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Is there any proof or more accurately any historical evidence that Jesus Christ lived? I have read many posts here and see that there are many who have left the church and no longer believe in God or Jesus, and then many others leave the church and adopt another religion. I am struggling with my own beliefs and how to set a new moral compass, since my last one smashed to bids. But as I have contemplated the many different views on NOM, I wanted to ask the members a question.
Do you believe Jesus Christ was a real person? If you believe the NT, is there any proof? If you do not, where does he fit in with your view of religion?
You started this topic over at NOM. It will be interesting to see what this community comes up with, being a slightly different group. For the sake of consistency, I am sticking to me responses over there. I will start off by pasting my ideas. Last one first:FWIW, I also wanted to throw in the ring that I believe Jesus was a real person. I also think he became an enlightened being and was a “Son of God,” the meaning of that being a mystery we can search out.
Like someone mentioned above, I think he would rather we searched after the meaning of this than worship him. I think that was the point — to seek enlightenment and spiritual evolution.
So yeah, I know I post stuff about a lack of certainty about the exactness of what was said. The important concepts still come through in the stories of scripture, at least in my opinion.
Like everything in life, it’s not really black or white, true or false exclusively.
Then one of my earlier responses:That gap is crucial because we aren’t getting words Jesus wrote. We aren’t getting the words of people that heard Jesus talk. We are getting the words of people that decided what the stories were from rumors and badly copied copies of copies of letters passed around among the early Christian communities.
Early Christians tried their best to preserve this stuff, but the majority of adherents were from the lower and least educated classes. I recall a story from “Jesus Misquoted” by Dr. Bart Ehrman where there is a record of someone trying to copy a letter from Paul. They sat in a field with some scrap paper and ink. The person could not actually read Greek, so they did their best to draw the symbols one by one like little drawings. Needless to say, they made a lot of mistakes. There’s been an explosion of new manuscripts with examples like this found in the past 150-200 years.
I think all the evidence is circumstantial…some eyewitnesses have recorded things that I have faith in the words. I also think there is enormous amounts of circumstantial evidence in historical documents and just in the fact that Christianity is so huge globally and historically. Calenders were even started by that.
There is certainly room it can be debated, but that is what religion is to me…faith-based, not physical proof.
I put a lot of stock in my intuition that it makes the most sense to me that he is real. The details and specifics are debatable, but I find meaning in my life by having faith in it. That is my greatest proof, that it works for me.
If there was no actual person, that would presuppose that Christians created a mythological person out of their imaginations and gave him all sorts of embarrassing details: illegitimacy, being from a backwater town everyone looked down on, him being a bad (unobservant) Jew, and being killed in a humiliating manner by Judaism’s oppressors. Having said that, it is also clear that events of his life were altered in the decades and centuries subsequent to his death, which is why the gospels disagree on some of the details (e.g. his lineage, where he was born & raised). Stories told about him were handed down primarily through oral traditions of believers / followers. The first written accounts of the Christian movement (which wasn’t yet called that) were Paul’s letters, written in the 50s and 60s CE. A friend made an interesting observation once, that the historical Jesus was harder to believe in than the Jesus seen by Paul and later by JS in their visions. At least those accounts are by a single witness who wrote something down. The conclusion I draw is that our own personal view of Jesus is the most important – what is his spiritual significance to me individually? For me, I’m more attracted to the teachings / sayings of Jesus than the miracles, role, etc. I find meaning and wisdom in what he taught, and I like the kind of person I become when I strive to live that way.
There were some interesting re-runs about early christianity and the jesus story on tv the week before christmas and since I was home, I got to watch them. One interesting concept concerning the lack of any evidence of Christ is that at that time there was alot of religious fervor, Jewish breakaway movements, etc. John the Baptist is a great example, being one of many. In fact, it was so common that the local Roman authorities quit trying to keep track of them all in the written record and just dealt with the egregious rabble-rousers on an as-needed basis. The idea was that Christ was just one of many, maybe even at the same passover celebration in Jerusalem when he was finally “given up”.
