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...there was nothing unusual about a messianic Jewish troublemaker in Judea during the early Roman Empire.
I bet he was a member of the Judean People's Front.
Fuck off! He'd definitely have been a member of the Peoples front of Judea
I don't think most serious scholars would swear that a Jesus existed at that time and place, but would say that it is much more likely than not based on the confirming evidence from outside of the Christian faith. At some point you need to decide how much evidence is enough for any ancient topic. There's no particular reason that I've found credible enough to convince me that there WASN'T a historical figure there, even though I absolutely refuse to accept any magic or miracles.
There's a conspiracy theory that Jesus is a composite character plagiarised from half a dozen or more pre-Christian faiths, and in particular the key points of his life are actually personified versions of the Winter solstice and the movement of the sun and the stars (including the Zodiac in some versions of the theory).
It's widely believed amongst atheists, but it's simply not true on any level. He was a real dude and was really crucified, and the supposed earlier versions of Christ-like characteristics are either extremely tenuous coincidences or simply outright lies (with some honest mistranslations/misinterpretations). Bart Ehrman, an atheist himself but a world-renowned scholar on the history of Christianity, has several books which deal with this question to varying degrees, the main one being "Did Jesus Exist?". It's worth reading (or listening to) if you're curious about it. He addresses the specific claims of proponents of the conspiracy theory directly, like those of Richard Carrier.
I'm atheist, but I respect history and historical scholarship. It's one of the handful of disciplines that humanity can't really afford to overlook or devalue in 2025 if we want to survive into the next millennia. Agreeing on reality is one of the hardest things to do in the current climate. Overeager atheism that plays fast and loose with historical fact is not helping us secularise the world. It's making us seem like we're debunkable, because in this specific case, we are. It's like in a video game when you get to a boss fight and see that the boss has a glowing section on its body that you're supposed to shoot. Pretending Jesus wasn't a real person is like us placing a giant glowing chest plate on our efforts and watching helplessly as Christians fire directly at it. There's no need for it.
Because of the destruction of the Temple and the Judean rebellion there were probably a lot of messianic figures.
Jesus is just the one who achieved the necessary memetic virulence to be remembered.
Saul/Paul definitely helped this.
ETA: Also, stories attributed to Jesus may have happened to other messianic preachers.
Yup
See “the Egyptian” and Simon bar Kokhba..
It makes sense - I mean, Pompey literally went into the Holy of Holies and didn’t die. It must have felt as if there was something cosmically wrong.
It's quite possible, but the waters are muddied since every legendary facet was treated as fact, so the historical record is relatively less reliable given how much of it was manipulated in the name of faith.
Celsus, a second century author and critic of Christianity, did not make the claim that Jesus did not exist. Early Roman and Jewish critics of Christianity did not make the claim that Jesus did not exist. Instead, their claims were that he was the son of a Roman soldier (no virgin birth) and that his miracles were attributable to the same common magic that everyone believed in at that time.
If I were writing in 170 CE, and wanted to prove that Christianity was false because Jesus was made up, then I would probably say that.
Historians are aware of the fact that texts can be altered or manipulated or untrue. That’s part of the process of reading a primary source - thinking critically about what your source is saying, what biases they might have, and yes, if there were alterations or manipulations. There is ample study and linguistic analysis to determine those kinds of changes.
I mean... maybe. He was writing about events 150 years ago in another country. He may not have had direct knowledge of them. Think about how contentious history can be today with the benefit of modern documentary evidence, professional historians, etc. and think about how uncertain things under such distance would be back then.
There is a lot of historical evidence that a lot of historical figures claiming to be the second coming of the messiah existed at the time. Jesus was just the most popular one. He’s the crème de la crème of messianic figures of the time. That’s all.
What Jesus are they talking about? That needs to be defined first. Not the one depicted in the bible that’s for sure.
A Jesus who had an apocalyptic ministry, some amount of followers, was executed by the Roman state and said at least some of the things recounted in the Gospels. Matthew and Luke are clearly pulling from some sort of earlier source, which likely had at least some accurate accounts of his teaching.
TLDR: "The one in my head, that I cherry picked from a contradictory fictional source"
You realize that books like the First Epistle to the Corinthians were actual letters written and sent to those churches? That's one example, but there is plenty of history to be pulled from the Bible. Shitloads of New Testament books are Apostles sending Jesus' words to various churches and governments. Look up "epistle".
Look at the Old Testament for more history. Books like Leviticus, where we can pick out loads of weird proscriptions, were the records of law as the Tribe of Levi saw it.
A scholar can spend a lifetime unpacking the Bible without believing in ghosts, holy or otherwise. You're doing the "I'm too smart for this bullshit!" thing. Stop. You're having the opposite effect.
