What counts as a historical Jesus?

[HansMustermann]

Sure. If you discard the miracles, then at best we are left with an ordinary man for whom others (at least) were in the habit of trying to deceive people by claiming all sorts of impossible miracles.

On the other hand if you believe in religious miracles, then that's not exactly scientifically credible any more, is it.

To me that does not sound like a credible basis on which to have built a worldwide religion. Though the faithful millions still seem to believe it nevertheless.

I think it's actually worse.

If you eliminate

- all the miracles,

- all the smart aleck answers that wouldn't have worked that way in a theocracy (E.g., when the accusation about Roman coins is exactly idolatry and violating the rule against human images, "well, see, it's ok because it has the Emperor's face on it" would be exactly the wrong answer. It's like going to a Greenpeace rally against nuclear power and having your answer be, "well, at least it kills a lot of those annoying animals when it goes boom.")

- all the stuff that overtly enact some symbolical point,

- all the stuff where people suddenly forget who he is, or where someone just suddenly accepts Jesus's authority, without any real reason to,

- all the stuff that boils down to, "meh, Jews are just evil pricks who wanted to spite God",

... etc ...

... then you're not actually left with much about that mundane man.

Heck, even just eliminating the miracles alone gets rid of more than many people would assume, because a lot of that stuff is actually setting the stage for the miracle or for Jesus delivering his pointed answer. If you remove the reason it's there, then, for example, was he even at a certain wedding, if he DIDN'T turn water into wine? If he didn't feed the multitudes abroad, then did a poor carpenter and his unemployed pals actually travel abroad? What reason we have to take that if someone was lying or transcribing made-up stuff about a miracle, the place and time and scene setup for that made up stuff are nevertheless correct and accurate historical information about a character?

And if the retorts that amount to blasphemy weren't actually said by him, then was there really a gang of Pharisees hell-bent on hounding someone who's nothing more than yet another unimportant preacher?

The story gets awfully thin.

Not that it would help even if we leave those settings in, because most of them become mundane stuff that could apply just as well to just about any other male from the area. E.g., sure, we have a Jesus who once went to some wedding or another (and didn't do any miracles), same as just about anyone else who wasn't a complete recluse. E.g., sure, he was to the temple in Jerusalem around passover (and didn't singlehandedly clear it of moneychangers), i.e., did a pilgrimage that lots and lots and lots of other people did. E.g., sure, he must have been at a funeral once (and he didn't raise the dead), same as everyone else who's lived long enough in any community. Etc.

It just becomes a generic Joe.

 

[davefoc]

This thread is disintegrating into a repetition of all that has come before.

Evidence has been put forth for and against the existence of Nazareth. Maybe the two sides could be left to resolve that issue to the degree possible before we start rehashing every HJ thread that has come before this one?

 

[IanS]

This thread is disintegrating into a repetition of all that has come before.

Evidence has been put forth for and against the existence of Nazareth. Maybe the two sides could be left to resolve that issue to the degree possible before we start rehashing every HJ thread that has come before this one?

Well the original question was "what counts as a historical Jesus" ... I don't think the existence or otherwise of Nazareth is actually directly on that topic is it?

Nazareth seems to me as much of a sideline, in fact more of a sideline, than the rather more fundemenatl question of whether Jesus even existed.

On topic - I said earlier that I suppose what counts as a historical Jesus would be that the person existed more-or-less as described in the Bible (perhaps without the miracles). Which is possible … after all there were apparently lots of preachers in that region at that time.

 

[pgwenthold]

Well the original question was "what counts as a historical Jesus" ... I don't think the existence or otherwise of Nazareth is actually directly on that topic is it?

Nazareth seems to me as much of a sideline, in fact more of a sideline, than the rather more fundemenatl question of whether Jesus even existed.

I disagree. I think it directly concerns the question of "what counts..." For example, if this supposed Jesus is from Nazareth, but Nazareth has no resemblance to what is described in the bible, does that count as a historical Jesus or not?

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

According to Wikipedia, before the 4th cent. AD, all that is known of any gospels are just some fragments. It specifically says this -

Right, IanS - 'been doing this since 2003.

