The most mythical man in the world

[josephpalazzo]

http://imgur.com/9xp9azu


Also the most successful hoax...

[GreatLife]

http://imgur.com/9xp9azu


Also the most successful hoax...

The link didn't work for me... maybe someone else will have better luck...

[josephpalazzo]

That picture must have been deleted from the website, but I was able to trace it. So here it is:

[stromboli]

And the debate rages whether he existed at all.....

[TomFoolery]

And the debate rages whether he existed at all.....

And if he really had cherubic cheeks and a headful of sun-kissed honey-colored locks. Oh, and the golden undies as a baby, as "historically" depicted in about 3/5 of all manger scenes.

[stromboli]

And the Nordic profile. Don't forget the Nordic profile.

[Baruch]

We had Bible studies material once that had Abraham with blond hair ;-)

But really ... in Chinese missionary material from the 19th century, Bible stories are depicted in Chinese cultural norms.

Jesus would have drunk Manischewitz, not Dos Equis.  The Dos Equis guy might be Jewish though, he looks like me ;-)

[Mike Cl]

And the debate rages whether he existed at all.....

Yes, it does.  And inch by inch, tiny doubt by tiny doubt, the Jesus is myth is taking center stage.  200 years ago, this would have  been unthinkable.  Now the Jesus myth books are piling up.

[The Atheist]

And the debate rages whether he existed at all.....

There is no debate. The absolute majority of historians and scholars consider Jesus to have been an historical figure.

The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.

[Baruch]

There is no debate. The absolute majority of historians and scholars consider Jesus to have been an historical figure.

The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.

Historians are politically inspired propagandists.  Don't expect any truth from them.

There is very little corroborating evidence of a historical Jesus, but simply no evidence for a miracle working man-god.  There were plenty of guys named Jesus back then, it was a common name.  And false messiahs were common.  Any of them could have provided inspiration.  But even so, it hardly matters.  A false messiah is a false messiah, and a made up religion is made up.  This is no different in principle than Mormonism as invented by Joseph Smith.  Does anyone still care about the original reasons ... trying to use pacifism to free the Jewish people from Roman domination?  Paul (who actually wrote something) and Jesus (who wrote nothing) were total failures in their own time.  Only because Constantine found them politically useful much later, prevented their complete extermination by the Roman authorities.

[Mike Cl]

There is no debate. The absolute majority of historians and scholars consider Jesus to have been an historical figure.

The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.

Really--no debate at all?  Then why are those who are writing the Jesus is a myth type books writing them?  Just to make money?  And just who are these 'experts' that defend an historical jesus?  Most of them have a vested interest in having jesus being historical. 

You said--The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.
I don't understand what you mean.

[Baruch]

Really--no debate at all?  Then why are those who are writing the Jesus is a myth type books writing them?  Just to make money?  And just who are these 'experts' that defend an historical jesus?  Most of them have a vested interest in having jesus being historical. 

You said--The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.
I don't understand what you mean.

The historians have a Pope too, and his judgement is infallible ;-)

[The Atheist]

Really--no debate at all?  Then why are those who are writing the Jesus is a myth type books writing them?  Just to make money?  And just who are these 'experts' that defend an historical jesus?  Most of them have a vested interest in having jesus being historical. 

You said--The great irony is that Jesus-mythicists go against the experts' consensus in the same way that young earth creationists go against the scientific consensus.
I don't understand what you mean.

The same reason young earth reationists with PhDs in biology and geology fron respected universities write books: emotional investment. The Jesus-mythicists are emotionally invested in destroying Christianity and have decided to go for the jugular, just like the YEC crowd is emotionally invested in proving a literal interpretation of Genesis. Both groups ignore the consensus opinion of their respective communities.

[The Atheist]

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

There is "near universal consensus" among scholars that Jesus existed historically,  although biblical scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels. While scholars have sometimes criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness, with very few exceptions, such critics do support the historicity of Jesus, and reject the theory that Jesus never existed, known as the Christ myth theory.

Certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently made the case that while there are a number of plausible "Jesi" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus, and that there should also be more scholarly research and debate on this topic.

Good enough for me.

[The Atheist]

Historians are politically inspired propagandists.  Don't expect any truth from them.

There is very little corroborating evidence of a historical Jesus, but simply no evidence for a miracle working man-god.  There were plenty of guys named Jesus back then, it was a common name.  And false messiahs were common.  Any of them could have provided inspiration.  But even so, it hardly matters.  A false messiah is a false messiah, and a made up religion is made up.  This is no different in principle than Mormonism as invented by Joseph Smith.  Does anyone still care about the original reasons ... trying to use pacifism to free the Jewish people from Roman domination?  Paul (who actually wrote something) and Jesus (who wrote nothing) were total failures in their own time.  Only because Constantine found them politically useful much later, prevented their complete extermination by the Roman authorities.

Couldn't many of the arguments against Jesus' historicity be made against Pontius Pilute, too? Pilate was the most important figure in Judea for a decade and not one writing of his exists, nor do any contemporary accounts. Outside of the gospels, the only mention of this most prominent VIP in Judea comes fron Philo of Alexandria circa 50 AD and from Flavius Josephus decades after that. Until the Pilate Stone was discovered in the early 1960s, there were some historians who doubted his existence.

If there are no writings from or contemporary eyewitness accounts of the man who governed the land for a decade, then why should we expect there to be any for a poor Jewish preacher who travelled through backwater villages separated by miles of wilderness? You said so yourself: Jesus wasn't the only messiah. There were messiahs before and after him. He hardly would have been important enough to win the attention of anybody important.