As far as actuality, it’s hard to imagine someone specific didn’t exist with that moniker. It just seems unlikely that Paul was attached to a movement created out of thin air. Who He actually was, what He actually did, and what He actually said, is completely unknowable, imo. But, what his teachings inspired people to write is pretty amazing, so that’s got to be worth something.
Yes, I believe he was a real person who lived an actual life. I have little doubt of that. I do believe Jesus was a real person. I have had experiences happen that make it hard for me to believe otherwise. Plus, I want Him to be real. Peaceandjoy wrote:I want Him to be real.
From my super-existentialist viewpoint, this is a profound statement of meaning on many levels.
Peaceandjoy wrote:I want Him to be real.
Wow. I think this is probably the most powerful reason for the existence of Jesus. I am totally serious, as someone who does believe he existed. Sort of along the line of Swimordie, I was blown away by the compact meaning in that statement.
Quote:I want Him to be real.
Thank you!
I don’t talk of this very often in church circles, since it is radical in that setting and would not be understood by many, but I view his “role” much more symbolically than the vast majority of Christians. I can’t comprehend a “physical” atonement, but I am fine with that possibility. I can appreciate it and count it as a great concept. However, I gain more meaning from seeing Jesus of Nazareth as the great scapegoat.
Most of you probably are aware of this, but in ancient Israel on Yom Kippur the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on the head of a goat, and the goat was driven from the community into the wilderness – carrying the people’s sins from them, so the people could be “right with God”. The goat and the sins it carried were allowed to “escape” from the community; thus, it was known as the “scapegoat”. This goat, having been a domestic goat and having escaped into the wilderness, inevitably died as a result of being chosen as the people’s scapegoat. (see Leviticus 16:8,10,26.)
I see the life of Jesus in the light of the scapegoat. I believe the great High Priest (God, the Father) symbolically laid the sins of his children on the head of the great Scapegoat and allowed that scapegoat to be driven from and killed by the community. As a result, nobody needed thereafter to suffer for others’ sins – to be a sin-scapegoat. As a result, we in the LDS Church can say that “mankind will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression” – but we also can speak of a Savior and Redeemer who has “taken our sins upon Him” and allowed us to repent (become right with God).
I see most of the things we learn of the life of Jesus in this same light. For example:
1) Is political oppression the great evil from which mankind needs to be delivered? No, the great evil is interpersonal oppression and lack of love. Fix that problem, and political oppression ceases.
2) Is it enough to wait on the glory of the hereafter and ignore the suffering around us (or even gloify that suffering in others from the relative comfort of our own judgment seats)? No, God works among the poor and needy to aleviate their suffering in the here and now – because love is a verb that must be shown to be real. The hereafter will take care of itself, but we are called to change the world into a heaven on earth – even amid earthly oppression.
3) Will we have bodies in the here-after similar to those we have now, only with changes that will make them immortal, as a result of the ressurection of Jesus? (Iow, did Jesus really rise from the tomb in a unique way?) I don’t know, but I’m totally fine with that concept even if I can’t understand it literally, since I am open to the idea that ALL matter is “tangible” to those who can “see” it – AND because of the wonderful symbolism of valuing our mortal bodies as potentially eternal.
I also WANT Jesus to have been a real, living person – but that is largely because I LOVE the symbolism I find in his life and the power that symbolism gives to my life.
(Just as an aside,
and not to derail this thread at all, that’s also one of the main reasons I continue to accept the BofM as an actual record of ancient peoples. I WANT it to be so, since I LOVE the messages it provides me and the connection I feel to “them”. Given what I believe it actually says, I find lots of evidence that it mightbe an actual record and no evidence that it cannotbe. [careful choice of highlighted words] Thus, I choose to accept it as such.) The title of the post is different than the question. Believing is one thing. Having hard physical evidence is another. I think the strongest thing, and I’m admittedly not an expert, that most biblical scholars and historians will say is that there is enough anecdotal evidence that most of them feel comfortable that Jesus Christ probably existed as man. I doubt there will ever be any harder physical evidence than that. The church line would be that your ‘knowledge’ has to be based on a personal witness, a testimony, etc. If that truly is knowledge, then that’s a different kind of proof.
