Talk:Jesus Christ

Atheists denying existence of historical Jesus?

I seriously challenge this and would like to see some evidence for it. As the article correctly notes, the historical evidence for the life of Jesus of Nazareth is very good. Dpbsmith 06:08, 22 February 2007 (EST)

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The article still says "Occasionally someone denies the existence of Jesus, but few scholars take this seriously." No source is cited. Who, exactly, denies the existence of an historical Jesus of Nazareth? If this belief is widely held someone, somewhere ought to have published something about it and the publication ought to be cited.

There's no need to introduce this section with a straw man. Dpbsmith 21:24, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Want confirmation of this? Go to this section of Wikipedia's article on Jesus. It's true that some people deny his existence. It's not a widely held belief; it's only held by a small, and I do emphasize small, minority. Scorpionman 11:17, 7 March 2007 (EST)

If you think there is a small minority of people in the world that deny the existence of Jesus then you need to get out of the house a bit more.

When using Wikipedia as confirmation of a fact, I try to follow the trail of cited sources. In this case, the trail leads to Wikipedia's article on Historicity of Jesus, thence to a footnote, which quotes the source as saying

The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.

I don't think "Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted" supports the statement that "a small minority [of scholars] argue that Jesus never existed as a historical figure..." Neither of the Wikipedia articles names any scholars, or anyone else, who hold that Jesus of Nazareth was not a real figure in history.

I still will think it's a straw man unless someone produces some reasonably mainstream, reasonably modern examples of people challenging the historicity of Jesus. Wikipedia's neutrality policy says you can include "facts about opinions" when the opinions are reasonably widely held. I think the idea of there not being an historical Jesus of Nazareth is so rarely held that it is not worth mentioning. Dpbsmith 11:48, 7 March 2007 (EST)

I think you have serious defintional issues here that may alter whether or not this is at all a commonly held view. For example, do we mean that Jesus is a figure made up out of whole cloth? I don't think anyone seriously argues for that. Do we mean that he is a historical figure but many details of other preachers at the time got glommed onto his life-story? Many more would agree with this. Do we mean that Jesus is a compilation of the lives of a variety of people from that time period and one of their names happened to stick? I think you would get a lot for this last one. So when denying historicity you need to be very careful what you mean. JoshuaZ 14:15, 7 March 2007 (EST)

OK. Originally I was commenting on the phrase "Many atheists claim that there is no evidence of Jesus outside the Bible." That has since been softened to "Occasionally someone denies the existence of Jesus." I was, indeed, interpreting this to mean "invented in whole cloth."

If the article were editable I'd propose simply excising the sentence "Occasionally someone denies the existence of Jesus, but few scholars take this seriously" since I don't see that it adds anything to the section. Presumably a finished section would make it clear which details of the Gospel accounts are widely accepted by scholars as historical and which are debated. Dpbsmith 12:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

The evidence presented so far in the article is hardly compelling. It needs to be expanded, or the assertion that "few scholars take this seriously" will need to be qualified. --John 22:52, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Locked

Can someone unlock this article? It needs more information. Scorpionman 11:21, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Apparently... the key to unlocking this page is true faith.

The very fact that this article is locked means I'm leaving this website and never returning again.

Josephus

The line about Josephus is misleading and false. No doubt you refer to the "Testimoniam Flavianum," in which Josephus trumpets Jesus as the messiah for one paragraph, and then moves on. It's worth noting that the TF is not believed by any serious scholars, and has been shown to be a forgery added by medieval monks... note that this does *NOT* undercut the importance of Jesus at all! He was barely known in his time, and the fact that Josephus wouldn't write about him is unsurprising. Josephus was known to be an anti-revolutionary who hated all the messianic figures of his time, and won his fame by being the lone Jew to decry them...

Worth mentioning?

Excuse me, but do you think it's worth mentioning that Jesus was probably Jewish? He merely provided the foundation of Christianity.

Jewish? Jewish? He was the Son of God, for pete's sake (sorry, nearly used the other, rather more obvious expression)! Haven't you seen all those pictures of him with the fair hair and blue eyes? And so, with Joseph not being his father an' all, he can only have been half-Jewish at best, can he? (pardon my irony!) So it's no wonder, is it, that, thanks largely to Paul, the poor Jews can't make head or tail of what Christians have managed to do with him - let alone with their scriptures!--Petrus 12:55, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Matrilineal descent is what counts, I believe. Tsumetai 13:00, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Wouldn't that be racist? --Luke-Jr 13:02, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

That's funny - I could have sworn that Matthew traces his descent through his father (or rather through the man who allegedly wasn't his father in the first place) while Luke does the same, but citing an incompatible number of generations and entirely different names! (pardon my irony again!) --Petrus 13:11, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

The two theories are:

1) St. Joseph was adopted, and one lineage is legal heritage

2) One lineage is that of Our Lady, and the other of St. Joseph

--Luke-Jr 13:13, 13 March 2007 (EDT)