Interesting. I thought it was fairly well established that Jesus existed in some capacity but the debate was about who he actually was and (from a religious standpoint) if he did any of the things the Bible claims he did. It's interesting to read that non-jewish people of the time seemed to have no knowledge of his existence.

At the same time though, I wonder if it's possible that most people just ignored him, which is why there's apparently very few accounts of him until after he supposedly died, resurrected and ascended to heaven. Kinda like a street preacher in Times Square, NYC. How many people actually acknowledge street preachers on social media, and how many of them actually know the preachers by name? Then think about how social media didn't exist yet, so the bar to be recorded in history by uninterested third parties (even just as a letter to a friend about that "annoying Jesus guy") is probably a lot higher.

Not saying he existed, just that it's interesting to think that he could have existed but the lack of evidence is just because no one gave a fuck.

Jeez people, next you’re going to tell me the whole Jesus story is just a fucking rehash of other stories that already existed

Your telling me there was no Jewish zombie carpenter?

Saying the Bible is based in history is kinda like saying Cocaine Bear is based on a true story

In fact I'm pretty sure we have more evidence of Cocaine Bear's existence

Zealot by Reza Aslan is a great read on this subject.

It compares and contrasts between Jesus of Nazareth vs Jesus the Christ.

Basically says that Jesus hated the rich for fucking up the temples and stealing from the common folks.

But somehow that shit got twisted by rich people and now you have prosperity gospel which is basically a lie to take advantage of people who don’t know much.

just some critical thinking notes.

The title says: "Findings Cast Doubt..." One might expect that the core of the essay will be .... findings. One might expect that as with most commonly taught English writing practices, the first paragraph would both outline the point, and give a brief summary of the point.

Seven, eight paragraphs in, the 'Findings' are still being teased.

This type of article ... accurate or not, is working through a 'Palm reader' technique, where they build up a series of 'connections with the subject', a long line of 'Yeses' then they slowly begin to introduce _their points. The technique is able to slip past some percent of critical thinking, because the person has been led down a path of agreements.

Again accurate or not, it couches the 'Findings' in a sea of 'everyone knows', 'modern scholars agree' , 'doubts have existed from the beginning'. These are not facts, they are well worded disparaging digs, which contextualize the subject to their bias.

I mean, in the book it even mentions that there are other people doing the exact same thing Jesus did. The book even implies that Jesus was not even one of the more popular trouble makers of the time. It's more or less the sophists in a back-woods community that the Romans gave very little fucks about. Not surprising there's little-to-no evidence.

Hey this really amazing thing just happened to me and my friends group. It was world changing. Half of those friends don't give a shit and never respond to text messages again... DECADES PASS ... No one bothers to write any of it down. A major power predictably displaces everyone in the region to quell quixotic zealotry. No one can find work, they are homesick; outcasts; gutter fodder of the diaspora.

In reality it is more like, someone sees a Craigslist job post about a religious startup. A few dudes write a plausible fan fiction. They even copy each other's homework like primary schoolchildren, errors and all; not even intentional obfuscation errors, the real deal little kid kind. Their works all fit into a prequel timeline niche. A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS PASS Fan fiction universe is fucking god mode. Why? Because people are fucking stupid. Humans are sub sentient. There was no separation of church and state. This was as political as it was emotional, lack of fundamental logic skills, and survivalism. I don't believe any fucker that tells me some unhappenable story decades later, and especially when the story can't be corroborated except by his homework copying buddies getting put up in peoples houses and not needing to work because he wrote a plausible—to a largely illiterate population—fan fiction.

Solar Deity! Get yer solar deity, right heeeyah! Solar deity! Free chocolate bunny with each conversion!

Oh no, big invisible guy in the sky will be upset!

I was gonna do the quiz it mentions here but it's a 404 http://exchristian.net/3/

Cool article though - thanks for sharing. I wanna read thst Fitzgerald book now.

Edit: book was legit. First one is called Nailed and it goes through 10 myths about historical jesus. Absolutely fascinating.

Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240330233612/https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/is-jesus-real/

Paywall, can someone paste the article?

I mean, yeah. If you read something about gnostic non-Christian versions of Judaism existent at that time, you might notice that the whole idea of him is reminiscent of what a gnostic cult believer should be himself.

The part about being a higher entity clothed in human existence which should remember itself, drop those clothes and ascend.

Probably grew out of some story of "the guy who actually managed to do that", ha-ha, which somehow blended with a few real figures.

EDIT: Now when I think about it, makes Jedi religion in Star Wars seem even more Christian. Especially if we count various concepts (Journal of the Whills) and branches existent in the EU (Living Force, Potentium and what not).