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Anybody know some good websites with unbiased information on who the actual Jesus was?

Quote from: "Sophus"Anybody know some good websites with unbiased information on who the actual Jesus was?

Nope, I've found that pretty hard to come by on the Jesus topic.

I think this thread would make a great dry humour comic.

Most of the historical information we have now can be traced back to biblical sources. I dare say there likely isn't any verifiable information on Jesus of Nazareth that can't be traced back to the Bible or early Christians. It's odd, too, because historical records from that time in Palestine are actually pretty good. We know a lot about government, religion, people, etc. We also know there were a lot of "saviors" at the time, each claiming to be the culmination of Jewish prophecy. Jesus might have been one of them, but simply by another name. It's also possible that the Jesus character is an amalgam of different miracle workers and self-proclaimed saviors of the time. It's probable that he was made up 60 years after the time he was supposedly around.

I'm afraid the answer is that no such website exists because no such information exists.

Are we talking about Paul Bunyan?  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus)

Wiki's not a bad compilation (above).

I personally find it doubtful that Jesus existed at all.
You would think that someone so influential in his time would have some references outside of his believer's writings.
I have heard that even John the Baptist had more non-biblical sources (have to check on that one).

Skeptic at heart,
JoeActor

Well keep in mind that the kind of people interested in keeping those kinds of records at the time were not the type to associate with Jesus.  The world hadn't invented bloggers.

Myself, I find it a more probable explanation to admit that yes, there likely was a jewish teacher in first century Palestine named Jesus who had a following.  Beyond that I am extremely skeptical of him bearing any resemblance to the Jesus presented in the New Testament, but the very fact that so many people so quickly were jumping on the Christian bandwagon makes it hard for me to think he's just a mythical figure.  I think it raises more questions than it answers.

I dunno, a social movement being picked up on isn't really proof of anything other than a group's need for change or a rallying point. Popularity of a figure does not presume existence. Look at Bigfoot.  

Yes but Bigfoot hasn't mobilized anyone to do anything.  Within a generation of Jesus' reported death the Christian movement had reached around the known world, even to Rome, and people were dying for it.

I have no doubt that plenty of the stories surrounding Jesus have been exaggerated or invented.  The whole resurrection myth is the biggest one, and just smacks as far too convenient: he rises from the dead, shows himself to his closest followers, then ascends into heaven so that nobody else can see him.

But I would argue that to have such a strong and immediate following there is likely at least a kernel of truth in it.  Obviously I can't prove the existence of Jesus but I think arguing for his non-existence raises more questions than it answers, and doesn't strike me as the most probable explanation.  I think it's more logical to say there likely was a Jesus, he had a significant and vocal following who spread and exaggerated the stories, and after he was executed by the Romans he took on the form of a near-mythical martyr that people who desperately wanted to believe in given the circumstances in which they lived (under the heel of Roman rule).

The following wasn't immediate. It was 60 years after Jesus' supposed birth and maybe 30-40 years after his supposed ascension that the first documented mention of the Christians occurred (iirc, they were being blamed for terrorism, setting fires and such). Moreover, there was no news media to speak of in that time, so ALL news was word of mouth. I'd bet you 20 pieces of silver that if I were able to get back there, I could start a host of rumors about a supposed savior and those rumors would get traction. The Jews were under Roman control and were second class citizens. They weren't all that wealthy either. It's the perfect opportunity to invent a perfect leader.

But is that explanation more likely than the idea of a popular and charismatic leader gaining a cult following who, after his death, impart upon him god-like attributes?  I just think your theory requires a bit more stretching of the imagination.

Besides, why would they need to invent a messianic-like teacher figure when so many existed?  We know that insurrections in Palestine, specifically around the Galilee region, happened almost every other week.  Self-proclaimed prophets were a dime a dozen.  Roman historians have confirmed this and even the bible mentions a couple by name.  Is it not more likely to say that the group who latched onto one just managed to spread their message more effectively than the others?

Quote from: "Enoch Root"But is that explanation more likely than the idea of a popular and charismatic leader gaining a cult following who, after his death, impart upon him god-like attributes?  I just think your theory requires a bit more stretching of the imagination.

Oh, I don't know about that.  There is some historical evidence for Santa Claus too and there is quite a following of him also.  Heck even the Christians had to get in on it.

It may be in fact the capacity for imagination that enables such minor figures in their time to reach legendary status with later generations.

Quote from: "Enoch Root"But is that explanation more likely than the idea of a popular and charismatic leader gaining a cult following who, after his death, impart upon him god-like attributes?  I just think your theory requires a bit more stretching of the imagination.

It's the other way around. Like I said, the historical record at the time is surprisingly complete. We even know the names of prisoners crucified, and among then was not Yeshua bin Yusuf. Moreover, there's no record of anyone by that name from that time being involved in savioring.

Quote from: "Enoch Root"Besides, why would they need to invent a messianic-like teacher figure when so many existed?

Which is easier, controlling someone you've convinced (or that's convinced on his own) that he's the son of god or writing about it later? I would think it's obvious.

QuoteNope, I've found that pretty hard to come by on the Jesus topic.

Really? I find a lot of fundie "historical proof of Jesus!" websites. I figured there would be some Historians out there arguing the reverse. I've read books on it just can't find any information on the web to refer others to.

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbliggitybloggity.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F04%2Fshroud.jpg&hash=e37fa740fbd381fb081dd3201e36f85563deafd8)

Isn't this enough proof?

