Jesus’ Existence

I am having trouble finding an accurate answer to what I thought was a simple question:

Do most historians believe that Jesus existed or not?

on Wikipedia (I know not necessarily the most reliable) it says : most historians believe Jesus existed .

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers . What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed ?

can anyone point me in the right direction ?
 
Why do you want to ask historians When you admit

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers

Which should prove to you that History ends in meaninglessness
You then ask for percentages

What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed

even if 100% said yes or no that still would not prove that Jesus existed or did not exist -or disprove History ends in meaninglessness
I will prove that to you

take astronomy since its discovery in 1930 till 15 years ago all astronomers said Pluto is a planet

Why is Pluto no longer a planet?
now with a change in definition of planet now all astronomer now say Pluto is not a planet-so much for percentages

note
if the earth was where Pluto is now then by the new definition earth would not be a planet

thus all ends meaninglessness
 
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The example of Pluto seem a rather unsuitable one. There it is a matter of changing definitions. However Pluto is smaller than our own Moon, it is pretty tiny. I'm pretty sure that if Earth was as far from the Sun as Pluto, it would still be a planet, by virtue of its size. However it would be uninhabitable, we wouldn't be there with it.

As for the question on statistical beliefs about Jesus, I'm not really sure of its significance, statistics on belief don't equate to any particular meaning, unless one is preferring to place oneself either with or against the majority, but then, so what?
 
Why do you want to ask historians When you admit



Which should prove to you that History ends in meaninglessness
You then ask for percentages



even if 100% said yes or no that still would not prove that Jesus existed or did not exist -or disprove History ends in meaninglessness
I will prove that to you

take astronomy since its discovery in 1930 till 15 years ago all astronomers said Pluto is a planet

Why is Pluto no longer a planet?
now with a change in definition of planet now all astronomer now say Pluto is not a planet-so much for percentages

note
if the earth was where Pluto is now then by the new definition earth would not be a planet

thus all ends meaninglessness

your response is meaningless . Don’t worry about what I’m gonna do with the answer . It was a simple question. What percentage of historians believe that a historical Jesus actually existed ? Not that difficult and ur response is odd .
 
The example of Pluto seem a rather unsuitable one. There it is a matter of changing definitions. However Pluto is smaller than our own Moon, it is pretty tiny. I'm pretty sure that if Earth was as far from the Sun as Pluto, it would still be a planet, by virtue of its size. However it would be uninhabitable, we wouldn't be there with it.

As for the question on statistical beliefs about Jesus, I'm not really sure of its significance, statistics on belief don't equate to any particular meaning, unless one is preferring to place oneself either with or against the majority, but then, so what?

no one is talking about meaning . It’s a simple question that I couldn’t find the answer to.
 
I think it is also a case of what do you mean by the existence of Jesus! Do you mean:

1) Was there someone called Jesus at the right place and time approximately?

2) Do we know that it was the same Jesus in all the various accounts?

3) Can we be sure that the ideas we now attribute to Jesus were the things he preached at the time?

Remember, there is a gap in records between Jesus aged 12 and Jesus in his late 20's. Furthermore, the earliest Gospel wasn't written untile something like 30 years after his death.

David
 
I am having trouble finding an accurate answer to what I thought was a simple question:

Do most historians believe that Jesus existed or not?

on Wikipedia (I know not necessarily the most reliable) it says : most historians believe Jesus existed .

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers . What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed ?

can anyone point me in the right direction ?
It’s a mixed bag. Many do believe he existed. I might say most. I did use to research and read up on this sort of thing years ago quite a bit.
But there’s no real answer or certain way to know in this case. I think a man very much like him did exist personally.
 
no one is talking about meaning . It’s a simple question that I couldn’t find the answer to.
This is the kind of question that would have to be answered by a study. The study would at best give you a slice of time sampling of opinions. The sample would not be exhaustive because it would be impossible to poll every historian in the world or in the US, or Europe, etc, on the question. IF you had a huge sample, it would look something like this: 2,000 mailers/queries sent out, 500 returned, 50 illegible, 450 usable. From those 450 answers, you would generalize to the estimated number of historians in the target group, such as the US. My guess is that you'd be lucky to get the attention of five percent the total number of historians in the target group, and luckier still if half of those answered the question legibly. From that, you would estimate that your results are representative of the target but there would be no way to know for sure without sampling them all.
 
I am having trouble finding an accurate answer to what I thought was a simple question:

Do most historians believe that Jesus existed or not?

on Wikipedia (I know not necessarily the most reliable) it says : most historians believe Jesus existed .

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers . What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed ?

can anyone point me in the right direction ?


What are the sites that say historians do not overwhelmingly believe Jesus was a real person?
 
I am having trouble finding an accurate answer to what I thought was a simple question:

Do most historians believe that Jesus existed or not?

on Wikipedia (I know not necessarily the most reliable) it says : most historians believe Jesus existed .

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers . What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed ?

can anyone point me in the right direction ?

