Hi Everyone
What historical evidence is there that Jesus and Gautama Buddha existed? I await some replies.




kind regards John Stefan

Regarding the historical evidence for Jesus, we had a long discussion once about that, here:

The 'Jesus is a myth', myth.

My own take on it is that there are a few (very few) historical, contemporary or near contemporary records, that appear to refer to a Jesus figure ... but whether that person equates to the Biblical Jesus and how he is depicted by the Apostles (that were all writing after the events and whose words were subject to even later revision and with obvious bias) is rather more debatable.

Well , I think that there was someone walking around what is now Israel trying to tell people about better living and the rewards afterwards.
Yes , more than likely he was a carpenter or knew something about wood working but he believed in something he thought existed. He may have called himself Jesus or it was a name given to him by his followers.
That he was the son of God one can accept/believe or reject.

Even today there are men/women stopping people in the street or go house visiting trying to tell people about their believes/religion but they are certainly NOT sons/daughters of God.

Thus Johnny , you have got to make up your own mind.

Does it matter? Surely the practice rather than any presumed originator is the crucial part.

One can buy 'Did Jesus Exist? by Prof Bart Ehrman who was a Christian but is now either an Atheist or Agnostic.  

There are seven letters that scholars accept were written by Paul that were written within a period of 20 to 30 years after when Jesus is said to have died.  Paul never met Jesus but he was in Judea within a short period of when Jesus is said to have died and he met some of Jesus' brothers and some of his disciples.  The vast majority of scholars of that period accept those letters as primary sources for the existence Jesus.  

Afraid I cannot comment on the evidence for the Buddha except to note that the time gap between when the Buddha is said to have lived and when his sayings were written down is much greater than is the case with Jesus.

Given that I do not think that Nordmann has been much on these pages for a while, I thought I would add this post from him on the subject from the BBC pages, not sure of the date but it was a good while ago.

“Probably most damning of the lot is the fact that Christianity’s greatest spreader of the faith in the early days - Paul, a near contemporary - seems never to have heard of him. he talks a lot about god, but nothing whatsoever of Jesus the character. He doesn't quote him once, says zilch about any miracles, teachings or crucifixion, and resurrection features on Paul's horizon with all the prominence of his sense of humour! Of course, if we conclude that Paul has as dubious historical grounds for existing as Jesus, we still have to ask ourselves why those who invented him neglected to include a convincing 'tie in' with the Jesus character.”

I wonder if nordmann really existed? Perhaps we all made him up and somebody else here wrote all his posts.

GreenGeorge wrote:

Does it matter? Surely the practice rather than any presumed originator is the crucial part.

To be serious on this serious thread, I must say I do so agree with that. And the idea - the philosophy - underpinning it all - isn't that what really matters? I actually don't give a hoot about who existed and who didn't (sorry, Tim), but I do give a hoot about the ideas in Christianity and in Buddhism - not that I know much about the latter. I actually have a book called "The Parallel Sayings of Jesus and Buddha": it's hard to distinguish between the two great masters - if they both were figments of someone's imagination, who cares? The thoughts - whoever thought them and who got them down on paper (or whatever it was they wrote on back then) - are great.

I'm reading again the books of Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh and sometime Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He gave it all up, resigned and left the Church. I think on one occasion before his departure, after a particularly awful conference at Lambeth, he threw his mitre in the Thames. But his books are sane and so full of wisdom. He has come, as I have done, to be convinced of the need to read the Bible narratives as great literature -  myths - poetic attempts to explain the mystery of our existence; so whether the characters really "existed" or not doesn't really matter, well, not to me. We exist; we struggle; and we try to make sense of the absurdity of our existence. Holloway points out that the question we ask of a myth is not whether it is "true" or "false", but whether it is living or dead. That makes complete sense to me, even if not to others. This sentence, in his book, "Doubts and Loves", really struck me:

"The main difference between myth and one of Kuhn's scientific paradigms is that the equivalent in religion of a scientific revolution is not so much the discarding of a myth as its re-interpretation, even the recognition, possibly for the first time, that it is myth, a narrative way of talking about complex human experiences."

Maybe that's what nordmann (if he ever really existed) was trying to get across to us all those years ago. Holloway's view of atheists is also very interesting - he says they are actually very religious people because of their passionate concern about the whole business. They cannot let it go. It matters to them.It is indifference to our human dilemma that is the real "atheism" - Holloway quotes Paul Tillich: "Indifference towards the ultimate question is the only imaginable form of atheism." That also makes sense to me.

So, did Luke invent Paul, as well as Baby Jesus and that lovely story about the Star of Bethlehem? Did someone invent Luke? Possibly - but someone thought it all up, and you have to admit it's a cracking story, good as anything those clever Greeks came up with...  

