The question is typically described as "the historicity of Jesus". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
There are similar debates for other famous ancient figures.
The general academic consensus on Jesus (and many similar figures) is that they did exist and many of the details have been fictionalized.
Physical proof? No. But if that's the criterion for proof that someone existed, then that mean 90% of historical figures can't be proven to have existed. We don't have the remains of Alexander the Great or any artefacts we can be sure are his. We have no remnants of Plato, none of his original writings remain.
Did a person name Jesus live sometime during the first century AD? Scholars are fairly certain of that. We do have textual evidence other than the bible that points to his existence.
It is highly unlikely that he was anything like the person written about in the bible. He was likely one of many radical apocalyptic prophets of the time.
We don't have too many details about his life but because of something called the criterion of embarrassment we have good reason to believe he was baptized by a man named John the Baptist and was later crucified. (i.e. most burgeoning religions seeking legitimacy don't typically invent stories that are embarrassing to their deity)
Christianity exists. Religions don't tend to spring up from nowhere. Every myth has its nugget of truth. Was there a preacher back then whose followers later spread around the world? Almost certainly. Where else could Christianity have come from?
Was he the son of god though? Was he capable of all the miracles the bible claims? Is the god he preached even real? There is no evidence that the answer to these three questions is anything but no I'm afraid.
What do you mean by physical proof?
Some history is known by digging up physical stones n bones. Some is known by digging up texts.
There are multiple texts dated to the 1st century that all corroborate the story that a person called Jesus was crucified around 33AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus
There most likely were a bunch of people called Yeshua back then.
As far as I know, we simply don't have directly contemporary, first-hand evidence of him. Even the most 'contemporary' accounts of him that still exist were written at least 50 years after he would have died, and those are quite cursory. Perhaps primary sources were lost--or intentionally destroyed when they didn't align with beliefs--or perhaps they never existed. There's not even much evidence for Pontius Pilate (I think one source mentioning that he was recalled to Rome and executed for incompetence?), and there should be, given that he was a Roman official.
People that study the history of the bible--as in, the historical bible, not the bible as a religious text--tend to believe that a historical Jesus existed, even if they don't believe that he was divine.
IMO, the most likely explanation is that Jesus was yet another in a long-line of false messiahs, and was summarily executed by Rome for trying to start yet another rebellion. Since cult members tend to be unable to reconcile reality with their beliefs, they could have reframed their beliefs to say that he was a spiritual messiah, rather than a physical messiah.
I have said this many times-
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if there was a "real" Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that is worshiped is an impossibility. A fiction. His life is full of details that defy basic biological and physical laws. On top of that, nothing he supposedly said was written down at the time, so we have no idea if what is recorded to have been his sayings in the Bible are things he actually said.
I always relate it to Ian Fleming having a schoolchum who's father's name was Ernst Stavro Bloefeld. So was there a real Ernst Stavro Bloefeld? Yes. Was he a supervillain fighting the world's greatest secret agent? No.
I'm by no means an expert but I was briefly obsessed with comparative religion over a decade ago and I don't think anyone has given a great answer, I believe my answer is correct but I don't have time for research beyond checking a couple of details.
As a few people have mentioned there is little physical evidence for even the most notable individuals from that time period and it's not reasonable to expect any for Jesus.
In terms of literary evidence there is exactly 1 historian who is roughly contemporary and mentions Jesus. Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus mentions him twice, once briefly telling the story of his crucifixion and resurrection. The second is a mention in passing when discussing the brother of Jesus delivering criminals to be stoned.
I think it is reasonable to conclude that a Jewish spiritual leader with a name something like Jesus Christ probably existed and that not long after his death miracles are being attributed to him.
It is also worth noting the historical context of the recent emergence of Rabbinical Judaism and the overabundance of other leaders who were claimed to be Messiahs, many of whom we also know about primarily(actually I think only) from Josephus.
No, and that is to even be expected.
He was a prophet whose movement had around 120 or so core disciples along with his apostles, plus thousands who followed him about and considered him a healer and revolutionary teacher.
There are people who have done similar things that are completely lost to history other than small records that vaguely outline the controversy surrounding them... We shouldn't really expect more in terms of proof...
But what is unique is the fact that we have an extremely well preserved corpus of text surrounding him. We also have some good idea that a lot of his followers were prosecuted and killed, and never recanted in the process, which might incline you to believe in the radical truth that they lived by.
Of course I am biased - I am a Christian - but it really does just seem pointlessly antagonistic to dismiss His Existence at all.
The thing is that compared to other historical people we kid of have similar evidence. Like we have records of Socrates existing and we have records of some Joshua existing.
The difference is that nobody claims that Socrates was a fantastical god being who defied death, which is a extraordinary claim, we just say he was a very smart guy, we se very smart guys on a daily basis, nothing special with that so we can just believe it and even if we are wrong it has no real life implications.
For the Joshua guy, that's quite a different story. The claims about him are extraordinary and need extraordinary evidence. But we only have normal evidence. If the claims about him were true it would contradict almost everything we think we know about the universe, how it behaves, etc.
So again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
No, there's barely any physical evidence that anyone a few hundred years ago existed.
But if writing is enough, there are some. Tacitus basically said: "Nero blamed the Christians, followers of that Guy called Jesus who Pilatus executed a few decades ago."
Wikipedia at least says both his Baptism and crucifixion are not disputed by historians.
That's not the real question though. The real question is rather are there any "real physical proof" that Jesus had literally anything special that is in itself being the "son of God" or anything related to religion.
Anybody (sadly) can be crucified, especially during a period where it is trendy. Anybody can walk through part of the desert. Anybody can organize a meal, give a speech, etc.
