I think there appears to be enough documented evidence to confirm that in all probability someone actually existed, his description possibly a conflation of several people, living in and around Galilee at the time of Roman occupation of Palestine, during the rule of the Roman vassal king Herod, and drawing a following. He, “Jesus”, appears to have been a charismatic nomadic seer, performing so called miracles and attracting large crowds, much in the same way that magicians and showmen have done throughout history and up until the present day. I think he attracted followers who used hyperbole to inflate his magic act into miracles and their fanaticism was spread in much the same way as any cult figure or charismatic leader can effect followers to believe in them, at any time in history. By the Romans martyring him, Jesus then became the stuff of legend, and a cult became a world religion.

My summing up is that yes...I believe there is a basis for a belief in someone existing whom we can call Jesus (for want of any more exact a name). By stating this belief, I am in no way acknowledging Christian claims to his divinity, or the acceptance of a belief in god or the trinity, or any miraculous happenings. If indeed he existed, he was a man who was born in the normal way, his mother was not impregnated by god, but by a man, and she could not be a virgin. Jesus, like Mohammed and other religious figures was merely a prophet who indulged in god delusions, and more’s the pity that they were listened to and believed, because today they would probably be diagnosed as having mental illness and their messages from god seen as what they actually were...visions or paranoid delusions.

I think Monty Python's Life of Brian is instructive here. If you have not seen it, do yourself a favor. Blessed are the cheesemakers!

Why oh why would Anyone waste their time on fatuous crap like this?

I know for a fact that Jesus exists, he's a Mexican man who owns a food truck and makes delicious Tacos al Carbon. He also has a couple of kids named Jesus with different wives.

I don't know and I don't care. Whether the bible has some real history mixed in with mythology and wild guesses as to the source of creation - or whether it's a lot of disinformation and/or a re-wrtiting of history for political purposes of that particular time, I don't know.

What I do know is that we are here in this modern society, and the bible is of no use as a moral compass for navigating a way forward into a happier, healthier, more harmonious future of humankind and the world we live in.

Does @waitingforgodo actually exist?
You post provocative responses but never go back to them, this is your first actual post, your name is a Samuel Beckett satire, you give your birthday as April fools day, I think quite possibly you are as fictional as the Christ figure you comment upon.

I do not think that there is good evidence either way, and that any guess about his existence is just a guess and no more. It is also highly likely that there were several of him, since that is the way most myths tend to grow. Because people remember the stories better than they remember names, so that when they forget the name they tend to associate the story with the first name which comes into their head , which is usually the most talked about at the time. So that you may well have had twelve stories being told in ancient Greece, about twelve people, but you end up with the twelve labours of Hercules when eleven names have been forgotten.

Frankly I don't need a lot of evidence for the existence of a man named Jesus claiming to be a prophet. Because frankly its an unremarkable claim with no actual importance. At the time there were literally hundreds of prophets. I feel like this is a point we can just give to the christians without compromising our position in the debate.

No, he did not exist. There is no mention of him in the 100 years following his alleged life in ANY record in any of the nations that existed at that time.

Think about the Romans and Roman emperors at that time ... if they thought someone in their midst was trying to be a 'king' they not only would have written about it, but they would have come down on him like a ton of fucking bricks.

I believe the Jesus of christian mythology was a composite character. Some of the story may have originated with a real person or persons. We know that as people repeat stories over time, they become more exaggerated and grandiose. When you factor in the prophecies that Jesus had to fulfill, the story tellers would have been pressured to incorporate them into their tales and expand on them.

So, here's why I believe that some small part of the Jesus myth is based on a real person. In the gospels, JC is born in Bethlehem because his mother and her cuckold travelled there for census. It's also widely acknowledged that the census never happened. That story could have been created to explain how a man from Nazareth with parents from Nazareth was born in Bethlehem. I also think several people may have claimed to be the messiah; each adding their own "miraculous feats" to the list. It

Jesus was a very common name in that place at that time. You must first define which Jesus you are talking about. If you mean any Jesus that was resurrected, then my answer to you is "no".

By way of subverting your final question, my response is "I am not stupid enough to have beliefs. My world view is evidence-based, you see.".

