Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed

[dejudge]

The evangelists speak of Jesus as a man who has something of divine, but they don’t agree on what kind of divinity

David


Mark doesn't, unless of course you mean that every sentient being "has something of divine," which I sense is not what you mean.

You have got to be joking.

In gMark, the author specifically made his character state that he was the Christ and the Son of the Blessed.

If everybody was the son of God then it would have been totally irrelevant for the author to ONLY identify his character as the Son of God.

Plus, it is virtually impossible to use gMark to argue that Jesus was a man when he did things that was not humanly possible.

The Markan Jesus walked on the sea and transfigured. Mark 6.49 and Mark 9.2

The specific gravity [SG], biology and anatomy of the human body do not allow for walking on the sea and transfiguration.

The Markan Jesus was figure of mythology.

HJ, the assumed obscure crucified Jewish criminal is not a plausible assumption for the start of the Jesus cult.

 

[dejudge]

Don't forget the financial incentive for the early Christians to distance themselves from the Jews

"So I suppose the anti-HJ arguments must argue that this very early Jewish sect did not exist, and that Jesus was always seen as divine (and non-human).

Some of the HJ arguments of course propose a trajectory from human Jesus to Christ of faith. I suppose the deniers of HJ must deny any such trajectory."

I think question rather than deny is a better description, zugzwang.

If there was an HJ why is the Quest for an HJ still on-going?

It would appear to me that what we have here are Quest deniers.

There is NO HJ. No HJ has ever been found.

It is time HJers finally understand that their propaganda has been exposed.

They are in the THIRD Quest for an HJ. The first and second quest produced nothing.

 

[dann]

(In fact, there are some Christians who even believe that God is not real. I think they only exist in the Church of England though which is pretty relaxed about doctrine.)

We have a lot of those in Denmark. Some of them are even vicars. Want some?

 

[eight bits]

dejudge

The specific gravity [SG], biology and anatomy of the human body do not allow for walking on the sea...

That would help explain why the tired fishermen, in bad light, think they are seeing a ghost.

... and transfiguration.

Three of the same fishermen, after being marched uphill, manage to see two ghosts in broad daylight, and then they hear a voice from the sky say flattering things about Jesus... as always in Mark, whatever Jesus does, other people can do, too.

HJ, the assumed obscure crucified Jewish criminal is not a plausible assumption for the start of the Jesus cult.

On the contrary, seeing somebody who cannot really be there is exactly the acknowledged start of the Jesus cult. According to Paul, this spooky activity begins with the James Gang. According to Mark, the Gang were seeing people who weren't there all along. Practice makes perfect.

 

[David Mo]

You have got to be joking.

In gMark, the author specifically made his character state that he was the Christ and the Son of the Blessed.

In the Gospels Jesus shows how to preach by saying “Our Father who art in heaven…” You and I also are sons of the Blessed to the evangelists. This is to say the expression “Son of God” is ambiguous. It can be applied to a man that is divine in any sense of the word.

If everybody was the son of God then it would have been totally irrelevant for the author to ONLY identify his character as the Son of God.

Plus, it is virtually impossible to use gMark to argue that Jesus was a man when he did things that was not humanly possible.

It is not so. In the Bible some exceptional individuals are called Son of the Blessed. And many prophets, judges, etc. were men who did miracles. Moses, Jonas, Elijah and so on.

The Markan Jesus walked on the sea and transfigured. Mark 6.49 and Mark 9.2

And Simon the Magician floated in the air and was a man. And Elijah and Moses were floating with Jesus on Mount Tabor and both were men.

The specific gravity [SG], biology and anatomy of the human body do not allow for walking on the sea and transfiguration.

You and I know this. But the evangelists didn’t think so. We are speaking about what they thought Jesus was, I suppose.

The Markan Jesus was figure of mythology.

Heracles also was a man and a figure of mythology. Ancient Greeks and Ancient Jews thought it was the most natural thing in the world. We are speaking about what they thought Jesus was, I suppose.