I just remembered this video clip I saw a while ago. I didn't see the whole film, but maybe it'll help.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=696492648668420724&ei=h48gSt3_Boi0-QGdweG5Bw&q=the+god+that+wasn%27t+there&hl=en&client=firefox-a

I wrote a 29 page paper for one of my master's courses reviewing the debate on the historicity of the Jesus character.   A great source is Albert Schweitzer's book (pub. 1906) which I used as an introduction to the historicity issue; here's an excerpt of that paper:

QuoteSchweitzer's credentials include receiving a doctorate in religious philosophy from the University of Strasburg, becoming a preacher and being appointed as principle of the theological college associated with his alma mater.    

Embracing the modernist ideals of Hegel’s science of religion which differentiated analyses of religion among component parts -- metaphysical, psychological and historical -- Schweitzer represented an influential 19th century theological movement sometimes referred to as the Tübingen school of thought.  Buttressed by his formidable theological training, he delved into a quest to discover the historical Jesus realizing, as he put it, that there was “no analogue in the field of history [and that] … no historical school [had] ever laid down canons for the investigation of this problem.”    He further surmised that because of the “complexities of the situation,” standard methodologies of historical investigation were “inadequate” and “not immediately applicable;”   Schweitzer asserted that though it would take continuous experimentation to create a system to engage this unique problem, the guiding principle in this quest would “ultimately rest upon historical intuition.”  

Schweitzer saw the problem as inherent in part due to the “nature of the sources” and, as well, because of an imprecise understanding of the religious thinking from which those sources emanated.   Engaging in a critical analysis of New Testament literature, Schweitzer recognized the irreconcilability of historical data between two sets of gospels: the Synoptics -- Mark, Matthew and Luke -- and the Gospel of John, a problem which compelled the decision to utilize one set, but not both, within his methodology.   Problematic too was the lack “of any thread of connection in the material.”   He describes the Synoptics as “collections of anecdotes” and John, in contrast, as a “selection of the events and discourses.”   The product that the historian eventually produces, Schweitzer reckons, is a picture of Jesus with “yawning gaps” that, at best, could be filled with “historical imagination.”   Among the designs of his working methodology was reconciling natural history with narratives of supernatural events; here he agrees with an earlier 19th century theologian, David Friedrich Strauss, that supernatural events such as miracles “have no rightful place in the history, but are simply mythical elements in the sources.”
 
Schweitzer perceived Strauss’s insight as the line of demarcation between two historical phases of the quest.  The earlier, dominated by questions of miracles, had now been put to rest which thus freed the historian’s focus on what Schweitzer saw as the paradigmatic problem of the new phase: the contradiction between Jesus’ messianic consciousness in contrast with his non-messianic discourses and actions.   It was an either/or scenario: Jesus either thought of himself as the Messiah or as a prophet.  Schweitzer asked if the difficulties in explaining Jesus’ historical personality “lie in history itself, or only in the way in which it is represented in the sources.”

Though more of Schweitzer’s work will be explored later in this paper, it is necessary to understand the post-Schweitzer phase by moving his research forward and revealing his conclusion.  Though his quest set out to discover the historical Jesus, his ultimate conclusion was that the Jesus described in the New Testament had never existed; he writes:

  "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed" (478).

Source:  
Scweitzer, Albert.  The Quest of the Historical Jesus: First Complete Edition.  
Translated by W. Montgomery, et al.  Edited by John Bowden.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

What is interesting is that the Wikipedial entry for Schweitzer completely leaves out his seminal conclusion that the Jesus character never existed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer)

If any of you want to go and edit that, I've given you the source and page number of his quote.

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Quote from: "VietnamVet-BRIGHT"I wrote a 29 page paper for one of my master's courses reviewing the debate on the historicity of the Jesus character.   A great source is Albert Schweitzer's book (pub. 1906) which I used as an introduction to the historicity issue;

Thanks for that - I hadn't read any of Schweitzer's views on this topic... fascinating!
JoeActor

Quote from: "joeactor"

Quote from: "VietnamVet-BRIGHT"I wrote a 29 page paper for one of my master's courses reviewing the debate on the historicity of the Jesus character.   A great source is Albert Schweitzer's book (pub. 1906) which I used as an introduction to the historicity issue;

Thanks for that - I hadn't read any of Schweitzer's views on this topic... fascinating!
JoeActor

It's a great read which I'm sure has been pushed to the sidelines of reading lists because of his powerfully argued and "dangerous" conclusion.

I'm sure that it's been an embarrassing situation for Christians of the last 100 years to have to deal with the fact that a brilliant dean of a university theological school and later Nobel Peace Prize recipient concluded that the Jesus character never existed.  

This may be why his conclusion is strategically omitted by whoever inputted data into Wikipedia for Schweitzer.

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Schweitzer comes to the conclusion of Jesus never existing? I thought with all the historical documents that support his existence most historians agreed he did but it was too cloudy to make out any specifics?

I don't think there can be a conclusion that the historical Jesus never existed, but there's no evidence that he existed. Kinda like god, really.

I think the point is that because there's no evidence whatsoever that Jesus existed, certain belief in Jesus cannot be explained by apologists. It has to be another "I just have faith" cop out.

Quote from: "Sophus"Schweitzer comes to the conclusion of Jesus never existing? I thought with all the historical documents that support his existence most historians agreed he did but it was too cloudy to make out any specifics?

There is not one contemporary piece of non-biblical evidence of the Jesus character's existence.  Not one.  

Scweitzer, an evangelical pastor, theologian and dean of a theology college, based his conclusion on the textual analysis of the NT; its gross and irreconciliable inconsistencies led him to conclude that the character was fictional.

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Have you visited the Freethought & Rationalism Discussion Board (http://www.freeratio.org/index.php) (formerly the Internet Infidels Discussion Board)?

In the Biblical Criticism and History Board, there is a wealth of information on the historicity of Jesus.

Any particular threads?

No, I haven't been in a while, but there are a few with lively debate between the camps. I'll look around and see what comes up.

Some of the posters are scholars, and do this for a living. I'll give you some names when I get some more time.