Probably the most important marker is the Pliny-Trajan correspondence in 112 CE. Mark was not in circulation at this time, or else Pliny's investigation of Christianity would have uncovered it.

... and when you are left with an ordinary man, there is no "Big Bang" (Jesus) origin to Christianity. That's why there is no Jesus in Christianity as of 112 CE. Because all that exists is a Christ concept. They do a whole communal meal as the "Eucharist" at that time. But nobody named Jesus exists for them.

To understand early Christianity, the most important thing of all to do is reject this cancer, this great pox upon the field: the assumption of a historical Jesus. Because that means every single piece of evidence becomes Christian Apologetics instead of understanding it. All these posts, seemingly so erudite, are deck chairs on the academic titanic when you start with begging the question.

 

[maximara]

Well the original question was "what counts as a historical Jesus" ... I don't think the existence or otherwise of Nazareth is actually directly on that topic is it?

Nazareth seems to me as much of a sideline, in fact more of a sideline, than the rather more fundemenatl question of whether Jesus even existed.

On topic - I said earlier that I suppose what counts as a historical Jesus would be that the person existed more-or-less as described in the Bible (perhaps without the miracles). Which is possible … after all there were apparently lots of preachers in that region at that time.

I agree that Nazareth is a side line. "Refuting Missionaries" by Hayyim ben Yehoshua argues that Notzri at best could refer to the Notzrim sect known to exist as far back a 100 BCE so you could still have a Historical Jesus who never set foot in the town Nazareth with the "Nazareth" being a corruption of the sect he belonged to.

 

[maximara]

This thread is disintegrating into a repetition of all that has come before.

Evidence has been put forth for and against the existence of Nazareth. Maybe the two sides could be left to resolve that issue to the degree possible before we start rehashing every HJ thread that has come before this one?

This is mainly because the apologists and pro-HJ supporters have strawmanned what the Christ Myth theory really is.

(John) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus, perhaps more than one, having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels.

1. The Jesus of the Talmud, who was stoned and hanged over a century before the traditional date of the crucifixion, may really have existed and have contributed something to the tradition.

2. An historical Jesus may have "preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and . . . thereby met his death "; and Christian writers concerned to conciliate the Romans may have suppressed the facts.

3. Or a Galilean faith-healer with a local reputation may have been slain as a human sacrifice at some time of social tumult; and his story may have got mixed up with the myth.

4. The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility (ie that a flesh and blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account. What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded.

(Robertson, Archibald (1946) Jesus: Myth Or History)

This view (Christ Myth theory) states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes...

(International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J 1982 by Geoffrey W. Bromiley)

Note neither of these say that the Jesus the man didn't exist. In fact if you actually read Drews, Robertson, etc you get a very different picture of what they are arguing from what the apologists are claiming. They are not arguing that Jesus the man (Resmburg's Jesus of Nazareth) didn't exist but the Jesus of Christianity and the Bible (Resmburg's Jesus of Nazareth) didn't exist.

Here are some more nails in this nonsense that the Christ Myth theory is the idea Jesus the man didn't exist:

"My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" (Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion, Volume 9 pg 412)

"I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus." (Schweitzer (1931) Out of My Life and Thought page 125)

Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd put Wells Jesus Myth and Jesus Legend in the Jesus Myth Cataory even though he accepts a historical Jesus being behind the Q Gospel in those books!


No one is arguing that Jesus the man didn't exist. What they are all arguing that the Jesus of the Bible and Christianity didn't exist.

It would be like some 2,000 years from now someone argued that the Davy Crockett in the story of "Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn" wasn't historical. That doesn't mean there wasn't a Davy Crockett but rather the Davy Crockett in that story who used the grease of the bear he had killed to unfreeze the dawn and so saved us all didn't exist. In essence this story of Davy Crockett "is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes." Yes the man existed but the story of that man in this instance is total fiction.


