referred to as being “Jesus of Nazareth”, but his Nazarean origins are shown as being a impediment to his acceptance (John 1:46) and his opponents are shown as being sceptical about any supposed Messiah who comes from Nazareth (John 7:41-43). He’s depicted as being booted out of the synagogue gathering there and being unable to perform miracles there. For a small town of no standing and no Messianic associations, that’s a hell of a major role for it to play based on nothing but a wildly mis-understood non-Messianic OT reference.

So, sorry, but that suggestion really doesn’t hold water. It’s simply another example of a contrived Jesus Myther argument that begins by assuming its own conclusion and then triumphantly ends up back where it began.

Wonder no more.

Er, so Doherty claims, using some convoluted and highly contrived arguments to explain away the passages in Paul where he does depict Jesus as being an historical person who had existed here in the physical realm. They are arguments that no scholar on the planet takes seriously – simply because this supposed “spiritual Jesus” form of Christianity doesn’t exist outside of Doherty’s imagination.

There is no reference to it in any of the Patristic writings, despite them at least mentioning all kinds of variant “heretical” forms of Christianity that they disagreed with. In fact, there’s no reference to it anywhere, by anyone at all. None. Jewish and pagan opponents don’t mention it and don’t use it as a stick with which to beat Christianity, despite the fact the knowledge that the earliest form of the new faith never taught Jesus was a real person would have been a devastating argument in their hands.

In fact, everyone seems to have totally forgotten that this earliest form of Christianity ever existed and it somehow managed to vanish without leaving the faintest trace. Until Doherty came unto us to "find" this otherwise totally lost original form of Christianity in the writings of Paul.

The facts that (i) there is no evidence that this early form or Christianity ever existed outside of Doherty’s inventive re-interpretations and (ii) those re-interpretations are highly contrived and rely on some dizzyingly circular logic are the main reasons Doherty’s thesis has failed to convince anyone much and no-one at all in the academic sphere.

Okay, but none of those sects denied that Jesus existed in the physical world. They differed widely on who or what that real-world Jesus was or in what sense he himself was spiritual and/or physical, but they were in no disagreement about the fact that he had been here in the physical world at a specific point in time. If there had been any such variant sects then Doherty’s thesis would have some weight. Without such evidential support his thesis remains a lengthy and elaborate game of “play with the interpretations until they fit my fantasy thesis”.

The reason post-graduate students have thesis supervisors is they smack the habit of trying to force the evidence to fit the student’s bright and shiny idea out of their heads. As my supervisor used to say to me years ago, “If you find you need a hammer to get the evidence to fit your hypothesis, perhaps you need a new hypothesis.” The silly Holy Blood Holy Grail/”I have found the Ark of the Covenant”/”Jesus Was a Yeti” section of the bookshop has shelves groaning with kooky books where the authors came up with a wild idea and then merrily trimmed, hammered and bashed the evidence to fit it.

That might be a way to write a sensationalist pseudo historical pulp potboiler (or a Dan Brown novel), but it ain’t the way to do real scholarship.

You are assuming that the creators of the Jesus story were skilled sciriptural scholars.  I am not.  Mark begins his gospel with a botched reference to Isaiah.  There's the "virgin" example I gave you.  Mark also screwed up the commandments ("Do not defraud&quot.  They weren't all that good.  I think they may have made up a lot of things in misguided attempts to match up with scripture.  If Matthew is not talking about Judges 13, then what is he talking about when he says that Jesus was fulfilling prophesy that the messiah would be a nazarene/nazirite?

Granted, the N.T. frequently says that various things appear in scripture that don't.  

There are a lot of embarrassing Nazareth references in the Bible.  Jn. 7:52.  The whole Jesus couldn't do miracles there story.  A better creative solution was probably to just leave Jesus as a Bethlehemite, but that wasn't what the authors did.  

 I don't really have any conclusions about  the  Bible except that it's far too  convoluted, contradictory, and otherwise inept to be the inspired word of a god qualified to make the universe.  I really think that as to most biblical puzzles the only true answer is--from the old standardized tests--"it cannot be determined from the information given."

Sure it is possible that there was a wandering Jesus fellow.  Sure, he may have even been from Nazareth.  The idea that there was a single real life figure around whom the major elements of the Jesus story were written is, to me, as yet unsupported by convincing evidence.

I do suggest, however, that you risk error by giving too much credence to the authors of the Gospels on any point whatsoever.