Did Jesus actually exist?

Definitely and as the Bible tell us, there will come a day when every knee shall bow before Him - including Satan…Take care !!

YES ! - He is the same today as yesterday and will be tomorrow - hope you take the time to get to know Him and enjoy the promise of eternal life with Him !!

We just don’t know, actually. This article in Wikipedia gives a very good overview of the historical evidence and debate on Jesus existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Gospels

Obviously not everything on Wikipedia is reliable, but this is very well referenced with lots of notations that can point you toward good source material.

Only the record of the Roman-Jewish historican Josephus explicity mentions a historical Jesus, and much of his original writing has been shown to have been corrupted. However, most historians agree that at least part of the text was authored by Josephus himself, although it’s hard to piece together what he actually said about Jesus. I think Josephus’ record is the most compelling arguement that Jesus really did exist.

As for the case that he didn’t, most of the other references rely on hearsay and information passed from unknown sources, or don’t actually mention Jesus himself. Also, if the trial of Jesus really did happen, it’s strange that there is no surviving Roman legal document or Jewish writing which mentions it (far less significant but similar events do have records from both groups).

Hopefully someday, more compelling evidence will emerge one way or the other. It is obviously a very significant question in history.

* Jesus had to come and die for our sins

…one would think that an omnipotent God could not be compelled to do anything, and than an omniscient God could figure out something beside a “perfect” human sacrifice to appease appease his own absurd expectations.

orion, Tertullian records doubt that Jesus existed at all, not merely doubt that he was a god. That was the main point of my post above. …doubt in the very historical existence of Jesus goes back to the foundations of the church. It isn’t a new phenomenon as people seem to think.

In Grecko-Roman culture, stories equally fantastic to Jesus’ were a dime a dozen anyway. Even reputable historians such as Josephus engaged in fanciful storytelling, such as his description about flying chariots around Jerusalem.

It was a superstitious age in which most people believed any fantastic tale they couldn’t verify as false. If you’ve read any of the exchanges between these people, it’s amazing civilization thrived. The only ones employing reason were the philosophers, and even their reasoning was horribly flawed by modern standards. These are the people to whom Justin Martyr and Tertullian addressed many of their apologetics.

toadaly said: orion, the early church father Tertullian wrote numerous apologetics arguing that Jesus was real and not the fabrication of men. He would not have done that unless even people in the 2nd century were claiming Jesus was fiction”.

toadaly, even in Jesus’ own lifetime many doubted that He was God. Even people in His town where He grew up.

Yes, I know who Tertullian was. He was not any religion until later in life when he became a Catholic and ordained a priest, but that didn’t last, so he joined another religious cult, which fell thru again, so he started his own sect.

He translated some of the new writings into Latin. There were books in the New Testiment which he disapproved of and some that were not in the Bible that he thought should have been there…

I just read thru the comments on here and my heart fells sick because of the lost thoughts. Those who think there is no Jesus and those who believe, but don’t know what they believe. Thank heaven for those who are the true Christians for they will be leaders of men.

It is a sad thing. It shows us just how close our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s second coming will be. Even now it is at the door!

If our time on earth was a clock with the creation of earth and Adam starting at twelve, o’clock where we would be now is just a few seconds before it strikes twelve o’clock again. That’s how close our Lord Jesus Christ’s second coming is.

The lost have a very, VERY short time to find God, and give their heart to Him, before He comes. You would do well if you made the choice to seek Jesus now before it’s too late. Only God knows when He will come. The Bible gives us hints as to when that might be, and we know it is very short because of what He has told us.

Pretty soon there will be no more preaching, no men/women who are God’s children going out to lead the lost to Christ, no none. Why? Because probation will be closed and those who have not given their hearts to God and kept His laws will be lost eternally.

In that day the lost will come to realize that they are lost and will seek feverishly to seek Him for themselves, but there won’t be any one to tell him about Jesus. They will have stopped preaching and are awaiting Jesus’ second coming.

Get ready, get ready, get ready now before probation closes and you be lost through out eternity.

