Why the Historicity of "Jesus" is Nonsensical 

Is it easier to say I forgive you or to leave to avoid an argument? You made great points. Mythicism makes more and more sense.

What made the death of Jesus unique was that he never wanted to go to war unlike the other firebrands. So, can you describe how common that was?

I would like to beg if you would do a historicity inquiry like this about Moses, Mohammed, and the disciples, especially the disciples because that's very hard to find.

@@jermsbestfriend9296 How would one know that about Jesus, or about any of the other wandering preachers of the era?

You are not a scholar and this is an extremely non-academic exerci.... oh, you just said that My bad

I think I’m right about everything; if I thought I was wrong, I would change my mind and then I’d be right. Everything I know is wrong, because words are just an approximation of ideas and ideas are just an approximation of reality.

​@@charlesbrowne9590 Too bad Christians and theists universaly are raised to not understand this. But hey It would not be called 'Indoctrination if they were. 🙉 🙊 🙈

You are a Liar. That Stupid Conflicting belief System Line is from Atheist Websites, and You also have to Realise The Supposed Sceptic Community you are in Now is not a group Who merely lacks belief in a god and is Party of a belief System in itself. Pretending You became an Atheist because of Conflicting belief Systems is absurd since You'd not be able to be a Follower of The Holy Religion Of Atheism if that Were true. by the way the Holy Religion Of Atheism is Secular Humanism, and I am not calling Atheism a Religion. You Will prove me Right when YOu say I Called Atheism a Religion because You ignore The Real Point. Also, Stop Lying. You don't go about saying I don't Know Anything and I Never Knew Anything, you assert that You Know Everything and Christianity is a Lie. Then You refuse to Show evidence and Demand others Prove You Wrong. By The Way Other Beleif Systems Existing is not Conflictory to Catholicism.

yet another comment about some kid who was smarter than her parents. i've read this same comment a thousand times.

@@numbernine8571 - The Joke is, The "Free Thinkers" all follow a Script and None of Them Think for Themselves.

No, more like "Little John" or for Arthurian Legend, Merlin. The only thing Jesus as in common with Robin Hood is centrality to the theme in the stories. If we had a Yeshua documented and showed something of that person who "actually existed" and then tied that person to the stories, THEN we have more an analogy to Robin Hood.

it's an interesting analogy, but even for Robin Hood there are some real human candidates that it might have been based on. We don't even have that for Jesus.

Difference being we actually know of and have documented history of several likely candidates who contributed to the Robin Hood character, while we don't even have that for jesus.

@stefandingenouts We have that for Jesus too, the candidates were just so painfully mundane and commonplace that their names weren't generally recorded and we just point to 1st century apocalyptic preachers in Judea as a group.

@@markhackett2302 There is very much an analogy to Robin Hood. Robin Hood was an idealized type of outlaw. There were lots of outlaws LIKE Robin Hood, some of them NAMED Robin or Robert and at some point the name seems to have been a generalized word for outlaws in general, like "John Doe." A "Robin Hood" was a name for any outlaw. The stories about Robin Hood could have been partly inspired by a real person of that name, but the character is also informed and inspired by other outlaw legends and tropes and so are his followers. Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark especially, seems to be emblematic and partly a conglomerate of many Messianic "outlaw" types in the 2nd Temple Period. Josephus describes several who are similar to Jesus. Self-proclaimed Messiahs who claimed to be miracle workers. One guy (who Josephus calls only "an Egyptian prophet") said he was going to cause the walls of Jerusalem to fall miraculously from the Mount of Olives. Another guy, Theudas, said he was going to part the River Jordan. In both cases, the Romans sent troops to kill and scatter the the mobs before they could even attempt the miracles. It may or may not be worth noting that those were both miracles of Joshua (Jesus), so a Messianic reiteration of Joshua was already a trope. There was also a Samaritan prophet who said he would find the vessels of Moses on the Samaritan Temple Mount. Again troops were sent and he was arrested and crucified before he could try. The Governor who crucified him was Pontius Pilate. So the Jesus of the Gospels is at least partly drawn from stories in Josephus about a TYPE of Messianic prophet who proliferated in the 2nd Temple Period. These people are called "lestes" in Greek, which is usually translated as something like "bandit" or "robber." It's the word used for the the two "thieves" crucified next to Jesus. In reality, thieves were not crucified. Crucifixion was exclusively reserved from crimes against the Roman state, i.e. rebels. The guys crucified along with Jesus would not have been seen as evil but as freedom fighters. By the time the Gospels began to be composed, any real biographical data about Jesus would have been hard or impossible to come by. Mark (who provides the narrative template for all the other Gospels) was writing at least 40 years after the life of Jesus and was living outside of Palestine, after a war had devastated Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem and the Temple. He would have had no access to witnesses or documentary evidence . Even if he had been in Judea, all the official public archives had been burned down during the war by Jewish rebels in order to destroy debt records. Therefore he used the sources he did have, which were the Old Testament and Josephus' "Wars." The Jesus in Mark is a literary and theological creation even if a historical Jesus existed, and the Jesus in Mark is partly an idealized portrait of a type of populist, prophetic/messianic insurgent and rabble rouser who emerged in the Roman period. That is very much like Robin Hood as an idealized kind of outlaw who lived in ancient England. Jesus was not the only Messiah who got crucified and to "take up the cross" originally meant to join an insurgent movement against the Romans. Messiah Joshuas are almost a trope in Josephus. I'm not a mythicist, though. I think the Gospels are better explained as attempts to create biographies of a real person for whom the authors had little or no information. They looked at Jewish scriptures because they were sure they must have said something about Jesus. They searched for keywords like "son" and basically created an inferred theological portrait drawn from Pesher interpretations of the LXX, especially the Elijah-Elisha cycles. Mark also drew from Josephus' "Wars" and that's probably most clearly discernible in the Jesus of Ananias passage, which Mark lifts almost note for note in his description of Jesus before Pilate. Mark is a literary work (and this is highly demonstrable from Mark's use of literary structures like chiasms and intercalations that don't arise from natural speech) and his sources are literary too, but one of his sources described a real TYPE of charismatic leader who lived at the time of Jesus. those people were also populist heroes in the vein of Jesse James or Robin Hood. The outlaw as hero trope has deep roots.

To my understanding a lot of the "passion" stuff comes from antisemitism in pre-medieval and medieval Europe as well. Pilate was documented as going overboard with sending messages. Pretty safe to say the biblical Pilate is inaccurate.

And if that's all there was to it, that would mean something. But it isn't so it doesn't

Christianity was written by Romans for the use by Romans, in the literary style of Jewish slaves, for the purpose of one Roman faction being in opposition of another Roman faction. Then Rome adopted it when that faction took power, and voila. That's why it gained popularity in Rome. Not becaue it was some foreign religion that they were awestruck, but becaue it was their own invention for their own purposes. How else do you think it could take hold in that kind of world at the time?

