I watched a pretty long video on YouTube about this topic, it's the one I've found to be the most credible so far. It put forth a theory about josephus creating the character of Jesus for the Romans. Here's the link.

He very well might have been a man who did exist, but not as the bible says. Just as there was, infact, a giant flood that wasn't probably because God was shaking the etcha-sketch clean. I think he probably did exist, in some form, but that is as far as my belief goes.

Historians pretty much agree he existed, though the only reliable facts about his life are that he was baptised by John the Baptist and crucified by Pontius Pilate. Until further evidence is uncovered, I have no problem with historians. People insisting he didn't exist or whatever are demonstrating that motivated reasoning can be found in any belief system.

I wonder what does the Vatican have? Maybe some answers there. But will the pope let anyone look?

Check out the book "Nailed" by David Fitzgerald. There's very little chance he existed. There is next to 0 historical evidence.

Also, Carrier's a pretty nice guy to hang out with. I had the chance to do that recently and enjoyed our conversations a lot.

After reading several books by various authors regarding the historicity of Jesus, I agree with Richard Carrier that while we can't know 100% for sure, Jesus, as portrayed in the bible, was likely born of myth. I've taken an online course taught by Carrier and read several of his books, including The Historicity of Jesus. I'm mostly in agreement with his work, but as a woman, I have a few quibbles with some statements he makes that seem sexist to me, although that does not negate the value of the bulk of his work.

The best that we can say is, maybe or maybe not.

As far as I understand the real name was Joshua and that was a quit commen name in Judea

Great post - thank you. I learned about Carrier and enjoyed the conversation. This site is great!!!

Gilgamesh.

This question comes up allot. And I think it's a very appropriate one. Its also one that touches a lot of nerves with people, it seems. My personal belief is that the story and the character of the resurrecting Jesus is a mythological story. Not a historical telling of a factual person. And I think in the very early days it was intended to be fully understood as such. At least for those that were fully initiated into the religion. And that would be very consistent with other very similar mystery religions of the time. Somewhere along the way, in part through ignorance and in part as an intentional tactic of the church, the official doctrine became that the story must be understood as literal, factual and historical truth. And we know that there was some intentional, deceptive manipulation and forgery of records in an attempt to provide, at least some, historical basis.
The big thing for me is not just what I have learned about the bible. But what I have learned about the historical record of the events of the Roman empire at that time and in that place. It is remarkably rich. The Romans kept meticulous records, and just generally, they wrote a lot of stuff down for lots of reasons and those records have survived. I simply must conclude that if the character of Jesus were a real person, the historical record would contain many many many points of corroborating reference... And it just simply isn't there. Not convincingly. Not for me.

I like Carrier and what he says makes sense to me. I've yet to hear an explanation for the existence of a flesh-and-blood Yeshua who inspired the gospels that sounded plausible. It seems that the argument in favor always boils down to the influence of the religion throughout the ages, with the assumption that it must have been based on a real person. But we'd never accept such flimsy evidence for anything else, so I remain unconvinced.

wasn't he supposedly born of a virgin? wouldn't that debunk it? maybe that story was made up by jesus himself. influential people like charles manson can make a lot of people believe and do some stupid shit. although i have not studied it at all

Thanks to Carrier's book, I'm pretty much agnostic on the issue. I've not read enough of other good [?] scholars on historicity to informedly settle my personal opinion yet. There's a lot of information, and it's no easy puzzle.

That being said, it's pretty clear that, no matter how you cut what's history or myth about Jesus, the majority of it is myth, and of what is myth, people were supposed to focus on the lessons of those myths originally, and should today, as well. So, I don't see the point in talking about a character fitting a primarily mythical role in a primarily mythical story as if the story and character were history. That bugs me about Christians.

Right now, I'm of the opinion that if a Christian wants to talk to me about possible mythical moral/life lessons from the bible, that's fine with me. Not all the moral ideas are bad. But if they start meandering into meta-physics or talking about it as history, I'm simply not buying it. Show me something stronger first, and stop talking like Jesus' ressurection is the most certain event in history; it isn't!

I find the Mythicist approach very plausible. I like Richard Carrier very much. I find it very interesting that Paul never mentions the ministry or teachings of Jesus. He seems to have no idea that Jesus was a real person.

Yes this topic has come up before and I've said before that I have read and watched him and like his work a lot. He is attacked quite a lot and on two fronts; obviously by Christians, by more stridently, it seems to me, by non religious historicists who believe there was a historical preacher that grew into the Jesus story. Authors like Bart Erhmann fall into this category. They attack the mythicist movement, I suppose not surprisingly since they write books telling us about the 'real Jesus' and along comes a movement by writers like Carrier who say the premise of their work is arguably wrong. Carrier is often characterised as saying that there was no historical figure at the centre of the Jesus story, but in fact what he says is there may be, but the evidence is so slight that in his opinion there wasn't.

As a student of history I like the fact that Carrier applies the strictest historical method to his work, he places the Jesus story so well within the prophecy, history, theology and mythology of the period from which it derives, and in debate he does a great job of neutralising phoney Christian claims, allegations, false history, and assumptions. He's also funny and entertaining, which is important if you want to teach history to general audiences, holding their interest.

I would think he was a historic figure. Obviously the stories about him have been stretched or made up. He was probably just simply a guy with new ideas; people wanted to keep those ideas so they made him a God. When you think of most religions they have this sort of character based on partial truths. I find the amount of myth stolen from Egyption God's to be fairly amazing. I think Reza Aslan's book Zealot interesting, because of his fasination with Jesus and being a Muslim.

I don't think there's smoke without fire but there is a lot of smoke over 2000 years

There could have been an actual Jesus of history from the time frame involved (or before) but he is not seen in the Gospels. These writings were not eye witness accounts and seem to be talking about a complex and contradictory person. This is why Jesus seems at times to be a madman wanting death for some, then later a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden. The faithful believe that they actually have the "words of Jesus" in their scriptures in red writing. The reality is that today we would not have any such words.
Is it any wonder that modern Evangelicals seem to have so many different versions of Jesus?

I have the hard copy of book and have listened to the audibook about 3 times, also Hitler Homer Bible Christ, and Sense and Goodness without God.

The evidence makes perfect sense on Myth
It is very strange on History
The math and probabilities made my head hurt, but otherwise the content is fantastic. Most people, especially Christians have no clue how flawed their holy book is.

I am in no way any kind of an expert on the topic. I always thought Jesus got the shit end of the stick. It is also the reason his followers are, for the most part, Batshit selfish and crazy. The Buddha ,Gandhi among others did exist as ordinary people. No one here would argue that Ghandi was a historical figure who taught the world about commpasion. Many people here will argue over the existence of Jesus. Jesus , in my opinion, was just another enlightened man who taught the world about love, forgiveness and peace. Unfortunately, somehow he became the Son of God who is able to perform Miracles who died so we all can live in an afterlife after we're dead. Poor bastards meaninfull message , and purpose, has been lost in myth that he is the savior of the Earth and our souls.

He didn't actually exist. It's a fantasy book set in the time period it was written in. No different than the fantasy books written today that have real places, but fantasy filler.

Fake news

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If he was real he was a fucking magician Iike Criss Angel or some shit!!