The subject of Jesus is of course absolutely central to Christian belief and its theology and yet credible evidence for the historical existence of Jesus, as he is described in the New Testament, is virtually non-existent. Astonishingly, very few Christians appear to be aware or bothered by this. Apart from the absence of any convincing evidence for such a person, as the New Testament describes, ever living, there is of course the considerable problem of the many images of Jesus presented by the different writings. For example, the Jesus of the Synoptics bears little resemblance to the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel, and neither of these have similarity to the Christ portrayed by the apostle Paul. The blood-thirsty, avenging warrior Jesus of Revelation cannot be found anywhere else in the New Testament.
There is the further difficulty that if such a person ever lived why the Gospel writers find it impossible to agree on something as basic as dating. For example, the two Gospels that record his birth, namely Matthew and Luke, not only describe the birth of Jesus happening in different circumstances but it occurs at different times: moreover, each one supplies details that make the other Gospel account to be impossible. In the case of Jesus' last days, the author of the Fourth Gospel sets out his account to be one day earlier than the Synoptics: apparently the reason for this is a theological one, i.e., to have Jesus dying at the same time as the paschal lambs.
Therefore, if it can be shown that the Gospel writers had no interest in accuracy but only sought to write a story that satisfied a theological motive, it is surely reasonable to assume that their entire writings fall into this category. Indeed, even if there were a historical Jesus (and I do not believe there was), he would be buried under the theology of the early church and his life no longer accessible. Other examples are when the writers manipulated the text to fulfil what they considered to be a messianic prophesy, e.g., Matthew 21:2-5 and also in John 19:23-24 (in both cases the writers misunderstood the Hebrew parallelism and mistakenly wrote of two acts when the Old Testament text refers to only one.)
A further example of why one is justified in believing that the Jesus of the Synoptics, John or Paul, or any Christian writing of the period, had no existence other than in the imagination of the New Testament writers are the number of 1st century sects that claimed to be following the teachings of Jesus. If a physical Jesus lived and preached, ca. 30 CE, then it is extraordinary that so soon after this, there were so many sects, but not only this, they were so very different, e.g., the Ebionites and the Gnostics.
As discussed elsewhere on this site, according to the New Testament, Jesus' life was associated with the following events: A special star appears to signal his birth (Matt 2:2); there is a massacre of infants in an attempt to kill him (Matt 2:16); he went about 'healing every disease and every infirmity' (Matt 4:23); fame spreads throughout all Syria so 'all the sick' are brought to him - who are then healed by him (Matt 4:24); he is followed by 'crowds' (Matt 5:1); 'great crowds' follow him (Matt 8:1); he heals a leper (Matt 8:3), a paralysed servant (Matt 8:13); and Peter's mother-in-law (Matt 8:15); 'many' who are afflicted are brought to him and he heals 'all who were sick' (Matt 8:16); great crowds follow him (Matt 8:18); he heals demoniacs (Matt 8:32), and a paralytic (Matt 9:7); crowds witness his healing ability (Matt 9:8); a ruler comes to him for help with his daughter (Matt 9:18); he heals a woman with a hemorrhage (Matt 9:22), and a ruler's daughter (Matt 9:25); a 'report of this goes through all that district' (Matt 9:26); he heals two blind men (Matt 9:30) who then 'spread his fame through all that district' (Matt 9:31); he heals a dumb demoniac (Matt 9:33); crowds marvel at what he does (Matt 9:33); he travels about cities and villages and heals 'every disease and every infirmity' (Matt 9:35); crowds follow him (Matt 9:36); he preaches in cities (Matt 11:1), speaks to crowds (Matt 11:7), and heals a man with withered hand (Matt 12:13); many follow him and 'he heals them all' (Matt 12:15); he heals a blind and dumb demoniac (Matt 12:22); 'great crowds gather' around him (Matt 13:2); he speaks to the crowds (Matt 13:34); Herod hears about his fame (Matt 14:1); crowds follow him as he heals the sick, and feeds 5000+ people (Matt 14:13); on entering Gennesaret, he is recognized and all the sick are brought to him and all of those who touch him are healed (Matt 14:36); great crowds come to him with the sick who are healed (Matt 15:30); the crowd see 'the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking and the blind seeing' (Matt 15:31); he feeds 4000+. people (Matt 15:38); he meets a crowd and heals an epileptic (Matt 17:14,18); large crowds follow him in Judea and he heals them (Matt 19:2); a great crowd follows him on leaving Jericho (Matt 20:29); he heals two blind men (Matt 20:34); he ejects the Temple traders (Matt 21:12); he heals the blind and lame (Matt 21:14); people call for his execution (Matt 27:23); all the people admit responsibility (Matt 27:25); when he dies there is darkness 'over all the land' (Matt 27:45);. the Temple curtain is torn and there is an earthquake (Matt 27:51); the saints came out of their tombs and appear in Jerusalem (Matt 27:52-53), and he is resurrected from dead as he foretold (Matt 28:1ff).
And yet all of this - recorded in just Matthew alone (John records even more spectacular events) - was ignored by each and every writer at the time when Jesus supposedly lived. Not even one of these events was recorded or was referred to by any writer active in the 30 - 90 CE period.
Attempts to answer the mythicist view have been unsuccessful. Advocates of the mythicist view are able to refer enquirers to the extraordinary silence of not only Paul, but other New Testament writers (e.g., the author of 1 Peter) regarding the earthly life of Jesus: they are able to also draw attention to other factors that support their stance, e.g., the failure of any (non-Christian) writers, active in the first century CE, to mention Jesus. There is the further point that Jesus is not provided with an earthly existence in any specific time and geographical location until the canonical Gospels, and there are wholly valid reasons for not dating their composition before the final years of the first century CE at the very earliest (see Dating the Gospels on this website).
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