@@OceanusHelios Quite honestly that line of thinking is EXACTLY what led me down the road to question Catholicism, then Christianity. It made sense to my kid brain that the power-hungry Romans who had serious issues with unity (between mad emperors, authoritarian tactics, etc.) used something like Christianity to try to unite their people.

It’s funny when you consider the acts of Pilate are the 1 non-biblical account of Jesus that is from within his lifetime. Even assuming they’re not, the originals probably were.

Though he didn't look the same, act the same, or stay around for long.

Meditations often take longer then 3 days.

Well, a day and a half.

HA!!!

@@goldenalt3166 Doctor Who???

Setting; a cathedral Monks singing (somber chanting): Whooooo liiiiives in a pinnnneapple under the seaaaaaa?

Give it a quarter century and maybe 400K in a major developed country would at least joke about following a religion from a series of movies (May the 4th be with you!). Now give THAT 2000 years...

Well, in one of the crucifixion stories, there was a sponge soaked in gall...

I think in the future, Spiderman will be thought historical. After all, we know more about him than Caeser!

@@onlimi616 His name was Peter Parker, and he lied in New York. You should feel guilty!

Not only were illiteracy rates high, those who were literate didn't know how to write. There are many texts from later ceturies which are WRITTENLIKETHISSONOCOMMASNOPUNCTUATIONANDONLYCAPITALLETTERS This makes it very easy to make mistakes both when writing down and copying things that are already written down. We don't have any/many (don't know and don't care to google) original texts, since the people from that time didn't see a point in preserving originals. Matthew, Luke, John and Mark aren't even who they say they are. The gospels were written by different people, and even then they were "corrected" by the church. We don't really know what the people from that time thought. I don't think it's reasonable to think about whether a jewish guy named Jesus existes, because we just don't have conclusive evidence to point toward amy conclusion besides 'maybe?'

The far older stories take this to a further extent, but people tend to ignore this aspect. The whole history of most religions, Christianity included, is basically a very long game of "telephone", except you have to add in not only time but also illiteracy, different languages (some very complicated compared to others), surrounding cultures we know have influences, and the fallibility of human memory. The fact that the vast majority of the population could not read or write means only a handful of people were walking around telling these stories from memory, probably to people who didn't speak the exact same language, and most of them likely less than concerned because of being worried about just working enough to survive.

@@megawonszrzeczny9 Indeed, we have no way of telling if any of the claims are even remotely factual. People who claim that biblical assertions are factual can't back up their assertions with evidence.

@@JohnA... This biblical stuff is definitely untrustworthy, especially when it comes to supernatural claims. They can't even find an historical Moses, and they certainly can't prove that the red sea was magically 'parted'. Apparently, it was the reed sea, which is an entirely different scenario.

​@@megawonszrzeczny9 you're correct, we don't even have one original, and we don't even know if the originals were correct

This is a good comment. I wonder what you think of this: to me the difference between Zeus/Robin Hood and Jesus is with Jesus, I can point to a single identifier that would make him “the historical Jesus” in my mind. Was there a guy whose execution by the Romans around 33CE prompted his followers to create the movement that would become Christianity? I don’t care what he taught, what he said, how he was born, etc. Maybe he was a psychopathic anti-Roman terrorist whose followers whitewashed his legacy (not that I suspect that’s true.) But that would be the “true” Jesus to me.

*I've had a hard time explaining that if a real single person we could identify as Jesus actually existed, it would be silly to say that it is the same Jesus that Christians worship.* Is it silly? Christians being wrong about what traits the figure they worship has is not equivalent to saying that the figure they worship never existed. I read the entirety of your comment before replying, but despite your arguments, you still failed to establish meaningful criteria by which to make this distinction, and you have not presented evidence that one side of the distinction holds over the other in this case. Perhaps this is the reason you have had a "hard time" explaining your stance: the substance of your stance perhaps is objectively uncompelling and fallacious. *...if we could identify a real person who existed, a king perhaps, who directly inspired many of the stories we attribute to the Greek god Zeus, would it be reasonable to say that "Zeus really existed"...* Once again, what criteria are you using? You are asking a question, but have constructed the question in such a way that it is impossible to answer it without being incoherent. There are many variables that one has to consider, which is why well-defined criteria are strictly necessary here. Was this King actually named Zeus? What is Greek mythology claiming about Zeus: are they claiming Zeus is a god incarnated as a human who walked among the Greeks? Besides, the question you need to answer is, what does it mean to say a person exists? If you make a description about me to another person in this thread, and the description turns out to be wrong, do I get to tell you "the person you are talking about does not exist?", solely because your description of myself was incorrect? *In a search for a historical Robin Hood, you may find that a few different people inspired Robin Hood stories, other Robin Hood stories were stolen from real people who weren't Robin Hood, and other stories were outright invented hundreds of years later.* By what criteria are you concluding these things? You are making a lot of assumptions that could potentially be unfalsifiable. This is unhelpful for having this discussion, especially as the scenario you are describing is probably not at all analogous to the scenario for Zeus, or the scenario for Jesus. *The real Robin Hood wouldn't have robbed from the rich to give to the poor, would have been a bit of a thug, would not have been from Locksley, would not have had a Maid Merrian, and most of the dialogue, settings, and characters we think of when we think [of] Robin Hood are partially or completely fictional.* How exactly do you know all of this? The point of this discussion is that, if there was a preacher named Yeshua who was crucified by the Roman government existed, we do _not_ know _which_ parts of the stories about him are based in real events, and which parts are fictional fabrication. The fragment I quoted of your comment insinuates that you know exactly which parts of the Robin Hood stories are true, and exactly which parts of the stories are fictional, even though the thing I just said regarding the stories about Jesus necessarily also applies to the stories about Robin Hood. Besides, the lack of criteria really does kill the logic in your comment. This is because, as I see it, the primary criterion for determining whether the "real Robin Hood" existed of not is that there existed someone who engaged in the practice of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, near the region of Locksley. Thus, you saying "the real Robin Hood would not have" satisfied those two criteria is a contradiction: in that case, the entity you are talking about is legitimately not the real Robin Hood, by definition. However, you failed to spot this, because you have no criteria by which the distinction is made. It undermines every argument in your comment, and it makes your question futile to even acknowledge, as I pointed out previously. *With that in context, if we found one of the individuals who inspired the Robin Hood stories, even if they were named Robin Hood, how reasonable would it be to refer to them as "the real Robin Hood"? Are they even ontologically the same person?* Once again, your question is impossible to answer, due to the lack of criteria. The only correct answer to your question is "It is genuinely impossible for anyone, including yourself, to know." If you change your question and include criteria, then we can have a fruitful discussion, but thus far, the entirety of what you are saying is nothing more than a banality, because no discussion can be had without agreeing on criteria by which the things you want to establish can be established. *...if a person (or multiple people) inspired the stories about Jesus, but almost every fact presented about him and dialogue attributed to him is in part, or in whole, fictionalized, as we can reasonably expect is the case, then it makes just as much sense to say the Biblical Jesus and the Historical Jesus are the same person as it does to say that Robert Downey Jr. and Tony Stark are the same person.* No, it makes no sense at all. This is a false analogy fallacy, because the two situations you compared here are not at all analogous: Robert Downey Jr. did not inspire the stories about Tony Stark, nor is anyone pretending that he did. Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr. also share almost nothing in common. Besides, you still have not established any criteria by which the judgment you presented can be said to make sense.