PS Bit of a muddle all this - sorry, but I'll still send, then get back to Larry posts - more my level these days.

PPS Heartfelt thanks to fellow heretic, Richard Holloway, for keeping me sane through the various lockdowns - who was it who said: "We read to know we are not alone..."?

I've been told by a Sikh colleague that, if you set out to describe a first-rate Sikh saint, he/she would be a pretty fair description for Jesus. I'd also suggest Teg Bahadur would be a candidate for sainthood (or so would Bodhisatvas - having reached a sufficient state of enlightenment to acheive nirvana, but choosing to return to help others acheive that state)

ps - no one appears to have clocked that "It's not what you believe, it's what you do" prety much sums up the ethos of Hinduism.

Green George wrote:

"It's not what you believe, it's what you do" pretty much sums up the ethos of Hinduism.

While the complete opposite, "it's not what you do, it's what you believe", is a key tenet of the Lutheran and Reformed Protestant tradition, which includes Anglicanism, ie justificatio sola fide, meaning justification (forgiveness) is by faith alone. It is on the basis of faith that believers are made right of their transgressions of the law of God rather than on the basis of any good works which they might have done. Good works are seen to be evidence of faith, but the good works themselves do not determine salvation; only true belief can lead to that.

Temperance wrote:

GreenGeorge wrote:

Does it matter? Surely the practice rather than any presumed originator is the crucial part.

I actually have a book called "The Parallel Sayings of Jesus and Buddha": it's hard to distinguish between the two great masters

I seem to recall there being quite a stir in the 1980s after a meeting between pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama, when the pope said that one could be a Christian and a Buddhist at the same time. What was meant by that was that, whereas Christianity was a religion, Buddhism was a way of life. In short, there was no actual theological conflict as such between the 2 philosophies. Consequently it was even suggested that if a Christian wished to set up a religious community, then they could equally do this following the rule of Buddha as they could, say, following the rule of St Benedict or the rule of St Francis etc. That monastery, friary or convent would still be considered a Christian or even a Catholic institution provided it adhered to the basic tenets and teachings of the Church. I'm not sure if that really was the case or if anyone did indeed subsequently set up such a community.

If it is true, however, then it's a pity that that accord wasn't reached decades earlier. It certainly might have prevented a lot of the strife in Indochina and particularly in Vietnam during the middle years of the 20th century.

Temperance, someone else would have also needed to have made up his LinkedIn page as well.

Not Nordmann, but I remember on the BBC pages, there were those whose response to any evidence for the existence of Jesus was that the document was a fraud.  

Funnily enough I cannot remember Nordmann ever questioning the existence of 'The Teacher of Righteousness' despite the lack of substantiating evidence for him (the Teacher that is not Nordmann).

regards

Tim

There is a theory that Siddhartha Gautama wasn't Indian at all but actually came from Bulgaria and was born near Varna ...

... I'll fetch me saffron robe.

The following is not actually evidence for the existence of Jesus.  However, the New Testament scholar E.P.Saunders draw up a list of statements about Jesus that, in his opinion, met two standards: 

“they are almost beyond dispute; and they belong to the framework of his life and especially of his public career.”  [I would note that he says 'almost beyond dispute']

“Jesus was born c. 4BCE, near the time of death of Herod the Great;

He spent his early childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village;

He was baptized by John the Baptist;

He called disciples;

He taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities)

He preached ‘the kingdom of God’

About the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover

He created a disturbance in the Temple area

He had a final meal with his disciples;

He was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest;

He was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.” 

Taken from ‘The Historical figure of Jesus’ E.P.Saunders 1993

I am not aware that this list has been challenged either by other New Testament scholars or by secular historians of the period of the Early Roman Empire.

Tim

Tim of Aclea wrote:

The following is not actually evidence for the existence of Jesus ... , ... , ...

Tim

So once again you have no evidence at all for your fairy stories and fables.

If you have any real evidence then please show it. However I doubt any real facts would ever change your blind, indoctinated belief. Imagine that a Roman stele iwas found, in Palestine, perhaps recording the birth of a "Josuah otherwise known as Jesus, the son of Joseph, a carpenter, and his wife Mary, both of Nazareth, born in the year 30 of the reign of the Emperor Augustus". But so what? That person, whoever he might have actually been - and more importantly his thoughts, hopes, beliefs and ideas  - are unknown, but are very likely not those of the quasi-divine person you so blindly venerate.

So enough of this utter nonsense and please stop your covert christian proselytising.

You seemed to have entirely missed the point, which is that those people who have studied the evidence at graduate level and beyond and have written about the subject overwhelmingly not only accept that Jesus existed, but also accept a number of things listed about him.  