You realize that books like the First Epistle to the Corinthians were actual letters written and sent to those churches? That’s one example, but there is plenty of history to be pulled from the Bible.
Also the fact that modern scholars recognize that not all of the Epistles were even written by Paul! You’d think if all of these Bible scholars were fervent Christians hellbent on ignoring historical evidence, they wouldn’t be arguing that Paul didn’t write Ephesians or Colossians, or that the Pentateuch was probably a compilation from four different authors!
I never knew they had all been ascribed to Paul, always thought there was various authors.
Ephesians and Colossians explicitly claim to have been written by Paul.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. - Ephesians 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. - Colossians 1:1
The one in my head, that I cherry picked from a contradictory fictional source
Have you ever read a document from before 1400? Just curious, because you seem to be under the illusion that reading primary sources means that you either take everything they say literally, or dismiss them as entirely made up. This is exactly what I mentioned with regard to ignorance of historiography and method earlier.
Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes all say contradictory things about Socrates. Will you argue that Socrates was fictional?
The letter J wasn't even invented until the year 1524, so formally speaking, Jesus, Jews, Judges, January, June, July, and every other word including the letter J did not exist in the 1400s or before.
Therefore, Jesus never existed.
That's just orthography; the letters and words didn't exist, which is unrelated to whether the things they represent did. There was in fact a judge, a January, and a Julius Caesar in Rome.
Lower case letters are medieval too, so only IESUS existed. Case closed.
scholars agree that a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth existed in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea in the 1st century AD.
But,
There is no scholarly consensus concerning most elements of Jesus's life as described in the Christian and non-Christian sources.
Have you heard about this dude named Brian?
I'm Brian, and my wife is too!
Chiming in here with no degrees or STEM training to say that I exist, but it's unlikely there will be any record of me in a couple thousand years. Though I haven't given the whole water to wine thing a go so don't count me out just yet.
realizing that there was nothing unusual about a messianic Jewish troublemaker in Judea during the early Roman Empire.
Maybe nothing unusual about his existence, since it is historically proven anyway. But what about the stories of healing and even resurrecting? Would you also think that these were not unusual?
“Miracle workers” were not that uncommon during the era - see Apollonius of Tyana who lived around roughly the same time.
I think OP was asking if the particular miracles ascribed to Jesus were common.
For resurrection from the dead, Empedocles was said to have thrown himself into volcano to ascend to Godhood. He would have existed about four centuries before Jesus, but this story would have probably been popular at the time of Jesus.
Elijah raises a boy from the dead in the Hebrew Bible.
In a pre-modern medicine world, how do you actually tell if someone is dead or not? How do you explain things like a remission from cancer? Even in the modern world, at faith healing ceremonies people will walk out of their wheelchairs or claim to be healed of a variety of ailments. It’s not impossible to imagine scenarios where someone appeared to be dead but was not, or had some chronic condition that they appeared to temporarily recover from.
Excellent reply! Had not thought on much of that, especially the last phrase. Seen that IRL when dad was dying of lung cancer, many have told tales of sudden lucidity at death, all that.
In a pre-modern medicine world, how do you actually tell if someone is dead or not?
By the stink.
ITT: "Hitler existed"
Oh so you're a Nazi and believe Raiders of the Lost Ark was a documentary?! Go to hell! (Which doesn't exist and I know that because I'm smart.)
Anyway, my understanding was that the existence of a single man, Yeshua the Nazarene, was still a bit controversial. Don't some scholars suspect the Biblical Jesus was an amalgamation of a number of itinerant preachers? Or does much of the historical evidence lie in the fact that the Gospels seem to be talking about the same person? Which I think is your take?
What's your background on this particular post? LOL, not looking for a resume, just broad strokes.
Also, why is he referred to as being from Nazareth when the Bible clearly states he was born in Bethlehem? Was Nazareth a state in which lay Bethlehem? I thought Judea was the state.
Don’t some scholars suspect the Biblical Jesus was an amalgamation of a number of itinerant preachers?
I haven’t seen this idea seriously suggested. Perhaps some of the ideas are an amalgamation - I suspect Paul had to do with a lot of softening of anti-Roman rhetoric. But the mainstream consensus suggests an individual.
Also, why is he referred to as being from Nazareth when the Bible clearly states he was born in Bethlehem? Was Nazareth a state in which lay Bethlehem? I thought Judea was the state.
What seems to be likely is that he was from Nazareth (tiny, backwater town), but prophecy would suggest he needed to be from Bethlehem, which explains the ridiculous “go to your homeland for the census” thing. (This also is sorta evidence for the historicity of the individual - what we might call a “criterion of embarrassment” - if they were just going to make the guy up on the spot they’d have had him just born in Bethlehem.)