@@mattbrown5234 *This is a good comment.* This depends on how you define the word "good." The comment, in its entirety, summarizes to being a long banality, asking futile questions which are impossible to answer beyond a "no one knows, and so, neither do you" retort. The reasoning is also invalid, since it relies on comparing situations that are not actually analogous. The argument also consists of many assumptions, which may or may not be unfalsifiable. If these characteristics are consistent with the way you define the word "good," then, okay, sure, but I doubt this is the case. *Was there a guy whose execution by the Romans around 33 CE prompted his followers to create the movement that would become Christianity? I don't care what he taught, what he said, how he was born, etc.* See, _this_ is reasonable. You presented actual criteria by which the question is meaningful to discuss, something that OP failed to do. Given what was said in OP's comment, though, I have my doubts as to whether OP would actually agree with those criteria. It would not surprise me if OP argues that the person you are describing in your criteria is simply not the Jesus that Christians worship, that it is a different character, rather than this merely being a case of Christians giving incorrect descriptions of said figure in the New Testament.

@@angelmendez-rivera351 You chose to aggressively attack, word by word, point by point, the person making these comments, instead of generously considering the overall intent of his comments, instead of actually trying to understand him.. If he were speaking outrageously, or making offensive claims, I could understand your tack. But he presents simply as a fellow traveler with reasonable thoughts and questions. Your aggression says so much more about you . . .( judgment withheld). I truly don't give a shit about any of your points, because from my point of view you have responded so unethically. ( I imagine that you will respond with some lengthy justification or some attack on me . . . go ahead; you have already demonstrated who you are.) That said, I suppose I should also try to understand you . . . and try not to judge . .. but it's hard to be generous when someone is being browbeaten without provocation . . . perhaps it's important for you to show your dominance, or your education, or your arguing ability??? There are other venues to effectively and ethically exercise those strengths. Good luck with that.

@@phoebeflanders You have failed to demonstrate in what way my comment is an aggressive attack. All you have is nothing but baseless accusations at me. Baseless accusations can be dismissed without further argument. In fact, the only person being aggressive here is you. Also, "I truly don't give a shit about any of your points, because you have responded so unethically" is literally the definition of an ad hominem fallacy.

I like to call him the used car salesman.

I would compare Paul to Kenneth Copeland or Billy Graham rather than Kent Hovind. After all, Paul was the mega-evangelist of his day.

@@rainbowkrampus used chariot salesman ?

we do not even know who paul is - he is probably made up too - it is all nonsense - every thing we know comes from the catholic church in the 10 century

Erm he didn’t at all….

And with the presence of many various non-specific events, 1) the name Joshua/Jesus being so common. 2) Many messiah figures at the time. 3) Joshua is a hero for Israel stealing land from others which Moses is not. 4)At least one popular general that the Roman's killed with a "catapult peter/rock" was named Joshua/Jesus (according to Josephus kept by Origin/Eusebius). Etc Etc.

I had the same thought when I was studying History of Religion in college. The circumstances of the Roman occupation were ripe for fulfilling the apocalyptic expectations, and I felt it was very possible that Christianity was just another sect until the destruction of the temple. Afterwards it seemed that the idea of a spiritual rather than a military messiah took root, and some form of early Christianity nestled snugly into that ideology/theology. There may have been attributes of that early form of Christianity that appealed particularly to the Hellenized Jews, such as a resurrected diety, and Paul's exposure to those ideas as a persecutor could have caused the powerful vision and conversation described. This scenario seems logical and probable to me, and the scholarship hints toward it, but I am not aware of any works that formally propose such a theory.

Once upon a time, I considered Monty Python's The Life of Brian BLASPHEMY!!! Now, no longer being a Christian, I think it's probably closer to reality than many realize! The real Jesus of Nazareth was probably akin to "Brian" and whoever he was and whatever he did is almost entirely long forgotten, replaced by various accounts from the other apocalyptic preachers and other "Jesus's" such as Jesus ben Ananias, who was preaching imminent destruction of Jerusalem 30 years after "Jesus of Nazareth" and got martyred during the siege of Jerusalem in 70.

@@letsomethingshine So true. Jesus, his mother Mary, and his father Joseph had three of the most common names found among people of that time period. If you went into a crowd in Jerusalem, Cesaria, or even Sepharis during that time period and called any one of those names, many more than one person would have looked up at you wondering if they knew you. If one looks at the time period Josephus writes about there is one High Priest or relative of the High Priest named Jesus, a rebel general named Jesus, and counting the Christian interpolation into the text, a preacher from Galilee.

@@letsomethingshine - Joshua did not Steal Land and you Lot Try too Hard to make Christianity Look Evil. No, Christianity does not make itself look Evil. That lame Christianity doesn't need me to make it look bad it does that all by itself Joke is Nonsense. Nothing you said is Rational and all you did was Repeat what Atheist Sites Say.

He died carving a message onto the wall of the Cave of Caerbannog. "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...."

Oh, wait, that was Joseph of -Best Disciple Town- Arimathea. Never mind. He kinda just disappeared too.

@@kevincrady2831 I always liked that Luke was writing to Theophilus, a common and generic name meaning "God lover". Of course anyone could adopt the name, but without clarification there is no way to know if Luke/Acts is directed at a specific person or God lovers in general.

He fulfilled his role in the story by failing to consummate his marriage. I wonder if he suffered from "ED". Good thing there was no Viagra at the time, or there would be no redemption. That would be a fine mess, Ollie.

maybe big J was black...

i sure hope so

*Americans

No, Americans are being deceived by "internet tag" among atheists. "Hey, let's just make stuff up and see what sticks!" "Who cares about research and the truth? Let's just assemble together, pat each other on the back, and feel good while we go over the cliff together."

My biggest argument against Christianity is it doesnt make one an altruistic compassionate person. Most Christians arent living their best lives, especially since they burn and ban anything enjoyable

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." Romans 1:22-26 Sounds like America today

RU-vid is unsubscribing people from this channel. I was a longterm subscriber and just noticed today that i was unsubscribed. I only came across it again in an AXP thread.