HJ, the assumed obscure crucified Jewish criminal is not a plausible assumption for the start of the Jesus cult.

You said it. It is absolutely plausible that an ancient Hebrew attributed divine features to a man he venerated. First the man existed and after he was deified. You and I think this is what we call "illusory thinking" or "myth", but this is not what we are discussing. I intend to discuss if it is possible separate the man from his myth. You are mounting a nice hotchpotch with different aspects of the issue: that the Gospels are mythical accounts and the possibility to extract facts from mythical accounts.

Post Scriptum: Sometimes the deification happened with a living individual. An Emperor, for example.

 

[davefoc]

You could argue that ancient Jews (and modern Jews) would not worship a dead Jew, for the reason that Jews are strict monotheists, so that the Trinity is for them both absurd and abhorrent.

But this forms part of an argument for HJ - that very early Christianity was a Jewish sect, in which worship of Jesus did not form a part; but that as this sect turned outwards to the gentile world, the notion of a man/god, or however you describe that, was possible and digestible.

So I suppose the anti-HJ arguments must argue that this very early Jewish sect did not exist, and that Jesus was always seen as divine (and non-human).

Some of the HJ arguments of course propose a trajectory from human Jesus to Christ of faith. I suppose the deniers of HJ must deny any such trajectory.

Your post goes to one of the questions about what people have in mind when they talk about the HJ and the origin of Christianity that I've wondered about. Which scenario do they favor?

• There was a Jewish Jesus sect with a theology that morphed into Christianity as its theology spread to the Gentiles.
• There was a a gentile sect that believed in the imminent arrival of a messiah that became aware of the rough details about the Jesus character and morphed the Jesus character into the basis of their theology.
• There was a gentile sect that believed in the imminent arrival of a messiah that just made up the Jesus character which formed the basis of their theology.

I don't see what evidence is available that supports any of the possibilities very strongly. If you believe Paul mostly then possibility one probably seems the most likely to you. If you don't believe Paul because you think his letters were forged, misinterpreted or that Paul lied it looks like a tossup between possibility two and three to me. Maybe the small islands of plausibility in the Gospels is enough to push you toward possibility two. If you don't trust Paul and you think the Gospels are completely fictional with regard to Jesus and the events of his life then you probably lean to possibility three.

The view that I don't get that has been pushed in this thread with mostly repetitive arguments is that it is either knowable that an HJ didn't exist or extremely likely that an HJ didn't exist. How is it possible to form such certainty about historical events for which there is so little solid evidence? Most of the arguments for this view are based on the notion that the evidence is unreliable about the events of early Christianity. So how is that from unreliable evidence strong conclusions can be made?

This question has been asked in many different ways and there has yet to be a post that responds to it from dejudge. I expect that there won't be one this time. Apparently the people that created dejudge's programming didn't anticipate this question and dejudge is only capable of posting a list of facts that have little to do with the answer to this question.

 

[deaman]

You're are in communication with god.

This should be easy. Everyone who has ever prayed to God, and asked the same question, should have received the same answer.

Which question shall we ask god, together, so God can show His love? Just think, we will all see and experience God.

Or, just work a miracle. Why not step on over to the nearest children's cancer ward and heal everyone.

The "God of love" in action!

Looking forward to this.

 

[zugzwang]

davefoc

Well, the argument(s) put forward by Geza Vermes and other scholars of Judaism, is that Jesus is a good fit to the charismatic and apocalyptic Jewish preachers who were around in the first century. Of course, there is the usual problem here - that I am not an expert on first century Judaism, so they might be wrong!

But Vermes describes the healing, exorcisms and preaching carried out by Jesus, and argues that these conform with the charismatic activities described in the intertestamental and rabbinic literature.

Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that a Jewish sect is being portrayed, but that boils down to semantics. If you follow the Vermes argument, Jesus is a recognizable Jewish figure, rather like Honi and Hanina. Vermes also argues that this kind of charismatic figure was particularly prevalent in Galilee, where an unsophisticated kind of religion was practised.