While Remsburg accepted that there was a historical Jesus he also emphatically said that the Jesus of the Bible and Christianity was 'an impossible character who does not exist'

I'm sorry for all the hilites but as long as we let the apologists peddle this strawman version of what the Christ Myth theory really is we can't really get over the starting line.

 

[IanS]

I think it's actually worse.

If you eliminate

- all the miracles,

- all the smart aleck answers that wouldn't have worked that way in a theocracy (E.g., when the accusation about Roman coins is exactly idolatry and violating the rule against human images, "well, see, it's ok because it has the Emperor's face on it" would be exactly the wrong answer. It's like going to a Greenpeace rally against nuclear power and having your answer be, "well, at least it kills a lot of those annoying animals when it goes boom.")

- all the stuff that overtly enact some symbolical point,

- all the stuff where people suddenly forget who he is, or where someone just suddenly accepts Jesus's authority, without any real reason to,

- all the stuff that boils down to, "meh, Jews are just evil pricks who wanted to spite God",

... etc ...

... then you're not actually left with much about that mundane man.

Heck, even just eliminating the miracles alone gets rid of more than many people would assume, because a lot of that stuff is actually setting the stage for the miracle or for Jesus delivering his pointed answer. If you remove the reason it's there, then, for example, was he even at a certain wedding, if he DIDN'T turn water into wine? If he didn't feed the multitudes abroad, then did a poor carpenter and his unemployed pals actually travel abroad? What reason we have to take that if someone was lying or transcribing made-up stuff about a miracle, the place and time and scene setup for that made up stuff are nevertheless correct and accurate historical information about a character?

And if the retorts that amount to blasphemy weren't actually said by him, then was there really a gang of Pharisees hell-bent on hounding someone who's nothing more than yet another unimportant preacher?

The story gets awfully thin.

Not that it would help even if we leave those settings in, because most of them become mundane stuff that could apply just as well to just about any other male from the area. E.g., sure, we have a Jesus who once went to some wedding or another (and didn't do any miracles), same as just about anyone else who wasn't a complete recluse. E.g., sure, he was to the temple in Jerusalem around passover (and didn't singlehandedly clear it of moneychangers), i.e., did a pilgrimage that lots and lots and lots of other people did. E.g., sure, he must have been at a funeral once (and he didn't raise the dead), same as everyone else who's lived long enough in any community. Etc.

It just becomes a generic Joe.

Ha, ha (smiles), well if we are talking about the story being "actually worse" than I previously described, then I think it's actually even worse than you described! In fact quite severly worse. Here's why ...

... as you say, many of the non-miraculous passages in the gospels appear to be just providing a realistic setting for the miracles to come. But the only reason we know about any of that is because it says so in the gospels ... gospels which are unashamedly devotional religious eulogies written by unknown authors, who clearly did not actually witness any of these events themselves, but who instead were merely reporting what they had apparently been told about the events by other unnamed sources, who were apparently describing things believed to have happened at some unspecified time in the past, involving a claimed messiah figure who had apparently also died at some unspecified time in the past!

That is a chain of "evidence" so absurdly flawed that it would be hard to imagine constructing such an unreliable set of accounts if you tried!

 

[IanS]

I disagree. I think it directly concerns the question of "what counts..." For example, if this supposed Jesus is from Nazareth, but Nazareth has no resemblance to what is described in the bible, does that count as a historical Jesus or not?

OK, well perhaps it's a matter of opinion. But I don't see how it would count against a historical Jesus just because the detail of any particular location was wrong, or wrongly named.

Whereas it certainly would count against him if he did not even exist lol!

Actually, in his book Ellegard (1) explains at some length why the whole idea of a place called "Nazareth" may be a later misreading or misunderstanding in the gospels, of what was earlier described in the 3rd cent. BC "Septuagint", as " naziraious", which he says actually just meant "holy" or "separated as holy" .


1. A. Ellegard; Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ; Century publ, 1999.

 

[HansMustermann]

Ha, ha (smiles), well if we are talking about the story being "actually worse" than I previously described, then I think it's actually even worse than you described! In fact quite severly worse. Here's why ...