Grew up in Nazareth or Egypt…

10 years apart.

@@danieleyre8913 Matthew gives no idea of the time frame between the massacre of the innocents and Herod’s death but it had to be a minimum of a year since he wanted all children under 2 killed let’s say a minimum of 11 years rather than 12 if it was suppose to have occurred the same year he died. For all we know, the massacre could have been in any year of his reign from 37 - 4 BCE. Except it never happened.

@@oscargordon Ah no. Herod the great died in 4BCE. Cyrenius (AKA Quirinius) conducted his survey of Judea in 6CE. So that’s a decade’s discrepancy. That’s all that needs to be said.

@@danieleyre8913 How much time passed between Jesus being born and the Magi arriving in Jerusalem? How much time then passed until the massacre. How much time passed before Herod died? You assuming that all of that happened in less than a year. That is a pretty tight schedule.

I had an exchange with Godless Engineer about this issue. He was basically setting the Jesus bar to be basically an apocolyptic preacher who was prosecuted by the government. I was like, if that is all that Jesus means, then, sure, why not, but then again, really? That's pretty meaningless. I mean, why should I be surprised that there was a 30 CE version of David Koresh?

@@flowingafterglow629 lol...kind of the whole point, isn't it? If you can't believe in the fantastical, then all you are left with is a character that isn't really special. Whether it's based on a real individual, an amalgamation, or just historical fiction, we will never know, and it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that some people get really into the story and get carried away with living in their larp roles...and try to get the rest of us to play along to the point of punishing us if we don't. It's too bad because the real, actual physical world can be so interesting.

@@HeatherBrown-gw7tn The way I describe it: To the extent Jesus existed, he doesn't resemble the person in the bible. To the extent he resembles the person in the bible, he didn't exist.

​@@flowingafterglow629thats pretty damn tight

@@flowingafterglow629 Nicely put! :=)

The question is, for me, whether the religious motives of the gospels make it less likely that they are talking about a real person than, say, the references in Josephus and Philo to other similar figures around the same time. Those references are very brief; but no one I think would question that the people they mention were real, because they appear in a purely historical context. The gospels are a different genre- not history, but also not mythology (or at least "new" mythology) which didn't exist at the time in the Greco-Roman literary world. We can say that the sort of actions they associate with Jesus were also being associated with others at the time.

I'm guessing, although I'm not sure, that your final sentence should actually refer to whether the gospels provide trustworthy and accurate accounts of the nature of God and the moral universe. You seemed to me, at the beginning of your comment, to be saying that the factual details aren't really important. If not, then what else is there?

@@MendTheWorld I didn't consider it important to specify that the accuracies, would need be about something important and relevant. My point was not intended to say all details aren't important. More that the less impactful details are not worthy of focus. The question of whether a real Jesus existed, or whether the accounts might be accounts of multiple people that were merged, are not of interest to me, aside from in an academic sense The question I ended with was merely one example of a question I considered relevant and more to a useful point. You asked a slightly different, but relevant question. There are many possible questions and approaches. I could also start from the perspective of the theology created from the bible, and whether that is sensible and coherent. Or whether the bible itself is coherent and precise enough for us to have any reasonable certainty of it's intent and meaning. We could probably go on for a while. But I did not mean to imply that there was only one relevant or interesting question to focus on.

He Rehashes other peoples Arguments and the Point is Stupide.Jesus was a Historical Figure. it's Silly to deny This just to tear Down Christianity in Your Mind.

@@skwills1629 Apparently you don't like to read what people say before spouting off. I have no need to tear down the claim of a historical Jesus for Christianity to be absurd. I mean I still don't grant it, since the bible is hardly trustworthy to be accurate on such matters. I'm sure there are mythicists that start by denying a historical Jesus, but I prefer to look at the plausibility of the whole picture. And that picture, to me at least, looks like there is a core of truth. But if an apocalyptical preacher was executed by the Romans, that part is rather unremarkable. My point was that analyzing Jesus as a historical figure is weird, since everything we could know is from theological writings and beliefs. I know there are those that claim the bible can be treated as historically accurate. But if they do, that would be a reason to not take their views seriously.

I agree with a lot of that, and on an intuitive level I consider the death of some kind of teacher to be the clearest explanation for where Christianity came from. I do think there are some issues with appealing to scholarship given the religious baggage historically (and to a slightly lesser extent currently) attached to this issue, but even granting an uncomplicated acceptance of that consensus I find it useful to explore what is meant by referring to someone as "Jesus."

By the way, your recent video on William Lane Craig was one of my favorite atheist videos I've seen in a while.

A lot of this is conjecture. So much of Jesus was fabricated

​@@ProphetofZod me too...

@@ProphetofZod It’s an interesting discussion. I think the simplest way to answer “what does it mean to say he was Jesus” is to go through Paul. We know Paul existed because we have some of his letters. He claims that he spoke with Peter, one of Jesus’ main followers, and appears to have had a falling out/major disagreement with him. This is separately attested in Acts (that Peter and Paul disagreed), which seems like a weird thing to make up if it wasn’t widely known in Christian circles that two of their most important leaders disagreed. So take the general outline above about an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who was executed by the Romans for political crimes. Add that one of his followers was named Peter, who spoke with Paul, who went on to found Christianity based on his belief in Jesus’ resurrection (that didn’t happen, to be clear) and you have the historical Jesus. I think I’m a little more inclined to grant a few more details of his life than you, but if you can get to “the guy who died whose disciple Paul talked with,” you’ve found Jesus.

"Even his parents aren't named in Paul's writings or the earliest gospel Mark." Mary is mentioned once by name in Mark but there's no mention of Joseph, who, if he was an old man at the time of his marriage to Mary as other gospels say, would likely have been dead by the time Jesus was thirty.

*Maybe there was a guy a named Yeshua who said some cryptic stuff like. "I am the bread"* That might be the best conclusion on historicity I ever read. 😂

You could’ve saved some time if you’d just read what the scholars consensus is.

@@RichWoods23 Ah, you're right. Mark 6:3 "Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him." Not much more about her than a name, though. Nothing about her being a woman of miraculous birth or anything like that. In fact, in the context, the point they're making is that Mary is just an ordinary local woman they've known her whole life. It's strange how much legend can be built off of so little.

​@@sparrowthesissy2186Yes one could expect Mark to have heard of angels or some gold laying around from a visitation persians priests who read in the stars or some talk that the son is a "god".

Underappreciated comment

Underrated

The "mix up" there is you reading those figures and not the labels. PoZ put a zero point at Jesus' Death. 20 years after that... So if your 30 year death is correct, Paul wrote the letters at year 50, if your 35 year death is correct, then Paul wrote at year 55. Any actual person could not have died multiple times through 6 years, so any actual person had to have died once, you just have a range of dates for them. And see those letters? Date ranges for those too.