I’m like many here, and still struggling, but I, for one, love the concept of a Savior and Redeemer who takes upon Himself the sins of those who repent. I would love to be able to make that more of a comfort in my life than I have so far been able to achieve.
First of all, I certainly have not “left the church” in any kind of intentional way, though I suddenly found myself feelingoutside the church on that October day in 2003 when I found a new heaven and a new earth. But since that day, I have not really been a (Pauline) Christian any more than a traditional LDS. So I don’t really have any desire for Jesus to have lived, and I believe with Ralph Waldo Emerson that the words of Jesus are true, not because he said them, but because the words themselves have power and authority. But having said all that, I do believe (for the reasons Hawk summarized) there was one remarkable fellow behind the Jesus myth. So in that I am pretty much in line with the rest of this group.
from a historical standpoint, from what i’ve read, the evidence that jesus actually existed comes from the NT. The validity of his life comes strictly from the gospels themselves. if you don’t believe what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John said then there really isn’t any other sources who were close to him who wrote down their history with him. two-thirds of the NT was written by Paul who wasn’t converted until after the resurection. yes he saw jesus but not in the same way the first apostles did. there are very few early references to jesus and they all seem to build upon each other. there are only 3 historians around 100 CE that may have mention of the man jesus. the first is from suetonius who only mentions a “chrestus”, which if it is in reference to christ it is only a title, not a name. tactitus addressing a roman audience just reports what was commonly said of christians and again only mentions “christ”, jesus’ title as the annointed one. the third is from josephus, which is commonly said to have two references to jesus. the first is generally accepted by scholars as a 4th century inserstion. the second mentions “the brother of jesus, who was called christ, whose name was james” and goes on to talk about how this james was stoned to death by jews. the section the says “who was called christ” has been called into consideration by scholars as possibly a later addition. james the just is sometimes identified as james the less and james, son of alphaeus, commonly by catholic theologians, which would make this source by josephus contradict the book of acts as it records that james, the brother of john was killed by a sword. julius africanus who lived between 160-240ce quoted thallus who wrote that there was an eclipse of the sun, darkness, and earthquakes attributed most commonly to jesus’ crucifixion. it’s impossible to determine whether or not this is an interpolation. all the other early church fathers rely on these and newer source documents to prove the historicity of jesus. by the time of the counsil of nicea there was an obvious political motivation for scholars to accept the historical jesus. honestly i don’t understand how scholars today unequivically accept that jesus was a real person with the lack of evidence there is. it’s surprising that more scholars don’t investigate this further. the lack of historical records do cast large doubt as to the actual person named jesus but honestly all of this is irrelavant to me. i believe in jesus for what was stated before, “i want him to be real”. he is real in my life, he has given me the power to change and be saved whether or not he actually existed. he represents reconcilation, repentance, atonement, and charity stronger to me than any other fictional or non-fictional character in history. so no matter what he is more “real” than anyone else to me. so yes from a spiritual perspective i do believe that jesus was a real person. if you really want my historical position, from my limited knowledge, i believe what was said earlier, there probably had to be some person named jesus. it would be pretty hard for the early christians to make up an entire myth out of thin air. i’m sure that some of the stories attributed to jesus were borrowed from other mythologies but there probably was some guy named jesus who was revered as a spiritual teacher of some sort around the same time that they said he lived. but again the spiritually reality of his existence is far more important to me and is very “real” in my own personal history. I believe there was probably a man named Jesus. I believe in the symbol of Jesus Christ. That is real. Christ is real. Christ lives in us. I guess I believe in the Light of Christ or Christ Consiousness.
I love Jesus, even if he didn’t come to start what was started in his name. I don’t think he said or did all the things attributed to him (speaking of historical Jesus). I believe it all symbolically. That is why I still consider myself a Christian. For me the literal isn’t where my truth is found.
just me wrote:That is why I still consider myself a Christian. For me the literal isn’t where my truth is found.
That is worth thinking about. If I am going to stay LDS, maybe staying Christian is worth considering. I’m just toying with it.
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