... as you say, many of the non-miraculous passages in the gospels appear to be just providing a realistic setting for the miracles to come. But the only reason we know about any of that is because it says so in the gospels ... gospels which are unashamedly devotional religious eulogies written by unknown authors, who clearly did not actually witness any of these events themselves, but who instead were merely reporting what they had apparently been told about the events by other unnamed sources, who were apparently describing things believed to have happened at some unspecified time in the past, involving a claimed messiah figure who had apparently also died at some unspecified time in the past!

That is a chain of "evidence" so absurdly flawed that it would be hard to imagine constructing such an unreliable set of accounts if you tried!

Well, obviously that too.

 

[HansMustermann]

OK, well perhaps it's a matter of opinion. But I don't see how it would count against a historical Jesus just because the detail of any particular location was wrong, or wrongly named.

Whereas it certainly would count against him if he did not even exist lol!

Actually, in his book Ellegard (1) explains at some length why the whole idea of a place called "Nazareth" may be a later misreading or misunderstanding in the gospels, of what was earlier described in the 3rd cent. BC "Septuagint", as " naziraious", which he says actually just meant "holy" or "separated as holy" .


1. A. Ellegard; Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ; Century publ, 1999.

Well, it depends on what you count as historical, I guess. If the mere existence of a crucified guy who may not have even been actually called Jesus until after he died, and may not have done any of that, is a "historical Jesus", then the bar is so low that obviously one existed. In fact some tens if not hundreds of thousands existed. The Romans kinda loved making scarecrows out of rebels and disobedient slaves

For me, though, and I gather for Maximara and a few other people, though, for someone to count as the historical Superman, he must be in some way like the Superman character in the comics. And for someone to count as the historical Batman, well, at the very least he'd have to be a rich guy with a bat suit and who actually fights crime. And it would also help if there was any indication that the author actually knew about that stuff and based Batman on that guy.

That's kinda what I'd expect from anyone to be called the historical version of the man-god Jesus Christ too. There's so much stuff peddled as authoritative just because he comes from some figure like Jesus Christ or Confucius or Buddha or whatever, not because of what it actually says or any rationale behind it, or you see Jesus given as some kind of role-model even if he wasn't divine, that I'd like to know not just whether just some random dude called Jesus existed (and, sure, just count the different Jesuses in Josephus) but whether a guy existed that actually said and did any of that stuff.

Basically, if we happened to find a journalist called Clark Kent, who lived, let's say, somewhere around the start of the 20'th century, would he count as the historical Superman? I'll take a guess you'd find it absurd if I said that that shows there's a historical Superman.

Or, as my standard example, is Lovecraft's mom the historical Mad Arab Abdul Al Hazred? I mean, we know he based the name on her maiden name. We don't even have to guess like for Paul's Jesus. We know pretty well where that Al Hazred comes from.

Well, those are easy because it's slightly different names, so most people have no problem accepting that someone called Hazard and someone called Al Hazred are different, even if the latter name is based on the former.

But let's say is Alice Liddel really the historical Alice In Wonderland? Personally I say no. If she didn't actually do anything even remotely similar to what's in the book, I don't see why she would count as the historical Alice In Wonderland.

Basically it's an equivocation by any other name, and it IS used as an equivocation fallacy all the time. People claim a historical Jesus that really barely shares a name with the gospel one, but then just use that to sneak in attributes from the gospel Jesus onto that entity, although those attributes were not actually supported when they claimed the minimalistic HJ. They supported Jesus type A, but then immediately use it as if it meant Jesus type B. It's exactly a textbook equivocation.

But anyway, to me a historical version of the gospel Jesus Christ, would have to share a certain number of attributes with him. Maybe not the miracles or being the Christ, but, you know, have a bunch in common with the book's character, not just be a random unrelated guy with the same name. And supportably so, not just someone's cognitive dissonance, or wishful thinking, or just confabulation based on a fairy tale.

And, really, the home town is one such attribute. It's not THE one that makes or breaks the story, that much I'll agree with you. If a guy did half of the story stuff, but was for example from Bethlehem, or even Caesarea, or even some slave called Chrestus in Rome, ok, I can live with that. But it is one of the attributes that may or may not be shared by the two. It can count a little towards the historical Jesus, if true, or a little against, if it's just another piece that we see the gospel authors just making up.