There's a difference between being "happy to accept" a possibility and insisting that anyone who doesn't believe that's how the myth started must be crazy, which is what historicists have been pushing for a long time. I'm happy to accept that there were a lot of men called Yeshua and that the NT can be interpreted as talking about things that may or may not have happened during a window that could be over a century long (since they can be dated to a century before the popularly accepted dates and weren't written down for decades after those dates). So what? It seems much more likely to me that the gospel writers were taking the Old Testament and riffing off of it in the ways that can be seen in the Dead Sea scrolls, incorporating historical flavor from Josephus and mythological structure from Homer along the way. That doesn't mean there weren't men called Yeshua during the purported time period that can be shoe-horned to fit parts of the narrative. It just means that doesn't seem to me the most likely way the story came about. I'm happy to be proven incorrect on that point, because I don't care. But instead, one rarely gets any fair discussion of the facts, only name-calling and misrepresentation of the mythicist case. Kudos to PoZ for presenting the key points fairly.

@@markhackett2302 Gotcha. My bad.

@@Cat_Woods People can find or invent a theory which seems to explain all the data, and fall in love with it. Everyone's prone to doing it, including me: however, in this case I'm not motivated to jump to any particular conclusion.

@@donaldnumbskull9745 Don't worry, it is a fairly common mistake to make.

Thank you!

Exactly. That chart also baffled me because I knew that the first gospel (Gospel of Mark) wasn't written until after 70AD.

And there's no year 0. It goes from 1 BC to 1 CE.

not the world.. the universe haha.... took 6 days to 'make' earth and there are 2 trillion galaxies each with over 100 billion stars by some estimates.. anyway, a BIG number.... god must have been a very busy boy but forgot math and mass in his bible that the 'stars would fall to earth' during the rapture... some stars are 10 billion times the size of our sun.. that is some 'falling'... haha..

No, and why is it "No"? Because 100% of modern christianity can be the creation of Paul nee Saul of Tarsus. It is his letters that make up a large part of the NT, and the Gospels were written down a generation later. Absolutely no need for any "real Jesus" to exist and be told about, what was written was based on Paul's writings and things that didn't gel with much later doctrine, whether real or not (see Gallileo's home arrest), got in and what did get in was that which fitted Paul's letters.

The conspiracy that Rome never existed hasn't been used for centuries to persecute people, rob dying peoples families of their inheritance ("give it to the church or you'll rot in hell" a common event used where priests would go to sick elderly people and have money/land signed over) It hasn't been used for justification of invasions, there were no "Rome didn't actually exist" crusaders.

The "James, the Brother of the Lord," note brother of the Lord, not the brother of Jesus, is the best and really ONLY legit argument in my view for a historical Jesus. But like everything, it gets kinda "weird" to me. So Paul so HIGHLY reveres Jesus and everything about him. Then allegedly, he gets to meet his actual living breathing brother! So he must have so many questions! What was it like growing up with Jesus? How is Mary doing? What are some things he told you and no one else? etc etc. But does Paul ask any of this like a normal person would? Noooo... he spends all of his time debating doctrinal minutia and later claims he's equal to or BETTER than Peter and James! Does that sound like an apostle who met God's brother? It's like an Elvis fan meeting his daughter and spending all the time debating who invented the blues.

@@onlimi616 However a Priest of the same order is "Brother to..." someone else in the same order.

Regarding your #3, there were lots of contemporary reasons why the concept of the Messiah would need to be reconsidered, notably including the conquest of Israel by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the eventual defeat and subjugation of the Jewish peoples by Rome in 72 CE. Don't forget that the age of the Gospels was effectively contemporaneous with the military conquest of Jerusalem and Masada. The Jewish wars would continue sporadically, but the notion of a god that would allow his people to be defeated and humiliated could not have felt very compelling at the time (assuming people actually believed that gods would meddle in human affairs.

Funnily enough for this video topic, Caesar was deified in 42 BC, almost two years after his death

I think Jesus' point was to say yes, you should pay taxes (money) to Caesar.

Ex-JW here. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus said that bcoz he knew we inherit sin, as well as physical deformities and sickness as a result, from Adam. But I srsly doubt that Jesus would have any concept of the original sin considering that no such idea seems to be in the Hebrew Bible, except for Genesis.

"good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people" is the Christard losers' "Just World" fallacy.

😂😂😂. Great example of a false false dichotomy!

That ad was taught in so many of my marketing classes

Got to agree with you.

I've got and read the book, the use of unkown probability being treated as 50/50 annoyed me but other than that it's a really really good book, I particularly like the crashing silence from the massive number of credible scholars, if they could pick apart his argument it would be all over the literature but NOPE just ad hominems.

Got the book, it was heavy going at time, but his conclusions are not easy to refute.

@@bodricpriest8816 Scholars don't bother with Carrier because he is practicing outside the scope of his field.

@@RhythmiconsIt’s more the complete reverse. Carrier is one of very few actual historians of the early roman empire who touches the subject. Most of the others who do are not historians but philologists/textual critics/new testament scholars. The historians either find the question unanswerable or dare not touch it for one fear or another.

The Thing is, Militant Atheists here want to tear Down Christianity so Reasonable Ideas like what you said are Christian Apologetics and Dishonest. Its Either Jesus was God and the Bible was inerrant or else jesus never Existed and was a Myth. And we Know the Bible is Wring so jesus Never Existed. trust me, The Self Proclaimed Sceptic Community is a Joke.

There is no birth narrative in John. So you could be correct.

@@visaman There's also no birth narrative in Mark - the oldest of the gospels.

That's a good point. Even by the the gospel's own accounts Jesus didn't really do anything extraordinary until he was baptized and started preaching around the age of 30. It's also worth noting that according to Mark nobody in Jesus' own hometown believed that he was the Messiah or even a bonafide prophet and they have known him since childhood. Of course Matthew then comes along and screws up that story with his over the top supernaturalism of angel visitations prior to Jesus' birth, impregnation by the Holy Spirit, a guiding star over Bethlehem, tributes by three visiting kings from faraway lands with expensive gifts and Herod allegedly having all baby boys in Bethlehem murdered because of Jesus' birth. For some reason nobody in Bethlehem or Nazareth seem to remember those events in the following 30 years while Jesus is just walking around doing nothing noteworthy.

