Talk:Historicity of Jesus

Jesus as myth

In the opening sentence "The existence of Jesus as a historical figure has been questioned by biblical scholars and historians" I remove "historians", because AFAIK today there aren't historians supporting the jesus myth theory, so the sentence was misleading. Any feedback is welcome. --F.giusto (talk) 23:03, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

... and I changed it completely. The question is "Did Jesus exist?" not "Is the evidence that Jesus existed reliable?" That is the context of the question, but NOT the question. I've phrased the question succinctly and added the reason why it is a question (the "historically reliable and accurate" question about the evidence). projectphp (talk) 02:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction in the lead section

Today, the lead section include the following contradiction:

• The majority of scholars who study early Christianity believe that the Gospels do contain some reliable information about Jesus,
• a majority of modern critical biblical scholars no longer believe this is the case.

As I understand the issue at hand there are three schools of thought:

1. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who lived and died in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.
2. Jesus was the founder of Christianity.
3. Jesus is a myth, legend or literary device used by Paul and the apostles in their teachings.

It was my understanding that Number 2 (Jesus was the founder of Christianity) was the majority opinion held by historical scholars at universities everywhere. That this opinion is common among secular academics, religious academics and atheist academics. It seems to me that whenever I pick up a survey history of the world, Jesus Christ is listed among the movers and shakers of the first century. It was my understanding the Number 3 above (Jesus is a myth) was a relatively new scholarly hypothesis, slowly gaining ground chiefly among atheists. One way or the other, it seems that these points (at least) should be clear in the lead section. -ErinHowarth (talk) 19:07, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The first is not relevant, as it's a purely religious belief. Dylan Flaherty 19:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The ....majority of modern critical biblical scholars no longer believe this is the case. is referring to the issue of authorship of gospels. So, there is no contradiction.-Civilizededucation^talk 00:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The third school of thought (which is not new) is not relevant, too. Born in the 1800s, it's not backed by historians (no difference among believers and non believers) because of lack of supporting evidence. Today there is also a growing confidence on the use of apocryphal texts and the availability of archaeological data. This school of thought can anyway be interesting as a pure philosophical hypothesis (methodologically, we cannot be absolutely sure of anything about the past). --F.giusto (talk) 23:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If three is wrong, then we need four: there is little to no evidence Jesus existed, and not in a form anyone would recognize as Jesus - projectphp (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Number two is irrelevant. Paul, if he existed, was the founder of the Church. Paul did not meet Jesus in flesh. Paul started to witness about a Jesus who should have lived at the same time, even if there had to be a dozen disciples and literally thousands of living witnesses of Jesus in flesh. Why did Paul have to front the Church? According to Ellegard Jesus had already been dead one hundred years when Paul established his religious campaign. Ellegards description fits the myth better than the description taught by the Church. St.Trond (talk) 21:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

If he existed? At any rate, Paul's letters make clear that there was a Christian community already in existence before his own conversion. john k (talk) 01:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if two and three are mutually exclusive. Might there have been some sort of Jesus, who perhaps was a charismatic leader of a small sect of Jews, who died (or so it was reputed) at the hands of the authorities in Jerusalem. As such he served as the foundation Christainity (without, necessarily, founding anything more than a community of associates, if that). The Jesus of Chritianity as it developed and became an organised, established religion over the next two centuries, however, was largely mythological. His story a combination of preexisting, common, if not universal, myths, shrewd confabulation, and not disinterested surmise cobbled together and refined into a cannon of scripture and associated forms of worship with several branches and interpretations, with much to dispute and elaborate on. The unifying organising principle being that of the Roman Empire, early Christianity benefited from the hierarchy and authority inherent in its structure to cement, and further distill, its scriptures and doctrine into a strong edifice and successful.

Too Many Links

The starting paragraph has too many links strung together. There is no way that the links relate directly to the quote, and it distracts from the point. A user shouldn't have to wade through 10 links to see whether or not is supports the statement. Instead, each point should have a link e.g. Jesus was regarded as teacher[link] and healer[link], that he was baptized by John the Baptist[link] etc etc. projectphp (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Definition of the article

Can we find a reference for the definition of "historicity of Jesus" instead of entering whatever we think it's right? MoeDew (talk) 19:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Opening sentece, I turned back to 22 December version. Let's avoid edit wars and enjoy dialogue. Thank you. --F.giusto (talk) 23:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

We were having a discussion thank you very much. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Some quick on-line dictionary definitions of "historicity":

1. Farlex Free Dictionary - "historical authenticity" [1]
2. Merriam Webster - "historical actuality" [2]
3. Babylon Online dictionary - "quality of actually having occurred; quality of being factual" [3]
4. Reverso English Dictionary - "historical authenticity" [4]

My (serious) problem with using a definition limited to "existence" is that the mainstream agree that somebody named Jesus existed in that place and time, but there is major disagreement about how much of what the gospels say about him is true. If we limit this article to the mere existence of somebody who was "sort-of Jesus-like", then we are merely arguing existence vs non-existence, which is the basis of the Jesus myth theory article. The basis of this article is to examine the extent to which Jesus of Nazareth really did exist as described in the Bible, i.e. virgin birth to resurrection with miracles in between. Its not at all the same thing as "mere existence". Wdford (talk) 18:06, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

One problem with saying that the historicity of Jesus concerns how much that is written about him is reliable is that it seems false at first sight. I'd be inclined to think it means whether Jesus existed or not as Moe Dew and others have suggested. But on closer inspection, if Jesus didn't exist, then who is this Jesus we are talking about? The question becomes meaningless, since you cannot identify a non-existent person other than by referring to a body of literature, legend etc. The obvious reference point is the New Testament. Maybe we could say that the historicity of Jesus is the question of whether the Jesus described in the Gospels was a historical person. Not everything said in the Gospels has to be perfectly historically accurate in order to affirm the historicity of Jesus. In addition, the Gospels are not the only sources. In a very real sense the question of the historicity of Jesus is therefore at least very closely related to the question of how much that is written about Jesus is historically accurate. Nevertheless that remains a jarring and clumsy way of introducing the subject to the reader. I think Projectphp found a very good solution to this dilemma and I would propose we accept it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:20, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The Jesus myth theory article only focuses on the "non-existence" theory. It is perfectly common to have a main article on an issue and the other articles detailing each side. Nevertheless, would it not be a good idea to have a source for the definition instead of simply entering what we think is right?MoeDew (talk) 19:09, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph on Historicity of Paul

This entire paragraph has numerous POV issues, no sources, and apparently some original conclusions, so I excised it:

But there are also doubts as to the historicity of Paul who appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events. The popular image of the saint is selectively crafted from two sources: the Book of Acts and the Epistles which bear his name. Yet the two sources actually present two radically different individuals and two wildly divergent stories. There is also the point that when Paul was said to be persecuting Christians, it is accepted that there were very few Christians anywhere so they were ignored by all.

71.95.197.94 (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

"But there are also doubts as to the historicity of Paul"

Yeah, ok.

Please sign your comments and get an RS. Thanks.-Civilizededucation^talk 01:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)