You can’t prove a negative no one was around to actually meet him. It’s like asking if a tree falls in the forest and none is around to hear it does it make a sound. I watched Zeitgeist too, and yes lot’s of the arguments are valid but that doesn’t disprove the bible. It’s all about faith, if you could prove it was real then what would be the point of it all? It’s the same with the theory of evolution sure it makes more sense than creationism until you look at the fossil records and see that there are no transitional fossil’s showing canines evolving into whales or dinosaurs into birds etc. Aside from all that when your whole reality is based upon electrical and chemical impulses interpreted through you brain whose to even say the world truly exists. We could be living in the Matrix. “In the begining the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.” Douglas Adams (The hitchikers guide to the galaxy)

You can’t prove a negative no one was around to actually meet him. It’s like asking if a tree falls in the forest and none is around to hear it does it make a sound. I watched Zeitgeist too, and yes lot’s of the arguments are valid but that doesn’t disprove the bible. It’s all about faith, if you could prove it was real then what would be the point of it all? It’s the same with the theory of evolution sure it makes more sense than creationism until you look at the fossil records and see that there are no transitional fossil’s showing canines evolving into whales or dinosaurs into birds etc. Aside from all that when your whole reality is based upon electrical and chemical impulses interpreted through you brain whose to even say the world truly exists. We could be living in the Matrix. “In the begining the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.” Douglas Adams (The hitchikers guide to the galaxy)

“I would also point out that if we make the assumption that all events that ever occured in the Roman Empire can still be found in the remaining records, we are assuming quite a lot! “

I see your point, but you’re also underestimating Roman record keeping. Much of our knowledge of ancient history-Roman and otherwise-comes from Roman historians, who wrote volumes on thousands of events and people. And the Romans had been keeping extensive legal records since the 5th century BC. Almost 500 years later, in Judea, we should expect to find something about Jesus trial, if it was as big a deal as the Gospels make it out to be. We even know about events that happened while Pontius Pilate was governor…but nothing on Jesus. Very strange.

I believe the man Jesus probably did exist, but I don’t believe he was “divine”. I think the people of his time WANTED him to be the “messiah” and made him into a being they WANTED him to be. And no way do I believe that any dead body ever came back to life. The whole thing was shrouded in mystery. As for those who are so sure he rose from the dead…how can anyone truly know what happened over 2,000 years ago? We can be sure of NOTHING that occurred or did not occur back then. You gotta keep it real!

Also – the whole idea of a “messiah” – just what is it we’re supposed to be “saved” from? Most of those stories are no more than myths.

Jesus existed as a historical person. He was called Yeshuah or Y’shuah and he was a Jewish man. He lived a life. If you take a college history class, even in a secular college, you will learn from your professors that he did really exist in history. I got a C in that class, because I was bored and it was really difficult on the tests. Even secular historians know he actually existed. Did King Arthur really exist? Probably not, but Arthurian legend is fun to read about.

* “Jesus existed as a historical person. “ … “Even secular historians know he actually existed. “

It’s certainly true that MOST historians think Jesus actually existed as a person. However, most historians are either Christian or biased to the idea of a historical Jesus for other religious reasons.

But if you limit the field to ‘secular’ historians (aka, atheists), it’s no longer cut and dry.

There is a raging debate among secular historians as to whether or not there is a shred of a historical Jesus at all. As best I can tell, there is no consensus beyond “if there was a historical Jesus, we know nothing about him”.

If anything, secular historians are leaning toward the idea that Jesus is a fictional character in an allegorical story.

orion, the early church father Tertullian wrote numerous apologetics arguing that Jesus was real and not the fabrication of men. He would not have done that unless even people in the 2nd century were claiming Jesus was fiction.

In other words, this is nothing new.

semi1900, even though I serioulsy doubt Jesus ever existed in any form (even as an ordinary man), the argument that his trial would have been recorded is not very good.

We might expect Rome to keep records of trials against prominant Roman citizens, but not anyone else. There are no listings of crucifixion victims, yet we know from other sources the practice was wide spread during the Jewish wars.

The point I made above was that Tertullian was wishy washy to say the least. He was an atheist, then a Catholic, even a priest, then he dropped out and into another cult, after that he started his own cult…all of which shows that he was not strongly settled in one direction or another, but free-lancing on any and all ideas.

toadaly, it is very common knowledge that there have always been people who have doubted that Jesus was God, but it doesn’t detract from the truth. He was and Is God.

orion, are you actually arguing that book sales prove truth!?

If you want to convince those who think Jesus is a legendary/mythical/fictional that he actually existed, you have to do more than argue to the effect of “people don’t like Jesus”. Those arguing that Jesus probably never existed have reasons to believe that independent of a disdain for the gospel message.

So when it all comes down to it this is about what atheist believe not what the group (historians) believe. Tell me, Do you think prince Siddhartha lived? or for that matter Mohammad?

I think there may well have been a Jew of that day who started a religious sect that blended the mystery cults of the ancient world with his orthodox Jewish traditions. I do not believe that he was the son of a god or that he was divine in any way.

Yes, absolutely.

Do you ever read the bible?

It will tell you the whole story, and there are many versions out there that are very easy to read and understand. Once you tap into the Holy spirit, you will never be the same again. He is very worth the effort.