@@LarsPallesen - Its a Bad Point since its not Really True. Even The Liar of AZod Backhandedly Addmited this when He Mentiuons Jesus Teaching in Temple at Age 12. By the way Jesus was not "Preacher", but a Rabbi, and he did not Begin His Ministry at His Baptism, nor did he Begin it before he Left Galilee. Also, I Know You are a Mindless Atheist Drone Who Wil Lie to me about how You use to be a Devout Christian Until You Read The Bible for Yourself and Reading The Bible made You an Atheist but, Honestly, Mark's Gospel does Not say The People of His Home Town did not Believe Him when he said he was The Messiah. Mmark says They were Astonished at His Teachings in Synagouge. Mar 6:1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. Mar 6:2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Mar 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. Mar 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. It also does not tell us what Exactly He taught, and I appealed to No other Gospel since You Specified Mark. The Iront is, This is a Double Bind. You basically have an Excuse to Reject that Jesus was a Real person and that Christianioty is true No Matter what is said. if Jesus did Something that is Unlikely, it is Dismissed as Not credible, if Jesus did something that was Likely it is Dismissed. You also use that Old Rationalist press Literature term ":Supernaturalism", and No Doubt You Will Lie and say You merely lack beleif in a god and have No Shared beliefs. But Really, Dismissing Miracles Out of Hand then Condemning The Gospels for a lack of Supernaturalism or how Common Jesus is makes no Rational Sense and Shows This is Polemic, and All The Liar of Zod preached in His Sermon as Your Pastor was a Method on How to Train Yourself Mentally to Make Excuses for Anything that would give Validity to Any Christian Claim even just basic ones like "Jesus was a Real Man in History." The Joke is, The Pastor Liar of Zod that You Listened to is an idiot Who Thinks Jesus co0uld be base don Many People one of Whom could have been Stabbed in an Alley on the Orders of the Sanhedron.

The criterion of dissimilarity and other so called criteria of authenticity are NOT proper historical tools. They're used exclusively in NT scholarship (an area of christian theology) and have nothing to do with valid historical methodology. Also, they're based on the assumption of historicity, so even if they were reliable trying to use them as evidence for historicity would be circular.

All history is interpretation.

Um, no? There are parts of history that we have documented. The farther back you go, the less there is. But that doesn’t remove the need for some measure of reliable sources

Jesus is identified in Annals 15.44 (Tacitus, you should be well acquainted with him). In the historical work _Antiquites of the Jews_ by the Judean historian (in Rome) Flavius Josephus; Jesus is recorded in book XVI (albeit it the passage is regarded as not entirely authentic due to later interpolation) and then later referenced in book XX. Those are two historical works. Thus Jesus is historical. But in any case; mythology is often treated as a historical source. I don’t know how much studying of history you’ve done if you’re not aware of that.

@@TheHookahSmokingCaterpillar You don’t know what you are talking about. History is applying the historical method. Do yourself a favour and get yourself informed.

@@danieleyre8913 The Jesus cult was mentioned in Tacitus.

There's this documentary called "Life of Brian" that is universally accepted by scholars to depict the most factual account of the last days of Jesus Arjando Rodriguez Christ.

He’s real … I saw him … He was hanging in Florida and had a dimpled smile

@@your_man_herman Jesus Arjando Rodriguez C. You actually saw JARC Wow, I'm flabbergasted 🤯 and so envious of that...

@@realtsarbomba … I was talking about the “historical Chad”

@@your_man_herman So a jacked up professor of history? 😅

"Most (though not all) serious historians specializing in the times agree there was some historical figure that inspired the stories of Jesus Christ in the gospels" And there was a historical figure (as in, a person who existed in history) that inspired the stories of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. In fact, her name was Dorothy and she lived in Kansa and had an Aunt "M". So take that for what it's worth as well. (She was L Frank Baum's niece, her aunt "M" was Maude Gage Baum) Of course, that's the problem - what's it worth? Nothing. Not a blinkin thing. That's kind of the whole point.

@@flowingafterglow629 Please don't pick a fight with me here. I'm not a historian. You can easily find professionals in the field and take it up with them. As I say, I don't think it matters when trying to evaluate the preposterous supernatural claims. It is sort of not much more than a historical curiosity.

"Most (though not all) serious historians..." My concern is that those historians I have heard speak on the subject don't actually present a solid, evidential case for their position, evaluating the quantity and reliability of the evidence supporting their conclusion. They seem to take his existence as an established fact, with no need to support that claim. I'm 100% in agreement with the rest of your comment. And in fact I'm prepared to accept some sort of Jesus as a historical person, once that has been demonstrated through substantial evidence. But until now the evidence remains _very_ thin.

@@fepeerreview3150 Yeah, the third party accounts (Josephus et al) are pretty questionable for a few reasons. Archaeological evidence is very general and can't really stand on it's own. A lot of it seems to rely heavily on trying to verify word of mouth accounts only written down, heavily embellished, decades later. Seems sketchy granting I have no professional authority. Seems far from open and shut, but people who know more than me say there was such a figure. Though in the end, as I say, I'm not sure it's important.

And that is no more than argument from authority. They could be wrong. You could be comprehending their argument incorrectly and assigning to them a confidence they themselves absolutely do not feel, etc. Most of those historians specialising in it do so because they are or were christians and many of them also had articles of faith they had to sign up for.

Huh i never realized this!

Plenty of ancient writers do a better job of citing sources and expressing scepticism about claims. I don't agree they didn't distinguish fact from fiction.

​@@goldenalt3166 yes, some have claimed it, but there is no way of knowing how good they were at it. Tacitus, for example, was one of the most accurate historians of his time, yet he related many unrealistic anecdotes. No fact checking, no scientific methods, and very few sources to compare inevitably result in gross inaccuracy.

@@MicheleGardini The very fact that they would claim it, means that people knew the difference. I'm not buying the fact that people were greatly different in the past in these areas.

@@goldenalt3166 sorry, it doesn't work like this. And if you follow this channel, you should know it very well. People claims to tell the truth from the beginning of time (since the time we had a way ro record memories), and it doesn't mean they did, for many reasons. That's why we need evidences, and the way to collect and evaluate changed a lot form the past to this time. If what you say would be real, science would have been a thing centuries before it started to be.

@karen The fan fiction stories of Jesus are cult stories with the intent to entertain the cult and have a marketing tool to draw new members in. It is relative primitive and full of contradiction and is an embarrassment to compare it to real literature of the time.

Nice guys who make life worth living!😄

That video is so good!

@@arura5124 I think it has already taken the number one position of videos I've recommended the most. And I've re-watched it quite a few times by now. It's really fascinating. After watching PoZ's video I didn't change my mind much on the topic. Yes, the question is pointless, exactly for the reasons he described. But the explanatory power of Hartke's thesis is just too great and doesn't contradict this point. It's rather comparing the biblical account to modern examples of failed prophecies and cult leaders, making the probable partial historicity of Jesus an argument against his divinity.

@@wolframstahl1263 It makes so much sense based on what we’ve seen throughout history. I think it deserves way more views!

Care less.