My background is that I have a BA in history, and have done a little graduate level study of religion and historiography. I’m not a professional academic but I’m enough of an armchair enthusiast to have studied a little Koine.
they’d have had him just born in Bethlehem
Doesn't the Bible say exactly that?
So his parents were from Nazareth and the census was a literary device to get Jesus' birth to line up with prophecy? I'm still a bit confused.
So his parents were from Nazareth and the census was a literary device to get Jesus’ birth to line up with prophecy?
Yes. Jesus was referred to often as a “of Nazareth.” If he had actually born in Bethlehem, then he probably would have been referred to as “of Bethlehem.” Notice how Mark, the gospel that was probably written first, does not have any form of birth story. Luke and Matthew have two contradictory accounts, which invoke a contrivance to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Mark just says that he came out of Nazareth.
It’s easy to see the authors of Luke and Matthew adding the nativity stories in to make a prophetic argument.
I think the closest thing to a “historical” Jesus in the Gospels is probably found in the original Mark. The ending of Mark describing Jesus’s appearances after the resurrection is a later addition and was not present in the original texts.
As you indicated, this isn't an unpopular opinion in the wider world. There are records outside of Christian scripture that mention Jesus. No legitimate historians doubt that he existed.
Yeah - it is an unpopular opinion on Lemmy though. I’ve been accused of being Christian for making this argument, as if accepting the historicity of the figure inherently means accepting the claim that he was a divine being.
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All legitimate historians doubt that. You're referring to RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS, who are just lying priests and followers, desperate to make any bullshit into something more than bullshit. You're fucking delusional.
I'm so puzzled by this insistence that all who analyze religious history must be religious nutcases. Even if you write off all the scholars who are religious, religion still exists as a concept in the world, and in the same way you don't have to be a virus to study virology, you don't have to be religious to study religion. There are plenty of atheists who are deeply interested in religion, if for no other reason than the massive impact it has on all our lives.
Is Bart Ehrman a “religious scholar”?
Modern biblical scholarship starts with a prima facie assumption that miracles and god are not real. It’s a very rich field, with many people with a variety of religious beliefs and non beliefs.
Your ignorance and rejection of an entire academic field is no different from a creationist rejecting the academic consensus of biologists.
Please give me an example of “legitimate historian.” Do you read much academic history? Do you have a degree or any formal training in history on which to make the claim that you can distinguish “legitimate” historians from illegitimate ones?
People think that if it's not recorded, it didn't happen. That line of thinking ignores that entropy of historical documents. Records are lost in fires, floods, looting, improper care, and more. There is also the issue of conflicting information from different sources. Is the document written by Ancient Person A about Ancient Event correct or is it Ancient Person B's version correct.
STEM people are trained with principles that are consider absolute until a paradigm shift happens.
It's why historians have the 5 C's: context, change over time, causality, complexity, and contingency.
The profession what would under historical evidence and historical thinking would be lawyers. Lawyers get cases all the time were you don't have direct evidence. For example, it's a murder case. There is no murder weapon and no eye witness. The victim was found with multiple stab wounds. There's a suspect in custody.
How do lawyers prove the suspect did the murder? Lawyers bring in collaborative evidence, such as: the suspect was seen with the victim before the murder, the suspect was seen in the area after the estimated time of death, the suspect had blood on their shirt, the suspect had a motive, etc.
To circle back to Jesus. There is no fundamental law of physics nor experiment to prove Jesus. Historians have to apply the five C's to prove the existence of Jesus. Collaborating documents, events, archeological evidence, carbon dating of physical evidence, etc.
Of course as soon as religion is mentioned, people's biases go into overdrive.
STEM people are trained with principles that are consider absolute until a paradigm shift happens.
That's inaccurate at the very least for scientists. Scientists are trained to test and retest everything. We tend to give them names like "positive controls" when we run experiments on things we're pretty sure are going to work, but we still test them.
I never understood the problem with Jesus existing. Like, duh, you think the Roman Empire, the America of the time, the Big Satan, would just be randomly coerced into changing their state religion by, well, nothing? A group of loud folks that followed the (new and radical at their time, btw) teachings of... no one? Even without much historical knowledge, Jesus existing seems like the most reasonable conclusion, lol.
I think those who had bad experiences with religion often go all out... but just because some religious ideologies might be internally inconsistent or just because your parents forced you to go to church instead of letting you play Pokémon Emerald and you resent them for it does not mean that nothing behind Judeo-Christianity happened. 🤷
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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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