If it is all fairy tales, then why does the Cambridge Ancient History, for example, accept that Jesus existed?  Or the Open University course on 'The Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity'?  

Paul's letters are a primary source for the existence of Jesus.  Have you read and studied them as part of an academic course?

There are of course some people who deny the existence of Jesus just as there are some people who deny global warming, the holocaust and neo-Darwinian evolution.

Why can’t it be accepted that it is more than likely that some 2000 years ago someone was walking around in what is now called Israel trying to preach /teach the people something called Christianity.

There are even now thousands of men and women anywhere in the world who are doing exactly the same. And in some countries some have been jailed and even been killed in teaching Christianity

Also it is more than likely that this man who was teaching/preaching in Israel was a woodworker /carpenter by trade. And yes his mother might have been called Mary and his father was called Joseph.

This man during his walking around preaching may have called himself Jesus or people listening to him or some of his followers may started calling him Jesus.

That Mary as a virgin gave birth to this male personality and that this man has been accepted being a Son of God is purely a matter of personal opinion.

I myself am a non believer but at no time will belittle or ridicule any one who is a believer irrespective what religion he/she follows.

Dirk

I think it is important that anyone reading this thread should be aware that for whatever reason people on websites such as this dismiss the exist of Jesus, such dismissal does not extend to the academic world.

Below are some quotes from the introduction to ‘Did Jesus Exist: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth’ written by Prof Bart Ehrman in 2012.  Ehrman is not a Christian and described himself, at the time of writing, as ‘an agnostic with atheistic leanings’ (p5).

‘I hardly need to stress what I have already intimated: the view that Jesus did exist is held by virtually every expert on the planet.’ (p4)

‘Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing – whether it involves the facts of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of presidents, or even a presidential place of birth -will not be convinced.  Simply will not be convinced.’ (p5)

‘What I do hope to do is to convince genuine seekers who really want to know that Jesus did exists, as virtually every scholar of antiquity, of biblical studies, of classics, and of Christian origins in the country [USA] and, in fact, the Western world agrees.  Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter.’ (p5)

‘as a historian I think evidence matters.  And the past matters.  And for anyone to whom evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it plain: Jesus did exist’ (p6)

‘those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda their denial serves.’ (p7).

Actually, Tim, I'm not clear that even absolute proof Jesus lived is of any significance. After all, we know for certain of the existence of Baháʼu'lláh, Guru Nanak, Joseph Smith, less certainly but with a high degree of probability that of Mani, Zaraθuštra, Constantine (the Paulician) and Lao Tze, but that really seems to me to be irrelevant to accepting their beliefs (particularly as twisted by later adherents).

Dirk Marinus wrote:

Why can’t it be accepted that it is more than likely that some 2000 years ago someone was walking around in what is now called Israel trying to preach /teach the people something called Christianity.

Green George wrote:

Actually, Tim, I'm not clear that even absolute proof Jesus lived is of any significance.

That was, sort of, my point - albeit I made it in a very aggressive and rude manner, for which I humbly apologise.

With the gospels and other texts having been written and rewritten, translated and reinterpreted over the years since the events they describe - and often to suit differing agendas - there's surely no certainty that the real Jesus was anything like how he is described in the New Testament. As an individual the Biblical Jesus, if he existed at all, may never have existed, or at least not how he has come to be portrayed - or perhaps the character is actually an idealised amalgamation of several persons and/or their ideas.

But is that not also missing the entire point of the New Testament? Surely it is the message it conveys that is important, rather than whether what it describes is factually true and supported by historical evidence? And I say that as an atheist. In that regard the hard evidence, or lack of it, for the existence of a real person called Joshua/Jesus, is rather irrelevant. However the christian message does make some highly implausible factual claims: the son of an all powerful creator God is born to a virgin, performs numerous miracles and is finally publicly executed but comes back to life three days later, etc. But as these are fundamental tenets of Christianity I'll just leave the acceptance of these incredible 'facts' to those who are able to make the leap of faith and so believe in the truth of such things.

In France we say there are three subjects that everyone should carefully avoid in order to maintain polite conversation and especially to not upset the stomach when dining: Dieu, l'argent et la politique (God, money and politics). I certainly think I need to pay much closer heed to that bit of wisdom.

Martin Goodman is a British historian of Jewish heritage and in ‘Rome and Jerusalem’ a secular history published in 2007 he states ‘The modern notion that the whole biography of Jesus to be found in the various gospels was pure invention is deeply implausible – not least because a story of this type about the career of a Galilean peasant was neither characteristic of religious literature at the time nor obviously helpful in spreading the central Christian message that Jesus was also Christ and Lord.’.

Quoting from the book 'Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels', first published in 1977 by the prominent Classicist, the late Michael Grant, who is also an atheist, where he completely rejected the idea that Jesus never existed. 