But Vermes has also been criticized, as getting his chronology wrong, so that for example, Honi and Hanina could be seen as influenced by Christianity.

And of course, a good fit doesn't rule out a fictitious figure.

 

[eight bits]

zugzwang

But Vermes describes the healing, exorcisms and preaching carried out by Jesus, and argues that these conform with the charismatic activities described in the intertestamental and rabbinic literature.

Maybe I just don't see where you're going with this, but the other side of that coin is that healing, exorcism and preaching conform with the known activities of many others, too.

In particular, Paul does all that (supposedly, according to Acts, and Paul cops to some spooky doings in his letters) and is mistaken for a god in the bargain. Irony aside, that means that non-Jews (and non-Christians) are portrayed as recognizing healing and oratory as what gods passing as men would do.

Given the known inclination of Christians, even in Paul's time, to account for their rituals as imitations of things Jesus supposedly did (Paul's institution narrative, for example, and Pericope Zero, Jesus participating in a baptism in Mark), then how do we get a specific fleshy Jesus from that? The observation seems neutral between a real man and a believable fictional character drawn as a recognized character type appropriate for the story's setting. "Neutral" is more than just "doesn't rule out."

 

[zugzwang]

zugzwang


Maybe I just don't see where you're going with this, but the other side of that coin is that healing, exorcism and preaching conform with the known activities of many others, too.

In particular, Paul does all that (supposedly, according to Acts, and Paul cops to some spooky doings in his letters) and is mistaken for a god in the bargain. Irony aside, that means that non-Jews (and non-Christians) are portrayed as recognizing healing and oratory as what gods passing as men would do.

Given the known inclination of Christians, even in Paul's time, to account for their rituals as imitations of things Jesus supposedly did (Paul's institution narrative, for example, and Pericope Zero, Jesus participating in a baptism in Mark), then how do we get a specific fleshy Jesus from that? The observation seems neutral between a real man and a believable fictional character drawn as a recognized character type appropriate for the story's setting. "Neutral" is more than just "doesn't rule out."

Well, there are several arguments running along here, I think. First, is Jesus portrayed as Jewish? This in itself has been controversial since Christianity had in some ways, removed the Jewishness of Jesus - the arguments over 'son of God' and 'messiah' are pretty familiar now, I think - that for Jews they did not denote divinity, so it's possible, as it were, to scrape off this Christian retro-engineering.

Then, there is the question of fiction, which seems to involve different arguments. It seems obviously possible, that Jesus is a fictive character, but I think the standard arguments against that are the multiple sources, the extra-biblical references, the question of parsimony, and the failure of the Jesus mission (although I know that can be seen as a particularly clever piece of fiction).

But I don't think such arguments remove the possibility of fiction. After that, I just think, whatever.

 

[Craig B]

Your post goes to one of the questions about what people have in mind when they talk about the HJ and the origin of Christianity that I've wondered about. Which scenario do they favor?

• There was a Jewish Jesus sect with a theology that morphed into Christianity as its theology spread to the Gentiles.
• There was a a gentile sect that believed in the imminent arrival of a messiah that became aware of the rough details about the Jesus character and morphed the Jesus character into the basis of their theology.
• There was a gentile sect that believed in the imminent arrival of a messiah that just made up the Jesus character which formed the basis of their theology.

I don't see what evidence is available that supports any of the possibilities very strongly. If you believe Paul mostly then possibility one probably seems the most likely to you. If you don't believe Paul because you think his letters were forged, misinterpreted or that Paul lied it looks like a tossup between possibility two and three to me.

Indeed. In order to dismiss 1 we must remove Paul and the notices in Acts entirely from the scene. Or Paul has to have invented the most grotesque lies about a non existent sect led by a highly-observant and pious Jew preaching the message of Moses, prescribing Noahide regulations for gentile converts, following kosher dietary practices and imposing them on others, attending the Temple and inducing others to do so. All this while bearing the title Brother of The Lord and leading a movement consisting of staunch defenders of the Law. Unless all this be removed, we have to go with possibility 1, as you say.

