@Gwendolyn2018 What, that the Romans made it all up?
SOME people think that. It's not as crazy as it sounds. The houses of the Flavian emperors actually had some of the earliest Christians on record from what I understand, includng the sister of of one of them, Donatella (?), blood relative of...Titus, I think? It's been a while. And the Jewish historian Josephus, was also of that court, and he wrote of the Roman-Jewish war. His chronicle of Titus' campaign into Jerusalem, some think, could have been a template for the movements of 'Jesus' during his 'ministry,' including some of his better-known travels. Like I said, a lot of the place names and locations relative to one another were laughably inaccurate, but it did show a glancing familiarity of the area. But I don't Josephus actually lived there for any amount of time, if at all.
I could go on, but you get the general idea. A lot of people dismiss it, but even if it wasn't exactly like that, it DOES make you think. After all, there is no evidence whatsoever of an "early church," other than Paul's mention of Peter and few other passing references which could be taken a different way... Hey I don't have a complete argument at my fingertips, and what I do have would take too long and get tedious, but there IS an argument to be made.

@Gwendolyn2018 Well this isn't a research paper or a thesis! I'm just commenting on an interesting theory which gets to the general point that there is not a single shred of evidence, outside the 'New Testament' itself, which points to the existence of not only 'Jesus,' but also the supposed "movement" he is claimed to have started, inspired, whatever.
The book I'm referring to is "Caesar's Messiah," by Joseph Atwill, if you want to Google a synopsis, or general gist of it. Again, a lot of people dismiss it, and that's fine; I'm not convinced it's true myself, but there may be parts of it at least that hit close to home, particularly concerning the question that if none of it was written until after the diaspora, in cultured Latin and Greek no less, who DID write it? And if there WAS no "early church," from whence did it spring forth? And how did it so easily spread throughout the empire, from virtually nothing? About the Romans' motivation, I THINK Atwill speculates (not sure, I've only read a detailed outline of the main points) the Julian emperors had seriously damaged the credibility, dignity, majesty, as it were, of the religion by debasing it, particularly Caligula and Tiberius and maybe to a lesser degree all of them, by among other things wallowing in debauchery, corruption, many other unspeakable excesses, and worst of all declared themselves divine. In other words, the religion had become so intertwined and synonymous with the Imperial family, that it had been more or less discredited, and so no longer able to confer upon the ruler the "divine right of kings," that connection to the divine which bestowed upon them the right and authority to rule.
At the same time 'Jesus' and Christianity, which was after all an amalgam of Judaism, the ancient 'mystery religions,' and other elements borrowed from the regions indigenous religions, could at the same time replace, after Masada, the old, rebellious, antagonistic, Judaism with a kinder, gentler, more compliant version, and Romes restored, re-energized connection to the gods could come through Jesus' representative on Earth, the Vicar of Christ.
Something like that. I might have jumbled it up somewhat to the point it sounds ridiculous, and maybe it is, but also, to me anyway, intriguing, and I never intended to go so far into it, so for now that'll have to do.
But no, when all is said and done, and not just because of one specific thing, I DON'T think there was such a person. If there were even a pale, feeble version of the myth, he would have left some trace other than a "New Testament," which was obviously written by learned scholars and/or scribes, and not uneducated, common men.
P.S. By the "early Church," I mean the people he supposedly lived among, preached to, who would've been those who started the ball rolling, started "spreading the good news," etc. There is not a single word about them, anywhere, outside the "New Testament" itself. Doesn't that strike you as rather strange?

Much of the Old Testament's geography is wrong, too. If Moses only took two steps a day, he still would have crossed the desert in less than 40 years