“This sceptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth.... But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. Certainly, there are all those discrepancies between one Gospel and another. But we do not deny that an event ever took place just because some pagan historians such as, for example, Livy and Polybius, happen to have described it in differing terms.... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serous scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.”

An Open University secular course in the 1980s on ‘The early Roman and the rise of Christianity’; states that “In point of fact, no scholar who has seriously studied the period doubts that Jesus Christ was a historical person’.  

The secular scholar W.Durant, who left the Catholic Church and embraced humanism, also dismisses the idea in Caesar and Christ (the third volume of his Story of Civilisation), wrote
“The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion”

In referring to the gospels he states that “The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ.”  He also states that “Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them.”

He concludes of the gospel writers “That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so loft an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man.”

I realise that in my post I did not really respond to any of the comments above.  

Since I was on this site more regularly a few years ago I have been undertaking a part time history degree in my retirement, I always wanted to take a history degree but the needs of career led me first to take a combined science and then a technology degree.  One thing one learns from a history degree is the importance of being able to quote from reliable sources, be they primary or secondary, for just about every statement that one makes in an essay.  They all have to be referenced using the Harvard standard complete with a full bibliography.  

The second thing is that I am now over 70 and I have just grown weary of heated argument and so just wish to stick to statements that I can provide a source for.   

I feel that at the moment all I am doing is answering the question posed, or at least half of it as I have not studied Buddhism in sufficient detail to answer the second part.  And I am answering it not by expressing my opinion but by quoting from the relevant academics.

I am aware that this subject has been discussed before but a long time ago and, for example, Erhman's book had not been published then.  Also most of the discussions, as I remember were what would be considered as non-academic'.  

To illustrate what I mean by non-academic.  MM above stated 'With the gospels and other texts having been written and rewritten, translated and reinterpreted over the years since the events they describe'.  

MM, you may well believe that, but can you provide me with a series of quotes from the relevant academic sources to the effect that, to take example, the gospel of Mark and Paul's letter to the Romans have been 'written and rewritten'?  They have obviously been translated, but Greek manuscripts still exist and the New Testament is unusually well provided with original manuscripts by comparison with other documents written around the same period. 

The question is also about the existence of Jesus not about either the virgin birth, which is not mentioned in most of the NT, or the resurrection, or whether Jesus is God.  Bart Ehrman does not believe in any of those but still believes both that Jesus existed and is worth learning about.  Marcus Borg in his book 'Jesus' published in 2011 rejects both the virgin birth and Jesus being divine and does not believe in the resurrection, although accepting that Jesus' disciples became convinced of the resurrection.  Borg still views Jesus as a 'religious revolutionary'. 

To quote Bart Ehrman again  ‘as a historian I think evidence matters.  And the past matters.  And for anyone to whom evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it plain: Jesus did exist’ (p6)

And to finish with Albert Einstein who wrote ‘As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.’  
‘No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus.  Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.’
‘No man can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.’

As shall continue to answer the question.

Tim

Paul’s Letters
The earliest evidence for the existence of Jesus is contained in the letters of Paul which date from c49AD to c61AD.  Of the letters credited to Paul; 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians and Philemon are widely accepted by academics as having been written by him.  Paul lived at around the same time as Jesus, he was originally hostile to Christianity, he met disciples of Jesus and Jesus’ brother James.  His letters are a primary source for the existence of Jesus and an eye-witness source for the existence of at least one of Jesus’ brother (mythical people normally have mythical brothers) and some of his disciples.  Those who claim that Jesus never existed have consistently failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for Paul’s references to Jesus.
Paul’s references to Jesus’ life
Jesus was a Jew of the tribe of Judah and Paul believed that Jesus was descended from king David.
Jesus had more than one brother and one of his brothers was called James
Jesus had twelve followers, known as apostles, two of the apostles are called Peter (Cephas) and John
Jesus was rejected by the Jews
Jesus was betrayed and he initiated the eating of bread and wine in remembrance of him on the night he was betrayed.
Jesus died by crucifixion at the Passover and was buried 
The Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death.
Paul believed Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, that he was seen by various people including Peter, James and the apostles.  This happened within fairly recent times as the majority of the 500 whom Paul also believed saw Jesus were still alive at the time of writing.
Pauly believed that Jesus would return.
That Paul does not say more about Jesus can be put down to the fact that Paul was writing to churches who had no doubt about the existence of Jesus, he was not trying to convince them, and to Paul not actually having met Jesus during his lifetime.  However, Paul certainly met people such as Peter, John and James who had met him.  Paul’s references to Jesus in the letters mainly arise because of the matters that Paul is writing to the churches about and often to illustrate a point..  None of Paul’s letters were written to set out a biography of Jesus.  With the exception of Romans, they are letters written to deal with an immediate situation.  However, there is still a surprising amount that one can obtain about Jesus’ life from references in his letters.  
Paul’s direct reference to Jesus’ teaching
1 Cor 7 10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. 12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.’ 
It is notable how Paul differentiates between his teaching and that of Jesus.