 

[maximara]

Well, it depends on what you count as historical, I guess. If the mere existence of a crucified guy who may not have even been actually called Jesus until after he died, and may not have done any of that, is a "historical Jesus", then the bar is so low that obviously one existed. In fact some tens if not hundreds of thousands existed. The Romans kinda loved making scarecrows out of rebels and disobedient slaves

For me, though, and I gather for Maximara and a few other people, though, for someone to count as the historical Superman, he must be in some way like the Superman character in the comics. And for someone to count as the historical Batman, well, at the very least he'd have to be a rich guy with a bat suit and who actually fights crime. And it would also help if there was any indication that the author actually knew about that stuff and based Batman on that guy.

That's kinda what I'd expect from anyone to be called the historical version of the man-god Jesus Christ too.

The idea that there was a real life Superman (even the way powered down 1938 version) is a little hard to swallow while Batman (again the 1939 version) is more probable (he is in part formed out of a historical report of a person known as Spring Heeled Jack (1837-1870s)) he is still a little out there.

Let's go with a known fictional character who even today gets millions of letters requesting his help: Sherlock Holmes.

One of the popular hobbies of Holmes fans is the Sherlockian game or "The Game"--where the stories of Holmes are taken as if they were historical documents with the names of people and events altered to preserve confidentiality. William S. Baring-Gould's 1968 Annotated Sherlock Holmes shows that if you push it far enough you come come up with "real dates" for all the stories involving Holmes despite all the contradictions (like Holmes visiting a public place on a Sunday...a clear impossibility for the time period the stories are said to take place in).

Even though a John H. Watson can be found among the list of soldiers that served in the First Boer War (1880-1881) that alone is not proof Sherlock Holmes was "historical". Many "facts" presented in the stories simply don't match up with reality--for example from 1880-1930 Baker Street was so numbered that there was no building with the number 221 so the address 221B Baker Street did not exist during the time Holmes supposedly was being a consulting detective (1881-1914).


The point is you can shoehorn Conan Doyle's stories into a historical frame work but when you cross check it becomes blatantly obvious that its is shoe horning of a fictional character into a historical framework. The things you would expect to see if Sherlock Holmes really did practice somewhere on Baker Street 1881-1914 are absent. The same is true of the Jesus described in the Bible.

 

[HansMustermann]

While I'll agree with what you say, I'd say that for Jesus we're pretty much asked to believe in a historical Superman. The guy even walks around while having a hole through the heart by the end of the story. He nails so many ancient hero tropes, out-scoring the vast majority of ancient superheroes, that pretty much the only reason he doesn't shoot laser beams from the eyes or fly or leap over tall buildings in a single jump is that those tropes weren't in use yet. In fact, heck, even the leaping part is half-way there as a way to read it is that Jesus COULD jump at least off a tall building safely, he just didn't feel like being tested. But then, you knew all that.

Even other characters from the story are given various super-powers.

- His mom is practically a regeneration based super-hero, because at least her hymen seems to regrow even after having several children (only one of which happened without Joseph's help) if you listen to the Catholics, plus she just flies to heaven at the end of her stay on Earth. Not as a ghost, but, you know, with her body and all. I guess she just flew back to Krypton, or something

- His brother survives being kicked off the temple roof all the way into the street in front of it. (You know, as opposed to just falling in the courtyard. Now there's some horizontal gliding.) And then isn't even fazed by a stoning. It takes a braining with a club, presumably kryptonite tipped, to finally finish him off.

- John is put in boiling oil (the whole point there being that it's hotter than boiling water,) but apparently isn't even fazed by that, and even proclaims himself refreshed by that bath.

And so on, and so forth. There are more super-powered characters there than DC had for half their existence

So, yeah, I think that for most people Jesus is pretty much a synonym for the ancient Superman. So I think the analogy isn't too far off to ask, basically, "so what would some mundane dude have to do, to qualify as the historical Superman?"

