Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

I would reword that as saying that people *can* accept things with absolutely no evidence. And we have every right to accept anything that we fancy.Your next question might be:
*Why do you personally accept such an argument given that there is no objective evidence*?

Well, we had some, but you vanquished them with but a thought.You easily erased the evidence in your own mind, but you may have more work cut out for you erasing the subjective evidence from *my* mind, which you regard as rusted shut! Perhaps WD40??

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Didn't the Romans record their executions? Wouldn't the governor's monthly status report to Caesar mention something as glorious and self-serving as offing another meddlesome rebel? Maybe everywhere but here?

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If you know a way to determine the contents of the relevant reports, let us know. Perhaps you could locate the official reports for the few crucifixion victims who have been found.

I am willing to be more generous than that. Religious belief is also driven by personal (subjective) experience and faith. I am one who believes that the human experience involves both the subjective and objective, so I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with religious belief/faith. I am not one who requires humans to be Vulcans and adhere to some universally applied true logic and objectivity. All I would ask is that people be honest about what can be objectively demonstrated and what can not.So if people believe in God because of subjective emotions, experiences, and faith, all the more power to them. I absolutely support peoples' rights to pursue those beliefs. I would just ask for the same respect for those who don't believe.

It's like I said before. I don't see much difference between basing Christianity on someone on whose life was nothing like Jesus's on the one hand, and basing it on no one at all on the other. I have no problem with other people doing that. We agree that the Jesus of the gospels never existed, but Christianity's outsize influence is due to people's belief that that Jesus did exist, not to any belief that he was an obscure mystic.Concerning Biblical scholarship, even the most powerful microscope cannot create evidence that doesn't exist. That's why Biblical scholars have no consensus, only a range of opinion from a Jesus of miracles at one extreme to no Jesus at the other. So you believe Paul made up stories about a resurrection but not about a religious movement. Actually, the Jesus that I believe did not exist, the one of the gospels, is a good analog to believing King Arthur did not exist, the one of the round table and the magic sword. Some hypothesize that there was an actual King Arthur, just not the one of legend. Does it matter? Not in the least. But if the King Arthur of legend existed then that would be a very big deal. *That* would matter.In the same way, some hypothesize that there was an actual Jesus, just not the one of the gospels. Does it matter? Not in the least. But if the Jesus of the gospels existed then that would be a very big deal. *That* would matter.--Percy

We seem to be broadly on the same page. I agree, Christianity is based pretty much entirely on the mythic Jesus. Any real Jesus is practically a ghost. Sadly Christians are the last people who want to hear about him. I think it is completely fair to say that there is consensus on the historicity of Jesus amongst scholars. No. If I were the betting type I would probably bet on Peter being the first person to become convinced of Jesus' resurrection, and if not him then James or someone else form Jesus' inner circle. Again, that's not how I would put it, but... semantics.Mutate and Survive

Me!? I'm the one asking.Were there such things? Is there a probability such executions were recorded and reported up the political chain?Does anyone out there know? It does no good to just ask me the same question. If I had answers I would not have had to inquire.

Hi Phat, I didn't say it was. As I said to Percy, it's not emotionally or philosophically important to me. It is important to Christians though; no Christ, no Christianity, obviously.I think that whether or not Jesus existed is a valid question, I think that it is in principle an important question for Christianity to address. It's just that the answer is "Yes, he probably existed" which is probably a relief for Christians, but not the knockout punch that others were perhaps hoping for.I can see why some atheists find mythicism appealing. It promises to sweep Christianity away in one fell swoop. I just don't think it fulfills that promise. I think it's a bad argument against Christianity and I don't see why anyone would bother with bad arguments against Christianity when we have so many good arguments against Christianity.Mutate and Survive

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Me!? I'm the one asking.

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Likely there’d be some sort of report but we don’t have them. Even if we did I doubt that we could definitively identify Jesus from them. And as Messianic claimants go he wasn’t a lot of trouble, Josephus on Judas of Galilee, who resisted the census of Quirinius. Antiquities XVIII 1

No, no one is. The word "solely" was not part of the original statement, which appears in Message 132.Back in the Who Owns the Standard Definition of Evolution thread PaulK had been drawing analogs to what we don't know about lifeforms using planets and Jesus. Apparently he meant the things he mentioned that we don't know to be interpreted as the only things we don't know, while I assumed he meant them as examples of things we don't know, given that there's tons we don't know about planets and Jesus.--Percy

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No, no one is. The word "solely" was not part of the original statement

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And yet the words “based on those facts” are part of it and those two facts are the only ones mentioned. Not to mention that the context also points to that reading.And in a follow-up - also cited in Message 132 - I clearly indicated that more facts could justify the conclusion.

Ok, so now that the dust has settled, we can conclude the following:1. The biblical Jesus is a non-starter. Didn’t happen.
2. A historical Jesus is a probability in that: No one can say, as documented fact, what this someone did or said. All we have are the stories, suspect apocryphal.The stories make this place-holder Jesus seem like a loving flower child who liked to piss off his elders. Stories. It was all oral history, so it seems, since there was no parchment with any of these myths inked in until Mark (whoever) dropped his gospel. Everything after is suspect copy with embellishment. Especially that nutjob John. That boy was higher than I am and it burned his brain.

I agree there's a scholarly consensus on his historicity, but I believe that's only because most Bible scholars are believers. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic, accepts the historicity of Jesus, but he's not the only non-believing Biblical scholar. I wonder what the consensus among them is.But the comment from me was longer than what you quoted and wasn't about historicity. It was about the range of scholarly opinion that extends from the Jesus of miracles all the way to no Jesus at all. Historical Jesus - Wikipedia says:

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There is no scholarly consensus concerning most elements of Jesus's life as described in the Bible stories, and only two key events of the biblical story of Jesus's life are widely accepted as historical, based on the criterion of embarrassment, namely his baptism, and his crucifixion (commonly dated to 30 or 33 CE).

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There is agreement on nothing but the baptism and the crucifixion, which is pretty slim pickings to hang a historicity hat on, and even those seem historically questionable to me. I think religious believers make poor judges of the historical foundations of their religion. I'm sure there's a strong consensus among Mormon scholars of the historical foundations of Mormonism, such as the golden plates, the seer stone and so forth. Wikipedia continues:

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A distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith', and the historicity of supernatural elements like his purported miracles and the resurrection are deemed to be outside the reach of the historical methods.

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In my view if you subtract the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history there is little meaningful left. Allow me to restate. So you believe Paul was unreliable about a resurrection but reliable about a religious movement.--Percy

You can't get from any of that to "probable."

How about to "certainty", then.The church did not start itself. Such person or persons, the historical Jesus, exists to instantiate the founders.I give no abilities of any sort to this Jesus save to jawbone a small sect into existence.