Now, how to remove it? Paul invented such a sect? Somebody forged the whole Pauline corpus, and Acts, and included this as fiction for dramatic effect?

 

[Belz...]

That would help explain why the tired fishermen, in bad light, think they are seeing a ghost.

Dejudge keeps making the mistake of conflating things: he wants the Bible to be entirely true or entirely false. It doesn't enter his mind that perhaps some of it might contain historical data that has survived the later manglings and supernatural additions, or that from reading the beliefs of early Christians one can deduce some truths about their religion's beginnings.

 

[IanS]

The view that I don't get that has been pushed in this thread with mostly repetitive arguments is that it is either knowable that an HJ didn't exist or extremely likely that an HJ didn't exist. How is it possible to form such certainty about historical events for which there is so little solid evidence? Most of the arguments for this view are based on the notion that the evidence is unreliable about the events of early Christianity. So how is that from unreliable evidence strong conclusions can be made?

This question has been asked in many different ways and there has yet to be a post that responds to it from dejudge. I expect that there won't be one this time. Apparently the people that created dejudge's programming didn't anticipate this question and dejudge is only capable of posting a list of facts that have little to do with the answer to this question.

Who has expressed the view that "based on the notion that the evidence is unreliable" ... "HJ didn't exist or extremely likely that an HJ didn't exist. How is it possible to form such certainty about historical events for which there is so little solid evidence?" ..? Who said that?

I certainly have never said any such thing.

What I have said, consistently from page one in all these threads, is that we do not actually have any reliable evidence of Jesus at all. In fact nothing you could honestly call evidence of any kind for Jesus himself. Instead what we have are anonymous devotional preaching accounts of religious beliefs from people none of whom ever knew Jesus at all, and all of whom believed in him only from legendary stories of the past.

That is not evidence of Jesus. That is only evidence of peoples religious beliefs.

The fact of the matter about that, is not that (as you just said) we therefore conclude strongly that Jesus did not exist or that it is extremely unlikely he could have existed ... what we conclude from that total lack of any reliable or credible evidence, is that there is really no genuine evidence that the Jesus stories were anything more than superstitious religious legend. Why would anyone say they believed in Jesus on such complete lack of evidence? That would be highly illogical and lacking objective honesty. There is simply no good reason to believe it.

If you are talking not about my position, but about what dejudge has said, then of course he can answer for himself, but what I have understood him to say throughout is simply that the biblical figure of Jesus is impossible and cannot be real. And beyond that I think he takes the view that the biblical figure is actually the only description we ever had for Jesus …. any other proposed Jesus, called a HJ, is absolutely not a figure that was ever described by anyone at the time, and it appears to be just an un-evidenced uncorroborated modern invention created simply in order to maintain a “fig leaf” position for Christianity by saying that he might at least have existed albeit not at all as described in the bible.

IOW - if you claim a HJ, a very different figure than anyone at the time claimed from the bible, then you have to show credible corroborated evidence for the existence, not of the biblical Jesus, but of this invented HJ. Where is the evidence that anyone in the fist century claimed to see a HJ? In fact, if it comes to that, where did this HJ belief come from? … don’t tell us it came from that same bible all over again! … round and round in a circle which always depends entirely and completely on the impossible and certain fiction of the bible?

 

[Craig B]

What I have said, consistently from page one in all these threads, is that ...

Here are selections of what you say in this post. And indeed you have said this scores of times, addressing no argument put to you.

- we do not actually have any reliable evidence of Jesus at all.
- In fact nothing you could honestly call evidence of any kind for Jesus himself.
- That is not evidence of Jesus. That is only evidence of peoples religious beliefs.
- total lack of any reliable or credible evidence
- no genuine evidence that the Jesus stories were anything more than superstitious religious legend
- complete lack of evidence? That would be highly illogical and lacking objective honesty
- an un-evidenced uncorroborated modern invention created simply in order to maintain a “fig leaf” position for Christianity by saying that he might at least have existed albeit not at all as described in the bible.