 

[HansMustermann]

That said, yes, Sherlock Holmes is an excellent example of a character which was published in a work of fiction, and never claimed to be anything else but fiction, yet pretty soon people were taking him for a real person. Even the interval from the first publishing of a Sherlock Holmes story to present day is 125 years (almost exactly), which is actually less than from the supposed crucifixion to Irenaeus, and comparable to the time from the supposed Jesus to Marcion's trying to make the first official bible.

But actually people started mistaking Sherlock Holmes for real much earlier. When the Abbey National Building Society moved to 219–229 of the recently extended Baker Street in 1932, it ended up having to employ a full time secretary just to answer all the letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Considering that not everyone who believes Sherlock Holmes was real actually writes a letter to him (you don't write a letter to Obama, just because you think he's real), and certainly not every day, we can guess there were a LOT of people believing he was real. From 1887 to 1932 there are 45 years, quite comparable to the interval from the supposed crucifixion to Mark, or from the start of Paul's ministry about this Jesus character to Matthew.

Not arguing with you, but just, you know, fleshing out the details of the Sherlock Holmes example, for whoever happened to not know them.

 

[pgwenthold]

My example of the fictional character is Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz.

Was there a historical Dorothy that is the basis for what is written in the Wizard of Oz?

In fact, there was indeed a girl named Dorothy, who lived in Kansas at the time the story was written, and had an Aunt "M" (which was written as Em in the books). And we know that Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz was based on this girl. She was Frank Baum's niece.

Does that make her a historical Dorothy? Granted, none of the things she is described to have experienced in the WoO books is historically correct.

This is why I appreciate this thread topic so extensively. Because it seems to me that people are insisting on calling a person a Historical Jesus on the basis of no more than what I have described above for Dorothy. If that is what constitutes a historical Jesus, then the concept has basically no meaning.

 

[TimONeill2]

As an aside, both sides involved in the Nazareth debate seem to have made reasonable points about the existence or non-existence of Nazareth in first century Palestine. As a less informed outsider to this debate, I am hoping that some sort of consensus can be reached on the issue, so I am hoping that this thread can be left to focus on that particular issue until either a consensus has been reached or an agreement to disagree has been reached.

I'm travelling on business at the moment, so won't have the opportunity to reply in detail for a day or two. When I'm back I will dig out my "Rene Salm" file and go over the reasons no archaeologist takes his amateurish thesis seriously.

In the meantime you'll have to content yourselves with silly non sequiturs like "some people thought Sherlock Holmes was real, therefore Jesus was a fiction too". It's like a total logic bypass in this thread in places ...

 

[maximara]

Here are the words with which Remsberg ends his work The Christ. My view is much the same as his.

"While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination. After carefully weighing the evidence and arguments in support of each hypothesis the writer, while refraining from expressing a dogmatic affirmation regarding either, is compelled to accept the former as the more probable. "

The thing is earlier on Remsburg explains the range of a Historical myth:

A Historical myth according to Strauss, and to some extent I follow his language, is a real event colored by the light of antiquity, which confounded the human and divine, the natural and the supernatural. The event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true, or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false. A large portion of ancient history, including the Biblical narratives, is historical myth.

King Arthur and Robin Hood are prime examples of this "distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false" situation. There are historical foundations for both these character but the versions we know didn't exist.

John Henry could be another such example. There are those that say that the story is based on a real event at the Big Bend tunnel somewhere between 1869-1871 while others say it happened at Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel on September 20, 1887.


Even earlier Remsburg makes this observation:

That a man named Jesus, an obscure religious teacher, the basis of this fabulous Christ, lived in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago, may be true. But of this man we know nothing. His biography has not been written. A Renan and others have attempted to write it, but have failed -- have failed because no materials for such a work exist. Contemporary writers have left us not one word concerning him. For generations afterward, outside of a few theological epistles, we find no mention of him.

This echos Drews comments on the matter:

If in spite of this any one thinks that besides the latter a Jesus also cannot be dispensed with, this can naturally not be opposed ; but we know nothing of this Jesus. Even in the representations of historical theology he is scarcely more than the shadow of a shadow.