Merry Christmas to you all
Tim

The Christian Source Q from outside the New Testament 

The earliest of the non New Testament documents are those that were used as sources for the gospels.  Luke in his gospel refers to many who have “undertaken to set down an orderly account of the things that were fulfilled among us”.  It is clear that both Luke and Matthew used Mark as one of their sources, but though none of the other source documents have survived, scholars have attempted to reconstruct these hypothetical source documents.

The source document for which there is widespread agreement for is that of Q or the Loggia.  The contents of Q are quite forward to identify as the material common to Luke and Matthew, but not in Mark.  My understanding is that it is on the basis of the Loggia that Wells has changed his view as to the existence of Jesus.  Q has been researched for around 150 years and has become the centre of research into the ‘historical Jesus’.  The existence of Q is overwhelmingly accepted by scholars and the one argument against it; that such collections of sayings of Jesus did not exist, was shown to be incorrect with the discovery of the Gnostic gospel of Thomas.  

Q mainly consists of sayings of Jesus but it also includes some narrative such as that of John the Baptist and the temptation of Jesus and only one miracle.  However, it is also clear from Q that Jesus was considered to have worked other miracles.  The sayings of Jesus consist roughly equally of parables and of short sayings.  Q is generally considered by scholars to be a Jewish-Christian document written between about 40 and 70 AD with most scholars accepting a date in the mid 50s AD.  Jesus in Q is portrayed as not just a teacher, but as the agent of God’s salvation.  Q has sometimes been linked with a statement by Papias, as recorded by Eusebius, that “Matthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue.”  Matthew, as recorded in the Matthews gospel was a tax-collector and was therefore likely to be more educated than the other disciples.

Have you read 1984? I suspect so. What do you make of Winston creating a character to flesh out a story? iirc he suggests that the fictional comrade now exists on the same basis as Julius Caesar. Might not any religious group create a legendary leader, or The Book of Mormon on plates of brass or tablets of the law much as Tibetan monks created "yeti scalps", firmly believing in the essential truth of those creations?

GG you are entitled to your own opinion, but firstly can I ask you have you actually studied the synoptic gospels at a tertiary academic level?  What commentaries on them have you read?  What histories covering the New Testament period have you read?  For example the relevant Cambridge Ancient Histories, Michael Grant, Martin Goodman's 'Rome and Jerusalem', the Open University Course 'The early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity' or Bart Ehrman's 'Did Jesus Exist'.  Ehrman, by the way is not a Christian and describes himself as 'an agnostic with atheistic tendencies.

Secondly what academic support can you lend to your post?  

I am, as I posted elsewhere in my final level of a history degree, having previously taken and passed science and technology degrees, and the key is the need for academic evidence. What academic evidence do you have?

Fundamentally, someone wrote the Sermon on the Mount and if not Jesus then can you come up with evidence as to who it was?

And yes I have read 1984, but again at an academic level can you come up with support that either it or Tibetan monks or for that matter 'The Book of the Mormon' are relevant to the synoptic gospels?

regards

Tim

ps why did you change from Gilgamesh?

Well, I haven't studied any of this "at a tertiary academic level" (crikey!), but I have read a bit about it all, and I am no wiser now than when I started pondering these mysteries. Like T.S. Eliot, I've ended up back where I started - "And know the place for the first time". I just think, as mentioned above, that it's all "a lovely idea" - bit like Plato's Theory of Forms (Ideas?). Those Greek ideas of the Forms - in the new Testament the "ideal"  made flesh, so to speak - may well have influenced the writers of the gospels - Luke and John certainly.

I do miss our Nordmann.