Now, the pattern is this. You say there is "no evidence", then when challenged you change that to "no reliable or credible evidence", then back to "no genuine evidence", and back again to "no evidence". Meanwhile you accuse anyone who disagrees with you, of lacking honesty, and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity. When the procedure of critical analysis of the texts is raised with you, you refuse to address it; you don't discuss it at all. Back to lack of honesty and accusations of closet Christianity.

 

[eight bits]

Belz

Yes, we seem to agree on the content of that perspective. It is remarkable how closely it resembles the view of a fundamentlaist Protestant tent preacher. Maybe it would be devastating if deployed at at CARM, but JREF is a target-poor environment, I think. Then again, I may be a victim of Chinese whispers.


zugzwang

Thank you for that amplification. I don't think there is any lively question that the character of Jesus is intended to be a Jewish man. I can only think of one poster here (two?) who has found that disputable. If there were some question, though, then it is unclear how Jesus' conforming with something about which Jewish and pagan expectations were similar would much help.

As to the possibility of fiction, I don't see where in the story Jesus' Messainic mission is portrayed as having failed. The plain teaching of Paul is that the mission is ongoing. Its rollout, according to Paul, seems to have been at Jesus' death, or perhaps shortly before. Mark is parallel, with a firm Messianic commitment no earlier than Dunker John's jailing (a.k.a. the "Messianic secret," specialist-speak for Jesus' ministry being adult-onset in Mark, with realsitic adult self-searching in reaction to such dangerous, indeed fatal, ideation.)

I agree that a hypothetical Jewish counterapologist might say that death reveals Jesus not to have been the Messiah. Unfortunately, that simply restates the difference of opinion, since a Nicene Christian, by definition, professes that Jesus was killed, but is not now dead, and is coming back to do Messianic deeds. That doctrine is found as far back as Paul's letters.

 

[zugzwang]

eight bits

The failure of the Jesus mission is an interesting example of Christian engineering, I think. Of course, Christians have wanted to portray the career of Jesus as a kind of inevitable triumph, where even the bad things are good.

But you can see it differently - Jesus' family think he's mad; his disciples seem rather thick, and often don't get what he's on about; many Jews see him as disruptive and blasphemous; he is multiply betrayed; and of course, he is killed.

I remember reading about this in a book by Schillebeeckx, the theologian, who describes the mission as a shambolic failure, which made me laugh. Of course, it is in turn transformed into a Christian idea - the weakness of love, against the power of the world, and so on.

But as I said, you can argue for a very clever piece of fictional writing - the hero fails, but with one bound, he is free!

 

[dejudge]

The specific gravity [SG], biology and anatomy of the human body do not allow for walking on the sea and transfiguration.

dejudge


That would help explain why the tired fishermen, in bad light, think they are seeing a ghost.

You've got to be joking. Your "explanation" falls very short.

You obviously only read or remember a small part of the story.

You forgot that in the story Jesus IDENTIFIED himself as the sea water walker and then CLIMBED into the very boat with the disciples.

Three of the same fishermen, after being marched uphill, manage to see two ghosts in broad daylight, and then they hear a voice from the sky say flattering things about Jesus... as always in Mark, whatever Jesus does, other people can do, too.

Again, you forget what you just wrote. In the story the three disciples did NOT transfigure. It was the supposed dead that came back to life.

In gMark, Jesus does what human beings cannot do.

This is a partial list of things Jesus did that other people did not do in gMark.

1. Jesus walked on the sea.

2. Jesus transfigured.

3. Jesus forgave sin.

4. Jesus cursed a tree and it died.

5. Jesus spat in the faces of blind Jews so that they could see.

6. Jesus raised the dead.

7. Jesus talked to storms and the storms dissipated.

8. Jesus resurrected.

HJ, the assumed obscure crucified Jewish criminal is not a plausible assumption for the start of the Jesus cult.