I have yet to watch the Hardtke video. But I'll say this. I believe the question of historicity/mythicism should be based entirely on the quantity and strength of the evidence. And the certainty of any conclusion should reflect that as well. Based on that, at this point with the evidence available, I'd say that either conclusion needs to be considered to have a low degree of certainty. I'd say there are only 2 rational positions to take, either low-certainty historicist or low-certainty mythicist. But many of the scholars who talk about this express high degrees of certainty that I don't think are currently supported by the evidence. I could go on a whole discussion of what is 'evidence', but this comment is long enough.

In fact, a very competent amateur NT scholar, Dr. Lena Einhorn, has put forward a hypothesis that a messianic rebel leader briefly mentioned in Josephus may have been the source of part of the Jesus narrative. This character is named only as "the Egyptian" in Josephus and is described as having rallied a rebel force on the Mount of Olives sometime in the 50s CE. A Roman cohort was dispatched to deal with this brewing uprising. They slaughtered the gathered force and, I believe, crucified many of the survivors. Their leader, the Egyptian, was at first believed to have died in the battle or been crucified but was later determined not to have been among the killed. According to Josephus, this character seems to have escaped the aftermath of the battle, and he disappears from historical knowledge after that. This event happened at the time of Paul's ministry, so Paul would not have considered this man to have been Jesus. But the thinking is that some elements of the Egyptian story may have been conflated with Paul's crucified and resurrected savior at the time the Gospels were written in the 70s CE and later. The parallels are interesting: Evidently the Egyptian presented himself as some sort of messiah. He gathered his followers and harangued them on the Mount of Olives. His downfall came within a day or a few days of this gathering. The New Testament describes Jesus as having instructed his disciples to acquire swords, which is very peculiar, given that the Bible otherwise describes Jesus as a preacher of non-violence and love. Also, when the Bible describes Jesus' arrest at the Garden of Gethsemane (which is near to the Mount of Olives) it seems to refer to some kind of fracas between Jesus' disciples and the Roman detachment sent to arrest him. One of his disciples cut off the ear of one of the Roman soldiers, which Jesus then healed back. This all seems like it could be a watered down and minimized version of an actual battle. Another peculiar aspect of the Gospel narrative is that it calls the Roman unit sent to arrest Jesus "a cohort." A cohort is supposed to have 500 men, far beyond the kind of detachment that you would expect to be detailed off to arrest a pacifist preacher in the company of a dozen followers. A further intersection between the two narratives is the Egyptian having been supposedly killed, but then later having been thought to have escaped death. This thematically suggests resurrection. The Egyptian then disappeared from history. Once again, that is an item that is thematically suggestive of a Gospel element-- Ascension. Did the Egyptian go into hiding leaving behind a promise that he would someday return? That doesn't seem so unlikely.

Peter denied knowing Jesus 3 times, the Apostles fled Jerusalem, not to be confused with the disciples, of which there were several hundred.

Absolutely! All the best people in history had red hair. It's a Law of History! 🙂

Shhhh. Only a ginger can call another ginger ginger.

Are redheads an endangered species?

@@hackman669Potentially...

It never ceases to amaze me how anyone listens to that Carrier buffoon. He looks like the last sort of sleazy bullcrap artist any9me should pay attention to. And then there’s his actual theories…

Your conflating modern Christians with powerless, marginalized people of the 1st century.

I was confused about that as well. It kinda seemed like he might be implying that he was using a timeline that some sort of Bible literalist/fundamentalist might use? But the video is largely directed at atheists?

But it wasn't. We don't know if one existed, we don't know when it died if it did exist, and we don't know when the gospels were written or Paul wrote his stuff down. We have date ranges.

​@Lureeality 🎶🎵 Right there with you!😂

Thoroughly unimportant.

Well he was up and walking around just fine chatting with people a day and a half later. I've had worse hangovers.

He was a human sacrifice. Sacrificing a god beats all the sheep, goats, and birds put together! That's why you don't have to sacrifice them anymore!

@@onlimi616 Any god that requires a human sacrifice is nothing but evil. Such an entity is not worthy of worship. Christianity is Disgusting if what you claim is true. PS: I never have, nor ever will sacrifice an animal either. That concept also turns my stomach. Hey, if you think you have just explained why it was easy to kill god, then think again.

@@onlimi616 That makes no sense really. Human sacrifice was rampant in many ancient cultures trying to appease deities so that the crops succeeded etc. It practically gives the game away that christianity is just one of those ideas. Also, if sacrificing a god was all that was required, why did god not just sacrifice his "son" up in heaven rather than wasting time with the jesus suit and earth expedition? I've often thought that Jesus being a real person is a proof for christianity actually being false.

No, he's a lot closer to Merlin. We say "Robin of Loxley was Robin Hood", and we prove Robin of Loxley existed (and argued didn't exist for other people) and tied that person to the legends of Robin Hood, we also claim Dux Bellorum really existed (and others say he didn't exist) and they were "the real Arthur". But we only have for Merlin "well sage was a common job at the time", but no actual person, just the stories, which could be a mishmash of lots of sages and "magicians" through the ages.

@@markhackett2302 Dux Bellorum is the title of a social and political leadership position, not the name of any specific person. Its literal translation is "war officer" or "the duke of war." It is an office, not a name. It's closest modern parallel would be Chief of the General Staff.

We know that there were Nazarenes (to whom Paul is associated at one point in the Christian texts). We know the Nazarenes were an apocalyptic group. How do we know that Jesus, the Nazarene was not the Nazarene Jesus or the Nazarene Messiah, and later people just failed to recognize the difference between Jesus being a Nazarene and being from Nazareth? We just don't.

It’s pretty clear that beneath the mythology of the gospels; there was one real historical Yoshua. By looking at the mundane details and reading between the lines; scholars can ascertain basic details: He was from Nazareth in Galilee, he was a Zealot, he was the son of Yosef and Miriam and had at least a brother Yakob, he was a carpenter which suggests that he was also a travelling rabbi with some distant noble ancestry, he encountered and was baptised by Joh the Baptist, he was charismatic, he gave relief and ancient Greek medicine to the sick, he was executed by the Herodians & Romans.

@@henriquesousa4994 What absolute drivel. Let me guess; you read some of Carrier’s pseudo scholarship?

@@danieleyre8913 did I say anything incorrect?

PastorPaulogia... Right, and i shoikd Think Atheists have no Hoy men telliung them what to think like "The Religious; do.

Its not powerful though . Its just a story. All the actual power comes from belief. As the existence of every religion attest. Its belief that makes narratives sacred. Not the other way around. Belief compels people. And religious belief is driven by culture and tradition. Which boils down to the influence of a variety of subtle and not so subtle propaganda.