Professor Ken Dark is an archaeologist and historian specialising in the 1st millennium AD – especially early Christianity, urbanism, and Late Antiquity – and in long-term studies of political development. After a PhD in archaeology and history from University of Cambridge, he taught at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge before moving to the University of Reading, where he became Professor of Archaeology and History. Leaving Reading in 2021, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Navarra, before coming to King's College as Visiting Professor in 2022.
He has this year published 'Archaeology of Jesus' Nazareth' based on the extensive archaeological work carried out by him and his team over eighteen years.  
He states that “Archaeology provides the first evidence we have outside of the Gospels on that period of Jesus’ life. The majority of Jesus’ life was spent in this context of Nazareth that we now know a huge amount about from archaeology and we knew almost nothing about before.”
His work reveals that 1st-century Nazareth lay in a valley that was densely settled. Two years of fieldwalking surveys by Dark and his team — recording pottery and other artefacts found while walking over ploughed fields — show that the valley was studded with previously undiscovered Roman-period farms and small villages. There were at least 23 such sites in a single 3-mile by 1.8-mile strip. 
As for the size and status of Nazareth, Dark said the archaeology suggested it was neither a hamlet nor a small town as some previous depictions have suggested but a village that was a focal point for the surrounding farms and hamlets. It probably had a market and shared crop-processing facilities — for example to press olives and make wine. It is very likely there was also a synagogue, although this may have been an open-air assembly, rather than a building.
Prof Dark said the archaeological findings were consistent with the Gospel accounts and also provided precious new insights into the period and culture. “The extent to which written sources for the history of Roman-period Nazareth correlate with the archaeological evidence is striking. These sources are telling us complementary — rather than contradictory — things about the same first-century community.”

Philo

The Jewish philosopher Philo from Alexandria lived from around 25BC to around 50AD, although he may have died as early as 42AD.  He does not refer to either |Jesus, John the Baptist, nor the Teacher of Righteousness.  He does, according to Dorothy Sly in her book on Philo, complain about Jews converting to a new religion.  He does not specify what that religion was, but he would have viewed Christianity as a new religion and he was writing at the time that some Jews were converting to Christianity.  

There is very little evidence about Philo’s life and historians know far less about it than they do about Jesus and Paul.  He is mentioned by Josephus, but the only event in his life that can be determined chronologically is his participation in the embassy which the Alexandrian Jews sent to the Caligula at Rome around 40AD.  This was as a result of civil strife between the Alexandrian Jewish and Hellenized communities.  He definitely visited Jerusalem, but it may have been on only one occasion.  

If Jesus did exist, as the overwhelming majority of scholars agree, then why does not Philo mention Jesus?  Well firstly he may have never heard of Jesus.  We do not know when Philo visited Jerusalem and it could easily have been before Jesus started his ministry, which according to the Synoptic Gospels was mainly in Galilee, or before Jesus came to Jerusalem.  Even if his visit was after Jesus’ death, the early church in Jerusalem was clearly quite small.  However, even if Philo heard of Jesus and the early church; is it likely that he would have either agreed with Jesus?  

If one looks at Philo’s beliefs and compare them with those of Jesus and of Paul, they are very different.  ‘Philo accepted the Great Chain of Being as God-ordained’  ‘Humans are graded also, depending on their ability to use their mind to control their body.  Men are essentially superior to women and to slaves.’ (Sly)  Philo is particularly hard on women, blaming wars on them, for example.  “For the majority of wars, and those the greatest, have risen through amours and adulteries and the deceits of women,” Ios. 56  ‘Highest and closest to God are free men, who live completely for the mind, and pay the body minimal heed.  Women are lesser beings.  They are essentially passionate and their minds are weak.  They are ruled by their bodies and they practice deception on men.  According to the divine plan, a women’s place is under the control of a good man.  She belongs in the private sphere.’ (Sly) “The women are best suited to the indoor life which never strays from the house.” (Spec. 3.169) ‘Philo seldom singles out a woman for open approval.  In both cases he fits them into his model – that women are inferior to men – by explaining away their womanhood.’ (Sly)  He condones the stoning to death of women ‘let her be stoned to death – she who has corrupted the graces bestowed by nature’ (spec. 3.51).  ‘The Judaism Philo propounds imposes severe constraints on women.  He does not hold them capable of higher mystical experiences.  In his two tiered religious system there are those who can love God and those who can only fear him.  Women belong in the latter group’ (Sly)  ‘The male embryo takes only 40 days for its ‘moulding’ because it is perfect but the female “who is so to speak, a half section of a man” (QG 1.25) takes twice as long, 80 days’.

This is all totally different from both the attitude of Jesus towards women and the role of women in the early church.  Jesus was accompanied by women on his travels, some of them provided for him and his disciples out of their resources.  They accompanied him on their final trip to Jerusalem and were present at the crucifixion.  According to Prof Bart Ehrman ‘most scholars remain convinced that Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God, in which there would be no more injustice, suffering or evil, in which all people, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, would be on an equal footing.’  Paul’s letters clearly show the prominent part that women played in the early church; one is even listed as an apostle.  Paul worked with a missionary couple, Priscilla and Aquila, with Priscilla is referred to first.  Paul names several other women as prominent.  In Acts Lydia is stated to have had the church meet in her house.  Paul writes that ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is not male or female; for all of you are one in Jesus Christ.  Philo would have agreed with none of that.  Unlike Jesus, ‘there were categories of human being for whom Philo seemed to have no fellow feeling’ (Sly)