Remember I. Howard Marshal gave two ways for Jesus to be historical:

1. Jesus existed, rather than being a totally fictional creation like King Lear or Dr. Who

or

2. the Gospels accounts give a reasonable account of historical events, rather than being unverifiable legends such as those surrounding King Arthur.

So while Remsburg accepts that Jesus the man (of Nazareth) existed he is also saying the story of that man (Jesus of Bethlehem) is a total fiction that at best shows Jesus the man existed but nothing else.
As with John Frum other then name there is nothing to connect the Jesus who preached in 1st century Galilee to the Jesus described in the Bible. There is nothing to show that the Gospel Jesus is not a composite character (ie by definition non historical) of which the Jesus who preached in 1st century Galilee is only a part.

 

[maximara]

That said, yes, Sherlock Holmes is an excellent example of a character which was published in a work of fiction, and never claimed to be anything else but fiction, yet pretty soon people were taking him for a real person. Even the interval from the first publishing of a Sherlock Holmes story to present day is 125 years (almost exactly), which is actually less than from the supposed crucifixion to Irenaeus, and comparable to the time from the supposed Jesus to Marcion's trying to make the first official bible.

But actually people started mistaking Sherlock Holmes for real much earlier. When the Abbey National Building Society moved to 219–229 of the recently extended Baker Street in 1932, it ended up having to employ a full time secretary just to answer all the letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Considering that not everyone who believes Sherlock Holmes was real actually writes a letter to him (you don't write a letter to Obama, just because you think he's real), and certainly not every day, we can guess there were a LOT of people believing he was real. From 1887 to 1932 there are 45 years, quite comparable to the interval from the supposed crucifixion to Mark, or from the start of Paul's ministry about this Jesus character to Matthew.

Not arguing with you, but just, you know, fleshing out the details of the Sherlock Holmes example, for whoever happened to not know them.

Some details you left out. Sherlock Holmes was in part based on Joseph Bell and for a while was called "the real Sherlock Holmes". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was involved in cases very similar to his creation (the Case of George Edalji is the most famous example of these). As the In Search of... show on Sherlock Holmes point out Conan Doyle and his creation were linked.

If the historical King Arthur can be said to be based on a guy named Lucius Artorius Castus who lived in the 2nd to 3rd centuries (some two hundred years before King Arthur supposedly ruled) what is to stop use from saying that Joseph Bell or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself were the "historical" Sherlock Holmes?

 

[maximara]

I'm travelling on business at the moment, so won't have the opportunity to reply in detail for a day or two. When I'm back I will dig out my "Rene Salm" file and go over the reasons no archaeologist takes his amateurish thesis seriously.

In the meantime you'll have to content yourselves with silly non sequiturs like "some people thought Sherlock Holmes was real, therefore Jesus was a fiction too". It's like a total logic bypass in this thread in places ...

It isn't a non sequitur as Sherlock Holmes is known to be fictional by the majority of people and yet millions believe he did and still does exist. The Game shows that it is possible to take a known fictional character and shoehorn him into a historical framework especially if you are willing to pulled events out of thin air. The Matthew-Luke birth story conflict is a prime example of the insanity of trying to get the Gospels to fit known social-political factors and many "explanations" make less sense then a Silver Age comic book (actually that is an insult...to nearly every Silver Age comic book).

Remember that in the first century Euhemerism (the idea that myths were distortions of historical events) was the defacto standard. The idea that Jesus like Zeus himself had been a flesh and blood man was never in doubt--the issue then as now was how much of the story of that man was real.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

IMO Jesus counts as a historical Jesus. If the guys who compiled/wrote The New Testament were half as wise and profound as Jesus was quoted to be, not only would they have taken credit for all those insights themselves the rest of the New Testament would have been much better written. I admit I haven't read the whole thing, but lemme tell ya, Jesus is the only part I ever liked. To me it's obvious that the quotations of Jesus at least come from a single philosopher of the time, and if it wasn't Jesus then it wasn't Shakespeare either but a rose by any other name..