No. Saying there isn't evidence either way isn't good enough. LACK of evidence, in this case, is evidence
Outside of the Bible itself, no record whatsoever, with Israel awash in scribes, historians, and authors carefully chronicalling every occurrence of note? This man attracting crowds everywhere he goes, creating a stir troubling enough to command the attention of political and religious leaders? Not to mention the performance of miracles?
Nothing.
Other would-be messiahs were recorded, some at great length. In fact, there was not another part of the Empire so well documented.
And yet during his lifetime not a WORD?
Think about it. There are many other convincing arguments, but that alone should prove the point.
In fact, add onto this the other arguments, and the verdict is overwhelmingly conclusive: there was no such human being who ever walked the earth.

I grew up Catholic, surrounded by devout believers, and I was assured repeatedly that there was overwhelming evidence that Jesus existed, from census records to Roman documentation of Jesus's crucifixion. Case closed. To childhood me, that was conclusive. But as I got older, I couldn't help but wonder why I'd never seen photos or copies of these irrefutable documents. If the Romans kept such pristine records, where were they? They don't exist. I learned, too, that there were absolutely no primary sources of any kind supporting the existence of a historical Jesus. There are a few pieces that historians — even the ones who believe there was indeed a historical Jesus — agree are fraudulent. The only credible reference we have is from Josephus who, after the purported death of Jesus, made reference to the existence of Christians who claim to follow someone named Yeshua (i.e., Jesus), but Josephus makes no claims about whether Jesus existed — only that there are people who believe in him. Mainstream historians overwhelmingly believe that Jesus existed, but their arguments are overwhelmingly weak and lacking in evidence. It boils down to the spurious claim that, because Christianity exists and had a great influence on society, there must therefore be a historical figure upon whom Christianity was based. In a way, I agree, but that person wasn't Jesus; it was Saul of Tarsus (aka, St. Paul). Paul is responsible for the spread of Christianity, largely co-opted to support his own political and social agenda in an "if you can't beat them, join them" sort of way — and a lot of what Christianity preaches today comes not from the supposed words of Jesus but rather from the letters and other writings of Paul. In the last couple of years, I became aware of a historian by the name of Richard Carrier who doubts the existence of a historical Jesus. He lays out a strong argument that there's good reason to be skeptical. He goes into detail in the video below:

He’s a fictional character like so many demigods before him like Hercules or Perseus. They are just stories or fables. There are lots of writings.. Some in the official biblical canon and a lot not. It’s still a work of fiction written by men and complied by others later. I still have no understanding why people constantly study these writings. There are a lot more out there. You’d figure if Jesus was a real person, he would have written a personal biography. If it was that important, he’d write his own message and not having second hand writings by people arguing what he said or didn’t say.

Why I don't feel compelled to earn any extra bonus points from you? I don't care if jesus, santa claus or satanas are ficticious characters or not.

Am I the only one who mentions a non-believer and textual scholar Bart Ehrman ?

[en.wikipedia.org]

[goodreads.com]

[bartdehrman.com]

No.

There is no archeological evidence that the historical figure known as Jesus ever existed and that the exodus, the great flood and many other stories from the boble and other religious scripts ever happened.

There is also no evidence that the historical land of israel ever existed. In fact, there is heavy evidence to the contrary.

Nothing needs to be conceded. Let them prove the validity of their fantastical claims.