Then there is Philo’s views of the Torah.  ‘Philo understood the Torah to be the solution to the world’s ills.’  ‘Philo views every philosophic teaching through his understanding of the Bible; everything must pass Mosaic sanction.’ ‘Moses reveals every truth that the great philosophers, even Plato himself, later expounded.’ ‘Philo interpreted these [laws] as timeless rules for both his people and others who aspire to see God.’ (Sly)  ‘His works show an abiding conviction that God is in charge of the historical process, and in his own good time the other nations, ethne, will turn of their own accord and accept the Torah as the ultimate revelation of truth.’  They will acknowledge the Jews as the model nation, ethnos.  To this end, the Jews must maintain faithfulness to the law.’ (Sly)  Philo considered that there would be a complete transformation in anyone converting to Judaism “the proselytes [to Judaism] become at once temperate, continent, modest, gentle, kind, humane, serious, just, high-mined, truth lovers, superior to the desire for money and pleasure.” Virt. 182

Jesus, however, places himself as a higher authority than Moses; in the collection of his teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount he repeatedly says, referring to the Torah “you have heard it said but I say …”.  For example while Philo declared that “for the worthless man is a creature naturally malicious, a hater of good and lover of evil.” (Abr. 20f)  Jesus stated that it was wrong to express contempt for your fellow humans.  Philo would have been absolutely fuming that a ‘Galilean tekton’ could put himself above Moses.  Paul also campaigned vigorously against requiring gentile converts to be either circumcised or keep the food laws.  Philo fully expected in the fullness of time for all nations to acknowledge the Jews as the model nation and keep their laws.

‘Philo’s expectations would not have been met by such a figure as Jesus presented.  … it is fairly clear that Jesus championed society’s underdogs.  In terms of models of reality, or ways things aught to be, Philo and Jesus differed widely.  Jesus questioned the existing pecking order.  Philo accepted the Great Chain of Being as God-ordained, neither would have accepted the other’s basic premises.’ (Sly)  Philo would also have not been impressed by Jesus’ followers’ belief that Jesus was the messiah.  ‘A unique feature of Philo’s Judaism is the nature of the messianic expectation.  If it exists at all, it is very pale with the Messiah being referred to only once.’ (Sly) Also to Philo, as to Paul initially the Messiah could not possibly have been crucified; as it was contrary to the Mosaic law.

However, Philo not have written about his opposition to Jesus teaching, ‘he did not care to give publicity to opposition.’ (Sly), This can be seen in a number of cases with Philo, but the best example is concerning the Oniads and Leontopolis.  Philo must have known about them, would have been completely opposed as he would have seen Leontolis and the Oniads as contrary to Deuteronomic law, but he makes no mention of them.  None of the gospels or Paul’s letters were written at this time and even ‘Q’ was probably written after Philo died, which could have been as early as 42AD.  Anything he heard about Jesus would have then most likely through hostile priestly circles.

Wikipedia is uncontrolled.  I have just completed a history degree in my retirement.  While Wikipedia has its uses, the one thing one would never do in an assignment is quote wikipedia.

ajtandy, rather than just posting links which I will certainly not look at, why not post some information.

Tim

Pliny
Pliny the younger lived from 61AD to 113AD.  He was the nephew and adopted son of Pliny the elder and published nine books of letters written between 100 and 109AD.  A last book of letters was published after his death and contain his correspondence with the Emperor Trajan when Pliny was governor of the province of Pontus-Bithynia in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) between 111 and 113AD. These letters provide the largest set of administrative correspondence to survive from the Roman Empire.
Letter 96 of book 10 is most discussed of all Pliny’s letters as it deals at length with Christians and also refers to Christ.    The authenticity of the letter is not doubted, the style matches that of other letters and the contents were known to the third century Christian writer Tertullian.  The tone of the letter is hostile to Christianity.  Excerpts from the letter are
“Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished.”
Being a Christian was treated as a capital crime.
“Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some (three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years.”
This refusal of Christians to curse Christ is in line with what Paul states in 1 Corinthians.
“They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.”
This is the earliest non-Christian description of Christian worship.  That Christians worship Christ in their music is also confirmed from New Testament writings such as the letters to the Philippians and Colossians.  It has been argued that the exact words used to describe Christ indicate that Pliny considered that the divine Christ was once a human being.
“I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.”
A Roman would find the idea of a god being crucified and rising from the death would be considered a ‘depraved, excessive superstition.’  A.N.Sherwin-White in his book on the letters of Pliny concludes that Pliny had decided that Christians ‘were foolish zealots whose way of life was morally blameless’.
“For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it. It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found.”
It is noticeable how widespread Christianity was in this Roman province in the first century prior to the persecution being undertaken by the Romans, such that temples were deserted and animals were not sacrificed.  Christians believed that Jesus had already made the one sacrifice necessary.

