General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: You know for those who celebrate Christmas, [View all]arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Historical elements[edit]
Existence[edit]
Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted.[7][9][10][30][31][32] In antiquity, the existence of Jesus was never denied by those who opposed Christianity.[33][34] There is, however, widespread disagreement among scholars on the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings.[11] Scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus,[11] and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.[12][13][14]
Robert E. Van Voorst states that the idea of the non-historicity of the existence of Jesus has always been controversial, and has consistently failed to convince virtually all scholars of many disciplines.[30] Geoffrey Blainey notes that a few scholars have argued that Jesus did not exist, but writes that Jesus' life was in fact "astonishingly documented" by the standards of the time - more so than any of his contemporaries - with numerous books, stories and memoirs written about him. The problem for the historian, wrote Blainey, is not therefore, determining whether Jesus actually existed, but rather in considering the "sheer multitude of detail and its inconsistencies and contradictions".[35] Although a very small number of modern scholars argue that Jesus never existed, that view is a distinct minority and virtually all scholars consider theories that Jesus' existence was a Christian invention as implausible.[11][36] This is different to supernatural or miraculous claims about Jesus, which historians tend to look on as questions of faith, rather than historical fact.[37]
The sources for the historicity of Jesus are mainly Christian sources, but there are some mentions also in a few non-Christian Jewish and Greco-Roman sources, which have been used in historical analyses of the existence of Jesus.[38] These include the works of 1st-century Roman historians Josephus and Tacitus.[38][39]
Jesus as myth[edit]
Main article: Christ myth theory
The Christ myth theory (also known as the "Jesus myth theory" or "Jesus mythicism" is the proposition that Jesus never existed in any form but was invented by the Christian community around 100 CE. The idea was first put forward in the late 18th century and developed and popularised in the 19th century by Bruno Bauer.[40]
A few contemporary writers, notably G. A. Wells, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty and Robert M. Price[41] still regard the question of whether Jesus ever existed as open. This position is not held by most professional historians, nor the vast majority of New Testament scholars.[9][42][43][44] Richard Dawkins wrote that while Jesus probably existed, it is "possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all."[45]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Existence