I was a Christian for about 30 years.
I became an atheist about 21 years ago, in 1999.
I have very strong opinions on this very topic, that is, which persons in the Bible, which Bible stories, are clearly fictional persons in fairy tales, and which persons are real, with their stories are based on true stories.
For a few of them, the most well known ones, the answer seems obvious to me.
I am truly amazed at how many folks see it otherwise.
I can easily understand why the devout believers, try to convince themselves that all of it is true. It's part of their faith.
But, what amazes me, is how many atheists seem, in my opinion, to have pretty much no sense at all of which stories have the feel, the little details, that make them seem like true stories, and which ones are clearly contrived fairy tales.
From the Old Testament, we have wise old King Solomon, who clearly was a real man, and clearly wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, all by himself. Unless a few clear statements about God, were inserted by another author, after Solomon was dead.
The book of Ecclesiastes is the ranting of an old man, who has had a full life, and he tells his readers that there is nothing in life that is truly a big deal. Everything is either, small chores, or bigger accomplishments, that may seem big when you get them done, but they are, as you will look back in your older years, they are, none of them, that much a big deal, after all. There simply is no big deals in life. That is his message. And he barely mentions god, at all.
Are you going to tell me Solomon did not exist?
Are you going to tell me the book of Ecclesiastes is a collection of writings from a dozen writers?
Read the book of Ecclesiastes, carefully, and see what you truly think.
One old man, with a cynical rant.
Likewise, the Gospel story, is clearly a true story, minus the miracles, of course.
For example, the way Jesus died: He killed himself, in the way that we now call, suicide by cop.
He said, over and over, that no one would kill him, but he would lay down his life, himself, deliberately.
Lay down his life.
Means, get himself killed.
He enraged the scribes and pharisees, and he knew they would stir up a lynch mob. He knew that Pilate would have to have him killed to get the lynch mob to stop their riot. Pilate was trapped, trapped by Jesus, who knew how to manipulate people.
Of course, he did not rise from the dead, his people stole his body, that is all so clear.
But, I am so amazed, that so many atheists, who likely became atheists because they are smarter than average, and they learned and learned, until they learned enough to see, that science makes sense, while religion is based on fairy tales.
But, if you are so good at learning, so good at sorting out true stories from fairy tales, how can you fail to do so, with the various Bible stories?
How can you say, with a straight face, that the gospel story, that reads so much like a true story, minus the miracles, how can you say that Jesus is fictional, or a collection of stories, put together?
If it helps you, Jesus was a magician.
If you put some kind of wine concentrate, into large jars, and then have someone fill the jars with water, you might have very tasty wine.
Ta Da!
If you bring lots of baskets to a remote location, where families would bring lots of loaves and fishes in their hidden pockets of their robes, and then you pass the baskets around, and ask five thousand people to take some out, if needed, or, put some in, if they have extra, of course, you will have twelve baskets full.
Jesus was a magician. He created illusions. He knew how to read people, he knew how to manipulate people.
I am the only one who can see this?
Really?

Probably yes, there was a Jewish reformist called Jesus (or one of the many variations of this name).
He was popular and the speeches and deeds of the many reformists and philosophers of the time were attributed to him. The same phenomena that happened with Arthur that was never a king, but probably a local hero.

History is full of this semi-legendary characters that agglomerate histories and attributes of other people and local legends.

Thanks to everyone who contributed their insight to the discussion.

Almost all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically.

That's a very good question! Seeing as there's no contemporary (wriitten while he was alive) record of Jesus: Did he exist as an individual? Are the stories about him actually a patching together of different individuals acts? There's no way of knowing; you either believe, or not! Of course, entire topic is obscured by the dense fog of created (principally by RC church)dogma/narrative , to suit the power structure of said institution ...

I have no idea if he existed. I was brought up Jewish so we spent less time on this sort of concern, but that also perhaps gave me a different perspective (for right or wrong). So, even though within Judaism we were just as delusional as anyone else as to the existence and power of our imaginary one god, it was also interesting because (if I recall from one Hebrew school lesson), when they were explaining to us about Christianity (Christians believe that Jesus was the messiah, we [Jews] think they are mistaken), I came away thinking ok, those Christians have a lot of nonsense in their heads. But then later when I came to some full-blown atheist thinking, I realized that the Christians were far from alone.

As well of course, then there is some fresh perspective on things like:

• Joseph seems pretty naive in the story. Maybe Mary had a good time with a passing Roman Soldier?
• sure, he may have existed, and I"ve known people who "grapple" with this, as though it's critical to their thinking, but I'm pretty sure that if he did exist, he did not have supernatural powers.

Anyway, not interested in trying to win any arguments or prizes here, but my 2 cents.

Of course Jesus existed. It was important in those daze that he walk on water, teach others how to fish, (even though those guys were fishermen to start with) and very important that he turn water into wine. After all, water is used in making wine. It's just something that gods did in those daze.