Jesus exists just as much as Astyages or Narmer exists

​@@Suzume-Shimmer I mean, most people don't believe Chinese mythology but I'd still consider it pretty powerful

@@elegantoddity8609 It would be contingent on your interpretation of powerful, of which there are a few. I dont really know how the original post meant it. So I may have assumed wrong. I understand that certain things can have an emotional power. Especially for particular individuals. I just dont think that they have inherent power.

Whether it "matters" or not is about context.

He was the real person who wrote (some of) the epistles attributed to him.

@@adrianblake8876 How do you know he was a real person?

@@mcarp555 Ok, now you're probably joking...

kind of, we barely have direct evidence of basically anyone in 1st century judea. We didn't even have direct evidence of Pontius Pilate until the 60s, the closest we ever get to crucifixion records of jesus was in the annals of tacitus, which was written after 100 ad.

@@superiorbeing8805 That isn’t really true. We do have the Pilate stone which the description mentions the name of Pontius Pilate. Philo of Alexandria (who lived from the time of Jesus) also mentions Pontius pilate. As for jesus’s Crucifixion. The earliest “record” I can think of comes from Mara Bar Serapion Which dates back 72-73 AD. Which although it’s just a letter.

No doubt the Romans kept plenty of records, but none of that stuff exists today. The earliest scrap we have of even one of the Gospels is about 200 years after the putative death of Jesus. When scholars say that the Mark gospel was probably written in the 70s CE, that isn't because they have any actual texts from that time. All the existing texts are copies of the originals (or copies of copies, more likely). Records and books were written on papyrus, a kind of paper made from reeds. Not much paper survives 2000 years. People copied the texts of the New Testament because of their belief system. Nobody was going to go around copying old Roman administration records.

"Look at each source's author as a person..." But how do you do that with the Gospels when we don't know who wrote them?

@@scottwills8539 yes that's true of the gospels, they're tougher. Paul's letters (the authentic ones) are much easier: we know the author, the intended audience, and the motives for writing are pretty clear. Only unknown is how much shared background knowledge there was at the time between the parties. For the gospels we have some reasons to argue for who the audience was for each even if we don't know the author, and the choice of emphasis in each gospel tells us something about the motives of the authors. For instance, Mark seems obsessed with the temple and Matthew seems obsessed with checking off "prophecies." We get a sense from the text which other texts the authors knew about. Luke even comes out and states a motive in the beginning, that he doesn't like how others have been telling the story so they want to set the record straight; that's an explicit admission that the writers are disagreeing about certain things, so the differences between accounts (esp deviations from verbatim copying) tell us something about why a particular gospel exists in the first place.

@@benroberts2222 And we know that Paul didn't see any such thing as a real Jesus. Therefore a fake Jesus, one that NEVER existed, would still work, Paul would still hear stories, same as some Canadian heard of Paul Bunyon, but they are just stories, and then wrote his letters off those stories.

@@markhackett2302 Paul claims to have met James the brother of Jesus. If this is true, Jesus existed. If Paul lied about having met James (perhaps to boost his authority with the audience of that letter) but James still existed, then Jesus still existed. The best two scenarios for Jesus not existing given this text are: 1) Paul lied about the existence of James and having met him, which is quite a risk and would not achieve his purpose of boosting his ethos with his audience that well. For instance, if I told you I met Hunter Biden the son of Joe Biden, you'd be more impressed than if I told you I met Fred, Joe's nephew. Joe might have a nephew named Fred for all you know, but since you've never heard of him before you shouldn't be too impressed. It seems a safe bet, rather, that Paul's audience knew of James. 2) we have misunderstood the meaning of "brother" in the text. As I understand this is also a weak argument for textual reasons I don't know that well. And then there's the parallel mention of James in Josephus. If either Paul or Josephus is correct about James being a brother, Jesus existed.

@@benroberts2222 Thanks!

The point of the video it is as nonsensical as demanding "We have to answer we don't know what the difference between a ducks' legs is, so stop saying other people are wrong to say they don't know!". A query "was there are real jesus" is as valid as "was there are real peter parker", because every author writes part of themselves in the stories, or he may have based Peter off some kid he knew, and so "that was the REAL Peter Parker!!!". Because you need to say more than just "the name was common, and there were plenty of people doing that job at the time", you have to show how the stories were based on them, not merely "he existed at some actual time".

@@markhackett2302 that is the part of the discussion that is so interesting and hearing and reacting to different opinions is what makes for interesting conversations as long as you are talking to each other not AT each other.

@@davidbudge8359 Well so what is the difference between a ducks' legs?

@@markhackett2302 42

Sure, but that's an approach for apologists. For scholars, that's a perfectly reasonable response to the lack of proof of Jesus's existence.

Or if Mohammad received revelations from Gabriel, the first one while he was a hermit in a cave, then leading to conquests which the foundations of Islam were built

The difference there is that 11 Mormon followers at the time actually signed affidavits saying that they saw the golden plates. I'm not a Mormon and I don't believe what they said they saw, but this in itself is far more evidence than what Christians have got.

Question the existence of Jesus is more similar to questioning the existence of Joseph Smith and Mohammed.

@@didymus3348 I'd equate Jesus with the angel, and Paul with Joseph Smith. There isn't much doubt about the existence of the latter two, but the former ones are myth.

@@janerkenbrack3373 angels don't have brothers like James whom Paul met. Not are they crucifixed.

No, it is not "very very likely". All you can say it is POSSIBLE. But likelihood is determined off evidence, and there is none. All you have is "there would be no evidence if the person had been just one of scores of apocalyptic preacher cults at the time", but that isn't evidence, that is lack of disproof.

@@markhackett2302 It is very likely in terms of a man existing that inspired the legend. Now what I highly doubt is that this man is anything like the Jesus we know in the gospel. But in terms of certainty, you are right.

@@farrex0 No, it is not very likely, it is not likely at all, it is merely possible, because you have no evidence, so likelyhood is not possible.

@@farrex0 So does the name Peter being common make Spider-Man "based on a real person"?

@@markhackett2302 I do not think you are understanding what I am saying. The person couldn't even have been named Jesus. It just needs one very successful apocalyptic prophet to inspire the legend. I am not saying anything about the person, I know absolutely nothing about it. Just that it is likely that it was inspired on someone or some real events, rather than being made up in its entirety. It could have even been inspired by multiple people. That is the way most myths and legends are created and that is what makes it likely.

That tax evasion is at the core of the affair is another American delusion. The Jewish people had been living worse than the Palestinians today for almost seven centuries. This was about a lot of things, money was certainly not at the center for the average Jew. Imagine living under a brutal regime that's a mix of Nazis and Mafia. That is what the Roman Empire was like. They were simply waiting for Luke Skywalker. Oh, wait... you didn't notice that Star Wars is basically an insurrection fantasy against a carbon copy of Rome? Yes... George Lucas is that shallow. ;-)