@Gwendolyn2018 Okay, since you're too busy to look into it any further and are inclined to stick with what are to you comfortable assumptions, so be it. It was just very interesting to me to scratch a little below the surface, especially about THIS subject, which was perhaps THE cornerstone of my early "education."
I WOULD point out it takes but a few taps of the keys to get Atwill's thesis thoroughly explained; it no longer requires a trip to the library and a laborious search through the dewey decimal system and the third-floor stacks!
Allow me simply repeat I don't have the time, or inclination, either, to nail down a timeline for you, but it was obviously done by the author to at least a plausible degree.
You mention it farfetched that pagan Roman culture would embrace a monotheistic religion, and I agree, but they DID do just that, did they not? It seems to me it would have had to have been a long, slow process, from it's early introduction to it's eventual adoption, and to assume the fully-formed religion was delivered intact to the doorstep of the Imperial Palace, and not a product of a lengthy synthesis of disparate parts, is the much less viable scenario.
These parts would include extant religions like Mithraism and Zoroastrianism,, as well as ancient mystery religions like that of Horus and others with common themes of virgin births, lecturing as a child to learned men, miracles, resurrection from the dead, etc.
Also Greek influences among many others, Judaism and Roman mythology of course, the list goes on.
So to say Christianity was a SYNTHESIS of all these disparate theological sources, and thus a co-option, of them all, I think is born out in the final result.
Rome was after all one of the more notable "melting pots" of the ancient world, where such a thing could and did take place, especially by 300 AD, when Constantine made his famous "conversion" and formally put Christianity on an equal legal footing. But that was the end RESULT of a long process, and it set into motion the beginning of another long process of winnowing, screening, distillation, what have you, of all the above-mentioned into a formalized Orthodoxy with a self-consistent set of rites, rituals, tenets, beliefs, doctrines, as done in the several later "Councils."
But all of this had to start SOMEWHERE, and to say it did during the time of A Crucifixation of one actual man, or several actual men, assumes there was an identifiable EVENT, a flash point, which ignited a Movement, and there is no evidence of that. You say it "spread," but from what? Nothing was written by these supposed 'founding fathers' about themselves or their beliefs, this during a time they would have had to have been growing and expanding and coming to loggerheads with established "isms" throughout that territory, right? But not a peep of any such thing, no challenge to the local customs, traditions, mores, not a ripple.
Doesn't seem likely to me. If it does to you, fine.
But it seems to me the seminal, required "flashpoint" wasn't there.
What COULD have been the flashpoint, creating the necessary upheaval of the status quo, was the Jewish-Roman War, which culminated in the climatic destruction of the final remnant of the Jewish Zealots at Masada, and with it the era of Messianic would-be revolution, and with THAT of the entire power structure as it had evolved in the Palestinian region up to that point in time.
So if there WAS a specific time of birth of "Christianity, it would have been THEN, not the moment of some supposed Crucifixion.
But you obviously are sticking to the narrative there was a grassroots Movement comprised of women, slaves, and poor people, but where is there ANY proof of that? A coherent theology would have had to coalesce somewhere, somehow, but show me how and where the "promise" of heaven and it's rewards as reparations for mistreatment on earth, came from WITHIN their milieu. It was there in OTHER belief systems endemic to the larger area not immediately related to theirs, but nothing they could have or would have absorbed into their belief system.
I suggest, rather, educated, learned men took that cauldron of religious thought boiling in Rome, and synthesized it into a coherent, self-consistent dogma embodied by a fictitious "leader," into whose mouth they put the words which expressed that admixture in relatable human terms.
And they created a historical context for this savior which did not exist. The pastoral scenes of him and his flock serenely strolling around a peaceful land were impossible. The area was in pre-war turmoil, the uneasy alliance between Jewish and Roman authorities was falling apart, pockets of rebellion were flaring up and being snuffed out on almost a daily basis. The whole scene as concocted by the authors was an artificial one.
Okay I'm going to stop here. Where this all came from, I don't know, and I never intended to go on so long OR to defend any particular point of view. It's just that you're drawing conclusions based on pre-existing assumptions which simply are not supportable, in my opinion, by facts. You are speculating as much, or more so, as anybody else, because the only "facts" we really have to go by, are the ones which by omission SHOULD be there, but are not. Conditions were not the same as they were, say, during the formative years of Judaism. The region in 30 AD was AWASH in historians putting down in writing what was happening on the ground. MANY would-be messiahs were written about, many movements within the very volatile Jewish religion were duly recorded. Any "movement" significant enough to give birth to a religion would not have gone unnoticed, notwithstanding your unfounded certainty that it did.
But think what you will. This too shall pass.

@Gwendolyn2018 Okay look, fine. I've got two degrees from the University of Florida and two years of graduate school and a mediocre career in journalism, but I don't what our resumes have to do with it. You devote as much or as little time to the subject as you wish. It doesn't matter to me.
I am of the firm belief, based on what I've read, that no such historical figure existed. You are of the opinion he not only did, but served as the catalyst for a movement which culminated in the establishment of a religion. I think that's highly unlikely and not substantiated by the fact.
Amen. Let's just conclude this for now by agreeing it's an interesting topic for conversation and leave it at that, shall we? I don't have the inclination to delve back into the details, which is what it would take to enter a full-fledged, point-by-point debate about what is a very complicated subject spanning centuries. Right now, I have $100 on four NFL games, so I'm preoccupied, which I hope you understand. But thanks for the conversation.
Peace.