Look at reference 18 (below), an atheist who denies Jesus existed still admits most historians believe Jesus did exist. When you have a qualified source acknowledging a fact that conflicts with his own bias it is strong evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Virtually all scholars who have investigated the history of the Christian movement find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain,[1][2][3] and standard historical criteria have aided in reconstructing his life.[4][5]
...​
Most scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.[2][18][19] Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, "we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned."[20]

...​
1 Stanton, Graham (2002). The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford Bible Series) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-0199246168. Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.​
2 Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. p. 285​
3 Ehrman 2012, pp. 4–5: "Serious historians of the early Christian movement—all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure."
4 Bock, Darrell; Webb, Robert, eds. (2009). Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus : A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3161501449.​
5 Blomberg, Craig (2011). "New Testament Studies in North America". In Köstenberger, Andreas J.; Yarbrough, Robert W. (eds.). Understanding The Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century. Crossway. p. 282. ISBN 978-1-4335-0719-9. The fruit of a decade of work by the IBR Historical Jesus Study Group, Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence [Ed. Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming).] takes a dozen core themes or events from Jesus’ life and ministry and details the case for their authenticity via all the standard historical criteria, as well as assessing their significance. The results show significant correlation between what historians can demonstrate and what evangelical theology has classically asserted about the life of Christ.​
...​
18 Robert M. Price (a Christian atheist) who denies the existence of Jesus agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in The Historical Jesus: Five Views edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, 2009 InterVarsity, ISBN 0830838686 p. 61​
19 Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (1 April 2004) ISBN 0802809774 p. 34​
20 Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
 
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I am having trouble finding an accurate answer to what I thought was a simple question:

Do most historians believe that Jesus existed or not?

on Wikipedia (I know not necessarily the most reliable) it says : most historians believe Jesus existed .

then on big think , it says most believe he did.

then i see in other sites , most don’t believe he existed and still another website said historians are split .

well which is it? I’m looking for factual answers . What percentage of historians believe that Jesus really existed ?

can anyone point me in the right direction ?


All serious secular biblical historians say Jesus did walk the earth in Palestine without question.

https://www.is-there-a-god.info/blog/belief/what-do-the-leading-secular-historians-say-about-jesus/
 
All serious secular biblical historians say Jesus did walk the earth in Palestine without question.

https://www.is-there-a-god.info/blog/belief/what-do-the-leading-secular-historians-say-about-jesus/

Jesus was born c 4 BCE near the time of the death of Herod the Great;
he spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village;
he was baptised by John the Baptist;
he called disciples;
he taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities);
he preached ‘the kingdom of God’;
about the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover;
he created a disturbance in the Temple area;
he had a final meal with the disciples;
he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest;
he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.
 
I went through this process as well. As we see much comes back to "well most historians....". The reason there is confliction is because he is suspiciously absent from the historical record.

I am inclined to the gnostic point of view who's beliefs were designated heresy and almost all writings destroyed. These were some of the earliest Christians who said he was not a physical man but a spirit, a spirit that is cultivated in a man? Entered into a man?

If he was physical do we then accept the miracles and rising from the dead? Where is the line drawn?

From the gnostic perspective we can see that in a way both opinions are in a sense correct.

Once deep in trance I ask the question. Did Jesus exist? The immediate answer was "It doesn't matter". In another I had visions of the crucifixion that brought me to tears. I see it as a powerful symbol. Reality? - It doesn't matter.
 
Jesus is mentioned in contemporary texts from Roman to Jews, even in the Jewish Talmud; the original Christians were Jesus ; his family ,and apostles ,the Mary's ,and john the Baptist who were all Jews by the way not the off-shoot cult of the Gnostics It does matter. To say Jesus didn't walk the earth is just incorrect, and any serous biblical scholar will agree with me on that.
 
aside from your experience ,it does matter because as I stated any biblical scholar will agree with me on it. If Jesus was fake, you would see that in ancient Roman or Jewish writings from the time because they hated him and the early Christians, but you don't see that; you see that they in fact mention him a bit ,and in the Jewish Tumud

https://judaism.is/jesus-in-the-talmud.html
 
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aside from your experience ,it does matter because as I stated any biblical scholar will agree with me on it.

Yes I know that. I have also looked into the arguments for and against. There is no clear answer. Their were multiple sects that intermingled. Saying that the apostles and that particular sect was not a offshoot of anything is simply wrong.
 
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There is a clear answer lol

I would like to think so, but that does not make it so. It is all after the supposed fact. There is no mention in exactly where we should find it, that being the dead sea scrolls.

There is a discernable difference to a man, or actually men named Yeshua, Yesh, Joshua or Jesus in that era, and that of myth. (Yeshua was one of the most common Jewish names of the time.)

What we are dealing with is a secretive cult(s) in danger of persecution and execution at every turn. Who use metaphor, incantations and symbolism for their coded teachings. Not literal historical history. There is nothing clear about it at all, and this was intentional. Christianity today is just the husk of what was ancient mystery school teachings. There is basically nothing original, the symbolisms and themes have roots stretching way back before the life of the many men named Yeshua in that period. It is a collection of themes.
 
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"Even if there was a sectarian Jewish teacher living in Palestine during the first part of this first century called Joshua or Jesus he had nothing at all to do with a crucified Christos of Paul's theology. Thus had no part to play in the formation of that distinctive amalgam of faiths that eventually swept the world."

"Once we can bring ourselves to admit that early Christianity like Essenism, was a esoteric faith offering access to the Devine mysteries and never the open evangelistic gospel of the churches defensive propaganda. We can begin to more realistically probe the depths of the New Testament writings and set the faith in its proper historical and religious perspective..."

Once understood....

"....We can free ourselves from the need to lay bare a reality on which to base a more historically convincing portrait of a first century teacher... "

Ergo - The answer to my question, "It does not matter".

"For the writer of the fourth gospel, Jesus was the Logos, the word, and when he has John the Baptist proclaim "Behold the lamb of God" he symbolizes, in what is perhaps the most significant verbal pun in the new testament. The whole essence of the transformation of the Jewish substitutive ritual of the Passover sacrifice and the concept of the Messiah into the self immolation of the savior God of the Hellenistic mystery cults and Pauline Christianity. And that was the faith that one the allegiance of the western world."

 
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