SubscribeOf course, there is no evidence that even existed at all.Except, of course, for the overwhelming evidence that he existed. Unfortuntately, it's almost impossible to determine anything else about him other than that he existed. Least of all something like his height.
TheRaven: You're trying to require only unnaturally exclusive sources. That's like saying, prove evolution is a legitimate concept, but don't use the fossil record or carbon dating. Prove to me that Abraham Lincoln ever actually had a beard using only the Chinese Zodiac and/or a toothpick.Well said, vanoakenfold. Also Raven, you're exaggerating the lack of source material. The first accounts of Jesus start to crop up between AD 50 and 70, only a few decades after Jesus' death and easily within the lifetime of his contemporaries. Within a century of Jesus' death, just including New Testament canon, we have 25-27 documents that mention Jesus. Now to us, living in the age of mass media and neatly kept records, this may not seem like much. But by the standards of ancient history, the amount of documentation suggesting that Jesus was an actual person is practically a goldmine of evidence. So if you doubt the existence of Jesus, you also have to call into question almost all of history prior to the 1700s.
Contrary to what magodesky says, the earliest references are from Saint Paul, who was probably writing around 70 AD and certainly did not live at the time of Jesus' alleged death.Actually, the first Pauline epistles were written closer to AD 50. That's only about twenty years after Jesus supposedly died. So this is still within the lifetime of Jesus' contemporaries. In fact, Paul was supposed to have been born around AD 9, so he actually would have been in his twenties at the time of Jesus' death. By AD 70, Paul was dead. Also appearing in this AD 50-70 timeframe is the the Q Document, the Gospel of Mark, and very possibly the Gospel of Thomas.
But all by people who did not know him.Much more relevant, though, is that they are all written independently. If I make up a story about a character named Theodore Gershwin Ignatius Cheesesmith the Cornmonger who travels around the world planting candy cane trees and preaching the importance of good hygiene, what are the odds that someone else who has had absolutley no contact with me will write another story about the exact same character and including the exact same details?
"The fact is that just about every expert in the field agrees that Jesus was a real person" is not true and leads me to conclude with You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that last part, but if you doubt my claim, you should try reading a little more of what Biblical scholars have to say on the matter. Among academic circles, the "Jesus Myth" is treated with about the same amount of credibility as scientists treat the "theory" of intelligent design with. True, there are a handful of scholars who disagree. But they are very much in the minority.
BTW, I have done enough harm here so I will say no more. Flame away!I don't know what "harm" you're referring to. It's not my intention to "flame" anyone. My only concern here is historical accuracy.
There is no making up, there is a real group of people (like there were many at that time) who wanted to change things, go back to the roots of religion, instead of just following stupid rules. Of course, they told each other stories of how to live, and why. Jesus was the protagonist of the stories of one those groups (the Essenes, Krijbolder argues, IIRC). Those stories, of course, evolved.If Jesus is fictional, then somebody at some point still needs to come up with the idea of who the character is, though. Somebody has to "make up" the character before the idea can be passed on. So tell me. How is it that all of these people who have little to no contact with one another suddenly begin writing about the same person at around the same time? How exactly does that happen short of what would have been the most perfectly hidden mass conspiracy in all of history?
We do the same thing with Santa Claus and other childhood characters. I imagine someone in 10000 years, after archeologists found some remains of our current civilization, trying to convince someone that Santa Claus had to be a real physical person, because there are so many references to him in books, with some differences (some say he lives in Norway, others say he lives in Canada etc.).um... I feel I should let you know that Santa Claus actually is based on a real person. So you've kind of just demonstrated exactly what I mean about building up legends around real people.
Well, one problem is that there are not that many people who did not know eachother who suddenly began writing about that person. Most people who wrote about Jesus were part of the group of Jesus-followers.Of course, just because someone may have been a follower of Jesus doesn't mean that he had contact with every other follower of Jesus. And the Christian church of the first century was hardly the cohesive unit that it is today. Furthermore, there's very little evidence of collaboration amongst these authors. In fact, there are several points on which they clearly disagree with one another.
I am from a country where Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas are two very distinct persons. Children (after they learn they do not exist) know that Saint Nicholas was a good person a long time ago and that Santa Claus is just made up altogether. Wikipedia agrees here, it says that the story of Santa Claus is inspired by the story of Sinterklaas, the story of whom was inspired by Saint Nicholas, not that Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas.You're right, Santa Claus is not the same person as Saint Nicholas. Through centuries of stories and traditions, Santa Claus has changed into something entirely different from his historical predecessor. But this does not change the fact that Santa Claus was based on the historical figure of Saint Nicholas, not just "made up altogether."
If someone were to ask "how tall is Santa Claus" I am sure the actual length of Saint Nicholas would not seem relevant.I think that's a little disingenuous. For one thing, in the case Santa Claus, we conveniently have two different names to distinguish between the historical figure and the legend. Yet that obviously doesn't change the fact that Santa Claus grew out of the historical Saint Nicholas. In the case of Jesus, we use the same name for both the man and the myth.
Heck, he would have been one of the tallest male Jews around in the twenty-first century! I speak from experience as a tall woman who refers to her college misfires as "Attack of the 5'2" Jewish Boys", which rather conveniently for them put them all at boob-height.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:04 PM on July 15, 2006