@Gwendolyn2018 I would only ask you to review your narrative, and look at everything you know about the subject with an open mind and with no pre-conceptions, applying the facts of which you are sure to the propositions, a) no such historical person existed, b) the four "gospels" were written by a person or people not immediately in the company of any of the individuals named and or quoted.
Please ask yourself if there is any proof, outside the "New Testament" itself, that any of the events described in this document actually happened.
Btw, the sparse accounts of the historians Josephus and Tacitus are not controversial "proof," since their information is open to question, since the reliability and substance of their accounts is questionable.

@Gwendolyn2018 I agree that's definitely questionable--not OUT of the question.
MY only real contentions are (and I'm not claiming certainty) a) that there WAS any "movement" started by an "early church" inspired by anybody, b) the "New Testament" was written by people in Israel around that approximate time.
IF that's accurate, who DID, and for what reason?
Notice I'm saying IF.
The obvious answer is the Romans: they had the ability, and (possibly) the motivation. And it is, after all, called the Roman Catholic Church headed by a man they claim is the spiritual descendant of Jesus Christ.
Okay, now I'll let the matter rest.
(I AM a little miffed you didn't even read what I wrote.)

@Gwendolyn2018 And, again, I wasn't writing a research paper or a thesis to be graded! Did you want footnotes too?!?
I was just reading the Wikipedia article on the "historicity of Jesus," and of the four major attempts to establish it, all four failing, and the amazing statement that despite all that, "most scholars" DO agree that the baptism and crucifixion was undoubtedly historical. The evidence? None. BUT if John HADN'T baptized him as claimed, and their fellow Jews called them on it, they would be "embarassed!!!"
Similarly, the crucifixion "had" to be true because those same early Christians (who DEFINITELY existed, of course) wouldn't have mentioned it, if it wasn't true, because it runs so counter to the claim Jesus was God, or the Messiah. THAT'S the "evidence" which positively establishes those two events as definitely historical!!!
And this after it was stated that scholars agreed the "New Testament" is NOT a historical document.
I also went over the extra-biblical references to 'Christ' and "Christians' and it always comes down to Josephus and Tacitus, two very doubtable sources, very brief mentions from people writing well after the supposed time, their contributions either probable redactions inserted later, or based on hearsay. Other than that, obtuse wordage here and there some people claim are references, but only because that's what they want to believe, in the opinion of other critics (like a mention of a "great king" who was murdered and will be avenged).
(Another author, Richard Carrier, has written the best known, most scholarly book about the non-historicity of Jesus,)
So the attempt to label Mythicists as "fringe" because all those scholars "agree" Jesus was undoubtedly an historical figure, DESPITE THE FACT THERE'S NO EVIDENCE to support that certainty, means to me that they are so professionally vested, and perhaps so indoctrinated, in it from early childhood (almost all of them Christians themselves) that they just can't bring themselves to objectively see the truth staring them right in the face.
In my opinion.

@Gwendolyn2018 Well, you've motivated me to more reading and, yes, from what I'm now learning, there were, according to the Mythicist view, early "Christians," BUT, they belonged to a Jewish cult that at first believed only in a SPIRITUAL Christ, not an actual human being. This view holds it was only much later (unknown how much later) it morphed into a belief in a MAN, Jesus, which they then created the myth around. As 'evidence,' they cite Clement I, who the Roman Catholic Church considers the "first pope," who wrote long letters like one in 64 A.D., about "Christ," but never in any of them mentioning New Testament events or "Christ" as an historical figure, but rather as a spirit talking through passages in the Jewish Bible.
So I'll be interested to know more about how they think this played out and especially who they think the people were who wrote it down.
Sorry for extending this out a little farther than you would have liked, but that's it. I'll stop now, I promise.

That makes no sense.

@Storm1752 he almost never makes sense, you get used to it.

@Storm1752, @SnowyOwl i can understand, a lot of people don't understand evolution

@Word what colour is the sky in your world? Just curious.

@SnowyOwl The understanding of a mind virus organism maybe hindered by a mind virus organism in your brain. How logical is a red herring and an obviously obtuse question?

The Liberty Vallance syndrome. "If the legend gets bigger than the reality then print the legend."

I submit no harm in granting existence to the man as a man. It helps to have a base of agreement when then trying to convince a believer that the suffering Deity story is illogical or that, in older Asian religions, it was said that we are all children of God so that is what Jesus was referring to. By starting out with a contention we frame the ensuing conversation in a "you're wrong I'm right" which is doomed to change neither party's opinion. Why do that? What's the logic here?

I do not know if jebus existed in the distant past, but he doesn't exist today.