On the contrary, seeing somebody who cannot really be there is exactly the acknowledged start of the Jesus cult. According to Paul, this spooky activity begins with the James Gang. According to Mark, the Gang were seeing people who weren't there all along. Practice makes perfect.

You finally understand gMark!!

"The Gang were seeing people who weren't there all along".

gMark is not history. gMark is not an historical account.

Jesus and the disciples were not there all along.

The author openly exposed the myth fables of believers. gMark merely represents what people of antiquity believed.

gMark is just an early version of the myth fables of Christianity like Plutarch wrote a version of Romulus.

 

[dejudge]

This question has been asked in many different ways and there has yet to be a post that responds to it from dejudge. I expect that there won't be one this time. Apparently the people that created dejudge's programming didn't anticipate this question and dejudge is only capable of posting a list of facts that have little to do with the answer to this question.

Your statement is contradictory.

It is the facts that have answered the questions that you keep asking.

Your constant admission of lack of knowledge and speculation can never resolve the matter.

This is a partial list of the facts.

1. There is an ON-GOING Quest for an HJ for hundreds of years.

2. The NT is about a Jesus of Faith.

3. No HJ has ever been found.

4. This is the THIRD Search for an HJ after TWO failed attempts.

5. No HJ has ever been established in the history of mankind and that is precisely why a massive "manhunt" was initiated lasting over 250 years.

6. Non-Apologetic writers of antiquity failed to provide evidence of an historical Jesus.

7. Apologetic writers publicly argued and documented their arguments for hundreds of years that their Jesus was without a human father.

8. Jesus of Nazareth is documented as a figure of Faith

Please, examine the facts.

Your questions have been answered.

HJers have no facts--just belief.

Jesus of Nazareth is considered a Figure of Faith and that was precisely why people are SEARCHING for another Jesus.

This is the cold hard fact--there is NO other Jesus but the Jesus of Faith [Myth Jesus].

 

[IanS]

Here are selections of what you say in this post. And indeed you have said this scores of times, addressing no argument put to you.

- we do not actually have any reliable evidence of Jesus at all.
- In fact nothing you could honestly call evidence of any kind for Jesus himself.
- That is not evidence of Jesus. That is only evidence of peoples religious beliefs.
- total lack of any reliable or credible evidence
- no genuine evidence that the Jesus stories were anything more than superstitious religious legend
- complete lack of evidence? That would be highly illogical and lacking objective honesty
- an un-evidenced uncorroborated modern invention created simply in order to maintain a “fig leaf” position for Christianity by saying that he might at least have existed albeit not at all as described in the bible.

Now, the pattern is this. You say there is "no evidence", then when challenged you change that to "no reliable or credible evidence", then back to "no genuine evidence", and back again to "no evidence". Meanwhile you accuse anyone who disagrees with you, of lacking honesty, and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity. When the procedure of critical analysis of the texts is raised with you, you refuse to address it; you don't discuss it at all. Back to lack of honesty and accusations of closet Christianity.

Not true at all, and you have been told that many times.

What I said is that - the gospels and letters which have been called the "evidence" of a living human Jesus, are not reliable in what they say about the authors beliefs in Jesus, and nor are they credible in the miraculous claims they continually make (they are not credible for many other reasons too, of course).

That, as I have explained here many times before, is why I frequently add the words "not reliable" and "not credible" when referring to that biblical writing as evidence that the authors ever knew anything as real "evidence" of a living Jesus.

And further than that - what those biblical authors wrote about Jesus is not in fact any kind of evidence actually for Jesus. Because those biblical authors never knew Jesus and therefore could not themselves have any of their own evidence to give about Jesus. Instead all they could offer was to repeat the anonymous stories of earlier people who believed various things about Jesus. That is not evidence of Jesus presented from any of those biblical writers. That is only evidence of those biblical writers presenting evidence of their religious beliefs in Jesus according to what they had heard as earlier beliefs from other unknown religious fanatics. That is evidence of the peoples religious beliefs. It is not evidence of Jesus from anyone who ever actually knew Jesus.