I just watched the video you put up and I can tell you beyond a shadow of doubt that the information on it is not of God, but of those who want to confuse and mislead those who are searching for Christ.

Jesus is and was a real being the Son (not the Sun) of God. Jesus was truly born of a virgin, Mary. Jesus taught the truth about God and how to follow Him. Jesus died to show us the way to the Father, and to save us from our sins.

What you watch and put up for us to see is very, very dangerous and evil.. Please be very careful.

If you desire to know Jesus read the Bible and pray. God will send you the Holy Spirit to teach you. But whatever you do stay away from that site and others like it cause it will only lead to death, eternally.

it depends on who you ask.

I haven’t studied anything in regards to prince Siddhartha or Mohammad, so I have no idea if they were historical or not.

But it isn’t about what atheists believe, or about what historians tend to believe, it’s about the simplest hypothesis that explains the evidence in the most straightforward way.

The problem with the idea that Jesus was a normal, albeit extraordinary, man, who more or less matches the Gospel stories except for the magical aspects, is that it leaves gaping questions that are simply inexplicable, such as, why does Paul seem to know next to nothing about Jesus as a man, or how is it that Marcion’s docetism and various gnostic heresies are just as popular as Christianity in the earliest records. The list of incongruities is large.

Of course, the Christian will have theological answers to all this , but that isn’t overtly considered by scholars. So from a scholarly perspective, the idea of simply stripping off the magical aspects and keeping what’s left doesn’t work.

Speaking as an archaeology/history trained student, who is also a Christian, I think that semi1900’s answer is good on the facts. Thanks for the information. I would also point out that if we make the assumption that all events that ever occured in the Roman Empire can still be found in the remaining records, we are assuming quite a lot! How much of our record-keeping will still be available in 2000 years?

For most of Jesus’ life he was a humble Jew of absolutely no interest to the Romans. They would not have noted anything about Him. His crucifixion was, tragically, one of thousands or even millions. I don’t think that they kept records of the way they dealt with every single insurgent. Finding historical evidence of any ‘non-important’ person (in worldly terms) is almost impossible - it is the proverbial ‘searching for a needle in a haystack’.

So if people made later written records based on good oral tradition (that goes for both the Gospels and for non-believers like Josepheus), I am happy to accept them as historical documents which give proof of the existance of Jesus.

The man Jesus did exist yes. and he did go around preaching his religion and teaching people etc. Whether or not he was the son of God is debatable and depends on your religious standpoint.

Well, semi1900, my point is that the records have to remain in order for us to read them. They may or may not have been written down, but then they would also have to survive the normal destructive processes of 2000 years.

Yes toadaly, there were (and have always been) people from the beginning doubting that Jesus ever existed. I don’t see what difference that makes, because He did exist and still does, and those who do not want to believe He did, they’re just out of luck.

Many people who want to discredit Jesus’ existance on earth will down-play what He did and said while alive. It doesn’t matter how they go about their dirty little snipping because those of us who know He lives (and lived then) will not doubt Him.

Jesus affected thousands of lives while He lived on earth. He fed thousands, the mircles He did, He healed hundred if not thousands, preached the holy word to all who came to Him to learn. He made such a difference in our world that He will always be remembered and worshipped.

The Bible is still the most sold book every year!

orion,

My point was that people have doubted not only that Jesus was god from the beginning, but also his very existence. I’m still not sure if we agree that there was doubt in Jesus’ very existence in early records.

You sort of implied it, but an outright “yes, people doubted Jesus even existed in the 2nd century” would be appreciated, if indeed that is your position.

yah I have actually been wondering the same thing. I’ve never seen that movie before tho haha. and I went to church havent really gone much since I got confermnd. but like im confused on the whole thing bc if it says he created adam and eve how was he created than?

yeah dude you must be stupid…zietgiest is not a credible movie…lmao

Yes Jesus does exist. Since before the creation of the earth He has existed.

Jesus DID exsist, he was a real person, jsut whether or not what the christians believe of him is true or not…well…y don’t you ask the christians?

A person of his descriptions did in fact exist. Whether or not he does NOW is a completely different topic.

Sorry, had to take the link out of your question so it doesn’t get locked.

Jesus DOES exist and will forevermore exist throught out eternity.

More and more historians specializing in early Christian history are concluding that Christian history is better explained if there was no historical Jesus.

To those who are experts on the Jewish scriptures, and who are familiar with the culture s of those days, it’s fairly obvious that the Gospel of Mark is an allegorical fiction about the plight of the Jewish people constructed from OT passages.

OF course Hun. dont you never doubt that.

:]

amblessed, mine too…AMEN! :)