Reason Jesus must have been a real person

[Minimalist]

There are zillions of gods who have stupid stories attached to them.  Were they real too?

Xtians are champions at Special Pleading.

[CapnAwesome]

There have been several theories proposed that Jesus was not a real person. For example, he is a divine being that lived his life in the space between heaven and earth.  I think Richard Carrier proposed this.

So one question I have, is if Jesus was completely made up, why is his name "Jesus"?
I would think based on prophecy, a 'fake' Jesus would have been named Immanuel.  Not Jesus.
If you are going to make it up, you would make it up so that minor discrepancies such as this would be avoided.

Don't you think, then, that the gospels were at least based on a real person?

What? Well his name wasn't Jesus. That's an anglicization of yeshu'a.


Either way the argument doesn't make much sense. Actually I've found that the whole discussion makes little sense until you decide to define what it means by saying Jesus was a real person or not a real person. What percentage of the story has to be true for him to be real? Almost certainly there were Jews named Yeshu'a around. Does one of them count? Did he did to walk on water, turn water into wine, have supernatural powers? Or if broke the story down to the bare bones, someone was a Jew named Yeshu'a or something similar who traveled the middle east around 33 AD, claimed to be the Messiah, preached an update to Judaism, was crucified by the Romans but did nothing supernatural and stayed dead, is that person Jesus?

Until the rules of what makes a Jesus is defined, it's not a conversation even worth having.

[Bahana]

What it really comes down to is how reliable is the gospel of Mark. Carrier and others argue that there are so many symbolic and mythic elements in there that it's not history. Other scholars disagree and think there are some facts you can get about him from Mark and other sources. I'm not entirely convinced by the mythicists but it doesn't matter either way because I don't think Mark is very reliable.

[EgoDeath]

There is really no solid evidence Jesus existed. I'd challenge anyone to try and prove otherwise. Then I would ask, do we use the same amount of evidence to assume the existence of other historical figures? If not, why? Why does Jesus get a pass?

The fact is, there is VERY LITTLE evidence of a historical Jesus. Some second hand writings scribbled hundreds of years after his supposed life. Only one of which actually mentions him by name. At best, there may have been a man named Christus who lived around that time around that region. That's the best we have. Christians love to cite this as undeniable fact that Jesus Christ lived and walked the Earth. The only undeniable fact is that we don't know for sure and probably never will. I am comfortable assuming he never existed, but open to the possibility that he may have.

At best, if a man named Christ existed, so what?

[GUBU]

I think I new a construction worker named Jesus. Nice guy, handy with a hammer. Not so great at forgiving sins though.

He didn't try to crucify himself, did he?

"Thst's a really negative way to kill yourself, Rick.  I've tried it hundreds if times.  There's no way you can hammer in the last nail!"
- Neil.

The Young Ones for the win!

[Minimalist]

That's an anglicization of yeshu'a.

Yes, Cap'n, but once removed.  Iesou  was the Greek variant of Y'shua which was adopted into Latin and then Anglicized into Jesus when the letter "J" was invented.  The invention was in the 15th century but did not become common in English until the later 17th century.  Hence early editions of the fucktard's precious KJV still used Iesus for the primary character.

[chimp3]

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Carrier proposed Jesus as existing between heaven and earth? WTF?

My understanding is that Carrier's position is that the letters of Paul, the earliest written account of Jesus, never define a physical being.  If you read Paul's letters (the real ones), you can make the claim that Paul was writing about a supernatural figure that lived a life in the 'space' - specifically the area between heaven and earth.  Remember back then, there was earth, and the sky literally was "heaven".  From this and other extrapolations (ie, Gospels are not history, real history doesn't mention jesus at all, etc), Jesus probably wan't real at all.

But my question is then, the history of Jesus as documented in the Bible is TOO inconsistent.  A truly mythical figure would have a more consistent history, simply because there are no facts to get in the way.  if EVERYTHING is made up, why make up inconsistencies?  This makes me think that there was perhaps a real person(s) at one time (Yeshua, whatever) that was the basis for the Jesus figure, and his/their history got twisted and turned over time to give us the story we have today.

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You could infer that but Carrier did not. He did not propose that Jesus "existed between heaven and earth". He proposes that Jesus is not a historical figure(s) but a pure myth from the onset. I hope you are not being disingenuous.

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[Minimalist]

A truly mythical figure would have a more consistent history,

You are ignoring the actions of later editors.  Surely you don't think this silly story was passed down unchanged from generation to generation without alteration, do you?

[mrj]

What? Well his name wasn't Jesus. That's an anglicization of yeshu'a.

Either way the argument doesn't make much sense. Actually I've found that the whole discussion makes little sense until you decide to define what it means by saying Jesus was a real person or not a real person. What percentage of the story has to be true for him to be real? Almost certainly there were Jews named Yeshu'a around. Does one of them count? Did he did to walk on water, turn water into wine, have supernatural powers? Or if broke the story down to the bare bones, someone was a Jew named Yeshu'a or something similar who traveled the middle east around 33 AD, claimed to be the Messiah, preached an update to Judaism, was crucified by the Romans but did nothing supernatural and stayed dead, is that person Jesus?

Until the rules of what makes a Jesus is defined, it's not a conversation even worth having.

I guess making those definitions is up for discussion.  Is it possible Jesus (Yeshua, yes, I know) was based on a real person? Or persons?
Christopher Hitchens, for example, has said he thinks Jesus was a real person and there must be some background to the myth of the Resurrection because there's no way an author would make women so important to the story (ie, Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb, etc).
Regarding my original post, if you are going to make up the virgin birth and correct lots of other issues (like Matthew did), why not fix Jesus' name as well?  It really is supposed to be Immanuel.  Apologists still can't adequately explain why it isn't.   Another example is the story about Jesus being from Nazareth but being born in Bethlehem.  The whole nativity story is a mess trying to get Mary and Joseph down to Bethlehem.  Why not just have them start there? 

Long story short, I'm not making any statements about Jesus being God or not.  Just in terms of history, is it possible that the stories of Jesus are so screwed up there must have been some factual basis behind them? Or maybe not.  I'm still deciding myself.

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There is really no solid evidence Jesus existed. I'd challenge anyone to try and prove otherwise. Then I would ask, do we use the same amount of evidence to assume the existence of other historical figures? If not, why? Why does Jesus get a pass?

The fact is, there is VERY LITTLE evidence of a historical Jesus. Some second hand writings scribbled hundreds of years after his supposed life. Only one of which actually mentions him by name. 

Can you provide some background on this?  I thought the earliest mention of Jesus is the letters of Paul, 5 years after he supposedly died.  Then the Gospel of Mark about 10 years after that.  And then Matthew, and so forth.  Are you referring to actual historical writings and not the New Testament?

[EgoDeath]

There is really no solid evidence Jesus existed. I'd challenge anyone to try and prove otherwise. Then I would ask, do we use the same amount of evidence to assume the existence of other historical figures? If not, why? Why does Jesus get a pass?

The fact is, there is VERY LITTLE evidence of a historical Jesus. Some second hand writings scribbled hundreds of years after his supposed life. Only one of which actually mentions him by name.

Can you provide some background on this?  I thought the earliest mention of Jesus is the letters of Paul, 5 years after he supposedly died.  Then the Gospel of Mark about 10 years after that.  And then Matthew, and so forth.  Are you referring to actual historical writings and not the New Testament?

I'm talking about sources outside of the Bible. You can count the number of writings about Jesus outside of the Bible on one hand.