And when you say this "Meanwhile you accuse anyone who disagrees with you, of lacking honesty, and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity", what I actually said was this -

“ Why would anyone say they believed in Jesus on such complete lack of evidence? That would be highly illogical and lacking objective honesty. There is simply no good reason to believe it.”

I am saying that it is not being objectively honest with yourself if you claim to believe Jesus existed when there is actually (as I just clearly explained), actually no evidence of Jesus presented in the biblical writing, but only evidence of peoples highly unreliable and non-credible beliefs in a figure none of them ever knew in any way at all.

And as far as this comment from you is concerned “… and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity”, what I actually said is that those who originally created and have since maintained the idea of a HJ “appear” to have done that as a “fig leaf” to maintain at least some semblance of Christian belief in Jesus from biblical writing which was by say c.1800-1900 being exposed as simply no longer believable in what it says about Jesus, and not by any measure reliable or credible in what it’s anonymous authors said about a messiah that none of them ever knew and for whom they provided no evidence beyond their religious beliefs in earlier messianic legend.


You have no evidence of anyone knowing a HJ, do you?

And what you offer in the bible as evidence, is only evidence of peoples religious beliefs, isn’t it?

 

[Craig B]

... And when you say this "Meanwhile you accuse anyone who disagrees with you, of lacking honesty, and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity", what I actually said was this -

“ Why would anyone say they believed in Jesus on such complete lack of evidence? That would be highly illogical and lacking objective honesty. There is simply no good reason to believe it.”

Yes, that's what you said

I am saying that it is not being objectively honest with yourself if you claim to believe Jesus existed

That's not what you said. You didn't write "with yourself". Anyway it's crazy. Honest with myself when I claim to believe ... ? nonsense. You're having a laugh.

when there is actually (as I just clearly explained), actually no evidence of Jesus presented in the biblical writing, but only evidence of peoples highly unreliable and non-credible beliefs in a figure none of them ever knew in any way at all.

"No evidence", "only evidence of non-credible beliefs" etc etc, just as I stated.

And as far as this comment from you is concerned “… and impute to them the motive of seeking to sustain Christianity”, what I actually said is that those who originally created and have since maintained the idea of a HJ “appear” to have done that as a “fig leaf” to maintain at least some semblance of Christian belief in Jesus from biblical writing which was by say c.1800-1900 being exposed as simply no longer believable in what it says about Jesus, and not by any measure reliable or credible in what it’s anonymous authors said about a messiah that none of them ever knew and for whom they provided no evidence beyond their religious beliefs in earlier messianic legend.

Stripped of verbiage, you're conceding my point, that you do impute to me a motive of seeking to sustain Christianity: for the words

maintain at least some semblance of Christian belief in Jesus

mean exactly the same as the words I wrote, albeit shrouded in your usual verbosity.

You have no evidence of anyone knowing a HJ, do you? And what you offer in the bible as evidence, is only evidence of peoples religious beliefs, isn’t it?

I have stated this dozens of times, but since you won't consider any evidence except these two points, and since I have answered repeatedly that the evidence is not of that type, I can see no means of progressing further in this matter. Where I disagree with you is whether there is any other valid evidence. But you will not even read what I have to say about that, so your continued stressing of these points is both abusive and intentionally abusive. For what's its worth, the answer is again, yes, we have no personal acquaintance of Jesus who has left us a contemporary memoir, as the gospels were not written by such persons. People's religious beliefs are in themselves evidence. Though not at all conclusive evidence, of course. But if we had no knowledge of belief in Jesus, we would have no knowledge of even the name and the stories, true or false, not so? Whether the gospels contain any traces of contemporary sources is an interesting question, to others, though not to you, alas.