Yes, and he is the son of God Yes, and he was a normal human being No, Jesus is just a fictional character see voting resultssaving...
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100
User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
4 votes
Oct 9, 2015

We can't be absolutely sure about the existence of a lot of people in antiquity. Records are often spotty (even in sophisticated bureaucracies like the Roman Empire), contemporary accounts limited, and we sure as heck don't have photographs or substantial forensic evidence. Think about how hard it is today on occasions to verify someone's identity, and how easy it is to steal one!

Nonetheless, I think that Yeshua ben Joseph almost undoubtedly existed. While there are definitely doctrinal differences between the Gospel, you see a clear ideology forming. I find it hard to believe that this clear ideology wouldn't have emerged from a single thinker.

Christianity is such a sharp break from Judiasm, in particular, that I happen to believe it's quite likely that Jesus was influenced by Buddhism directly or indirectly. It's nowhere near a certain fact, but there's a lot of remarkable parallels in both ideology and mythology.

If the actual man did not exist and there was no prominent execution by crucifixion (which was reserved by and large for enemies of the state), I think that contemporaries from Jews to Romans would have called the Christians out for this. It is conceptually possible that Jesus was a folk hero or folk prophet like a John Henry, a Paul Bunyan or a Krishna. But there seems to be too much consistency in the accounts of the person being described in the Gospels. This is a historical judgment call when one is reading a text, but it seems that the inconsistencies in the Gospels are more the kind of myths that emerge when people tell stories about a real person.

My view of the matter is that Jesus was a compassionate, moralistic practitioner, steeped in the Kabbalah and possibly Buddhism, who echoed Diogenes and Socrates. He was confrontational and deliberately eccentric to try to get people to focus more on content of deed and heart than on strict compliance with the law. He was clearly an informed rabbi, but he routinely makes arguments that are extreme interpretations to advance his specific concepts. I believe his ideas were very rapidly distorted, as leaders' ideas often are. For example: I highly doubt that Jesus truly believed he was the son of God any more than any other person, or that he was sent to Earth to cleanse sins. Compare this, again, to the Buddha, who was pretty clear that he was not in any way divine and yet is often worshiped by folk Buddhists anyways.

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0
User voted No, Jesus is just a fictional character.
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0 votes,
Sep 15, 2016

I like this guy. Karma points to you.

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User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
0 votes,
Sep 15, 2016

I might need to edit my response to add Aron Ra's point, which I think is implicit in mine but really should be tracked out. Aron Ra points out that, even if there was one guy that we could view as the seed for the core myths, if you told that guy what people said about him and how they depicted him now he'd be flabbergasted. So there is no one historical Jesus: there may have been a guy, Yeshua of Nazareth or a similar figure and maybe even with the same name, but over time lots of other doctrines got added to his preaching.

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100
3 votes
Jul 24, 2015

A qualified yes; I suspect there is something behind the Jesus story because of some of the elements of the tale in the gospels.

If Jesus was a purely mythological figure, the story could simply have had him be born in Bethlehem (this was necessary to fulfill prophecies of the messiah), but instead they had this impossible story of travelling to Bethlehem for a census that historically did not happen, and certainly was never done in that way. This story only seems to exist to explain why he came from Nazareth but could still be the Messiah of prophecy.

I suspect there was a real figure somewhere in the Jesus story, but I don't think the gospels give us an accurate story of his life.

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100
User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
3 votes
Apr 28, 2016

Jesus is more likely to be a philosopher than the son of a god, in my point of view.

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100
User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
1 vote
Oct 12, 2015

As of right now we probable have enough evidence that Jesus did exist and that there was a probably a prophet named Jesus, but during that time there were many prophets Apollonius of Tyana, Dionysus, Zoroaster/Zarathustra, Attis of Phrygia.

So was there a man call Jesus, I'd say yes, son of god, no.

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0
opinion
0 votes
Jun 11, 2016

I'll be completely honest. I don't believe in him because all the crap I'm currently experiencing. If he was indeed real, why didn't he help me during all the tough times I've had? I'm sorry, but if he was, then I would've ended this a long time ago. Why live long enough knowing you suffer every day?

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100
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2 votes,
Jun 11, 2016

So if things were well with you, you would believe he existed at all?

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User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
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0 votes,
Jul 22, 2016

Do you not believe in President Obama's existence because he didn't help you?

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User voted No, Jesus is just a fictional character.
0 votes,
Sep 15, 2016

I believe Obama exists because of strong supporting evidence. The one thing people truly have that makes them believe in God is faith in a ~1900 year old book that has been heavily edited/translated. No faith = no belief that he exists.

I was semi-religious when I was a child since some people in my family are, but I went through some crap that rocked the shaky foundations my faith was built on and I now no longer believe in a god, at least not in the normal way.

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User voted Yes, and he was a normal human being.
0 votes,
Sep 15, 2016

I get the distinction, Alex, but my point is that Ken's argument is ludicrous. Just because someone doesn't help you doesn't mean that the historical person or the religious construct didn't exist. What does imply that is that there is zero evidence of any kind of divine phenomena whatsoever and plenty of counter-evidence against such things.

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