Even if it's done exceptionally well, that does not make it special in the sense of being the proof of anything religious. We all have friends with unique talents, and social media helped us discovered that there are so many more of those around the entire world, but nobody in their right mind would claim that because Eminem can sing words intelligibly faster than the vast majority of people he is the son of "God".
I also read a book about a decade ago (unfortunately didn't write down notes about it so can't find the name back) on the history of religion, from polytheism to monotheism, and it was quite interesting. If I remember correctly one way to interpret it was through the lens of religions maintaining themselves over time and space, which could include growing to a sufficient size in terms of devout adepts. The point being that veracity was not part of the equation.
No, there isn't. Nor is there proof of moses
There's a bunch of old texts about a Jewish "prophet" called Jesus, who was gathering some followers. As far as I understand, there's no really reason not to believe the person existed.
Then again, all the Jesus lore, there's no reason to believe his miracles were real as those made no sense and there's no real proof besides those same texts written after Jesse's death
There had to be multiple Rabbi rabblerousers in Roman occupied Judea. Pick one.
It seems like the consensus is that the stories probably stem from a real guy because that's deemed more likely than no person existing as a basis for the story, but no, there is not material evidence for jesus christ's existence
Nope. But that's also not as big a deal as a lot of folks make it.
Also, he's far from the only important(?) historical(?) figure we can't prove ever existed.
The answers here are absolutely crazy. Go find some credible biblical scholars (ones whose jobs are not dependent on statements of faith) like Bart ehrman and read what they say. My understanding is that most scholars agree that Jesus existed, and even that he was crucified. Don't trust lemmy, don't even trust me, go find the experts, read what they say, and decide for yourself.
Jesus never led an army or ruled a country, so we cannot have coins bearing His face or remnants of an army, etc. However, there is plenty of physical proof of the early Church. There is evidence of pilgrimages to Bethlehem early on and Jerusalem as well, such as the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is a plausible candidate for Jesus' actual tomb.
The only physical proof you can have of a person that lived before photography is a body. So no, Jesus did not have a publically marked grave and we do not have his bones.
That being said, there is a difference between proving something historically and proving it in the court of law. Historical evidence points to Jesus having been a person that lived around that time.
Yes there is, here is his mugshot shortly after he was booked. Looks like he spent the evening turning water into wine.
There's the Talpiot Tomb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_Tomb
It might not be him but also it might.
https://www.history.com/news/was-jesus-real-historical-evidence
Tl;dr: No.
My opinion: It's a nice story. And with stories the most important thing is what it teaches us or makes us feel. Not that it's true. Maybe they took inspiration from several preaching hippies who lived back then and made one story out of that. Exaggerated everything and made stuff up. Probably all of it because the bible was't even written close to his supposed lifetime. It'd be like you now writing a story about a dude who died in
1870. Without any previous records to get information from. [Edit: The first things have probably been written down like 40-50 years after his death.]And I mean if Jesus existed, he would certainly disapprove of what people do (and did) in his name.
Nope
Nope.
There is The Great Isaiah Scroll from before Jesus which contains prophecies about Jesus
No.
There’s lots of ambiguous information. There is no firsthand, historically agreed upon data that supports his existence in the form we know him today. In other words, there was no magical guy doing magical things.
There is no Roman record of “nailed 3 prisoners to the posts today; Bill, Roger, and Jesus the magic guy who was a pain in the ass.”
However, like Arthurian Legend, it doesn’t mean some guy like Jesus didn’t exist, or an aggregate of characters weren’t assembled to be him on story. Arthur was possibly just a chieftain of a group who fought a couple of hefty battles and made a name for himself, but he ended up being an almost magical figure with wizards and witches in the story and - guess what, he will “rise again” from the dead when needed. And no, rising from the dead isn’t owned by Christian religious figures, Osiris of Egypt did it, Dionysius of the Greek Pantheon among many others. So maybe some dude, who probably wasn’t named Jesus, caused a stir and got a few people to take note. That grew over hundreds and even thousands of years to what we have now.
Want to know why King Arthur isn’t a competitor to Jesus? He a) doesn’t offer the opportunity to control people in this life for the hope of an afterlife, b) he isn’t profitable.
Lee Strobel (former athirst, investigative journalist) wrote a book titled The Case For Christ.
His goal was to write the difinive work on proving that Jesus wasn't who the Christians claim him to be. It backfired on him and he became a Christian.(See below comment from @weststadtgesicht with a more accurate quote.)
If you're wanting to read more on this topic, definitely read both sides and determine which has the stronger case. But the Strobel book seems to be well researched and well written, at least to me.
He was created by Roman elites in order to divide the Jews and get them to pay taxes.
Before Jesus, many people were sanctified in the flesh in this way.Later, Jesus imitated the practices of his predecessors and added hype, and he became a legend after his death.
Even if there was undeniable, irrefutable scientific evidence that Jesus not only existed but was also the son of God, people still wouldn't worship him.
No, Jesus never existed. He is a fictional character.
It is said that the foreskin of Jesus still exists...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Prepuce
For all I know it could be just an ancient dried up piece of bacon 🤷♂️
The only evidence of Jesus, is a few random mentions of someone named Jesus.
And it wasn't exactly a rare name.
Like, if I found written evidence of a dude named Paul, that doesn't mean Paul Bunyan was real.
It just means some dude named Paul was real.
All the crazy claims about being a Messiah wasnt until long after he was dead.
I'm not sure what you'd expect to see regarding physical proof but I'd say probably not much. Maybe there's something in an ancient bible?