On the question of the existence of Jesus, Prof Bart Ehrman wrote the following:

'At a reputable university, of course, professors cannot teach simply anything.  They need to be academically responsible and reflect the views of scholarship.  that is probably why there are no mythicists - at least to my knowledge - teaching religious studies at accredited universities in North America or Europe.  ... their views are not widely seem as academically respectable by members of the academy.'

I have just completed the final module of a history degree on Modern Europe 1914 to 1989.  When it came to WW2, we did not deal with the claims of 'holocaust deniers'.

When I took my combined science degree between 1969 and 1972 we similarly deal with the claims of 6 day creationists.

One of the books that claims that Jesus was a myth but has as yet, as far as I am aware, failed to shake the academic world is 'The Jesus Mysteries' by Freke and Gandy.

I have read the book but I will mainly quote from Prof Ehrman.  Apart from their failure to 'cite any sources from the ancient world that can be checked'.  The book is also, according to Ehrman full of errors 'at an embarrassing rate'.  For example:

Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.  He did not, he made it a legal religion.

Eleusinian mysteries focus on the godman Dionysus.  Not true, they were concerned with the goddess Demeter.

Descriptions of Christian baptism are the same as pagan descriptions of mystery religion baptisms.  there are no descriptions of mystery religion baptisms.

Paul never mentioned Jesus in his ethical teaching, wrong and Nordmann made the same error see 1 Corinthians.

Many early Christians rejected Mark's gospel.  Wrong, every surviving Christian document that refers to Mark accepts it as canonical.  

The Romans destroyed the state of Judea in 112AD.  Wrong, there was not even a war between the two in 112AD.

I would just add an error that I spotted.  They refer to a claim that in Acts that the entirety of Asia was evangelised in only two years saying how absurd the idea was.  The author of Acts was referring to the evangelisation of the Roman province of Asia which made up a quite small part of Asia Minor, what is now Turkey.

Tim

Another book that claims that Jesus is a myth, but has again failed to impress the academic world is 'The Jesus Conspiracy' by Acharya S.  This is hardly surprising for, as Prof Ehrman writes 'the book is filled with so many factual errors and outlandish assertions that it is hard to believe that the author is serious' and he wonders if 'she has ever encountered anything resembling historical scholarship'.  I can remember mythologists on the BBC pages, also lacking in historical scholarship, referring to her.

A few of her errors

Paul never quotes Jesus.  
This was something Nordmann also claimed - they are both wrong.

'Gospel' means 'God's spell' as in magic.  
'Gospel' in fact comes from the old English 'god spel' which means 'good news'.

The gospels were forged hundreds of years after the events they narrate.
There are in fact many gospel fragments dated to the 2nd and 3rd C AD.  

It took well over a thousand years to arrive at the New Testament canon.
In reality the first list of the New Testament canon was made in 367AD.

The 2nd C AD church father Justin never quotes from the gospels.
He does many times.

Her claim is that Jesus was originally a sun god rather than Son of God.  

Tim

A classical source for Christ  - Tacitus

The most important of the classical sources is Tacitus who is often considered the greatest of the Roman historians.  The dates of his birth, death and even his praenomen are not known for certain but he was born around the middle of the first century AD and lived into the 2nd century and held a number of important appointments including being proconsul of the Roman province of Asia in 112-13AD,  Tacitus’ Annals cover from 14 to 68AD in either 16 or 18 books but only books 1 – 4 and 12 – 15 have survived intact.  Tacitus’ works were widely read in his own lifetime.  

Chapters 38 to 45 of Annals 15 describe the great fire of Rome and its aftermath in 64AD.  In chapter 44 Tacitus writes
“Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts, who the crowd called ‘Chrestians’.  The founder of this name, Christ, had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate.  Suppressed for a time, the deadly superstition erupted again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but also in the city, where all things horrible and shameful from everywhere come together and become popular.”  Tacitus then goes onto describe the ways in which Nero killed Christians.  

The vast majority of scholars have concluded that this passage is fundamentally sound.  The overall style and content are typical of Tacitus.  It fits in well in its context and is the necessary conclusion of the discussions of the fire.  Christian forgers would have hardly have described Christians in the extremely negative way that Tacitus has and would probably have added more information on Christ.  
Tacitus uses Christ as a personal name but the New Testament books also use Christ as a name independent of Jesus.  Tacitus also gives Pilate the title of ‘procurator’ which is an anachronism.  Up until Claudius in 41AD the Roman governor was called a ‘prefect’.  That Pilate was a prefect is confirmed by the ‘Pilate stone’ discovered in 1961.  However, the fact that Tacitus used the title for a governor that was current in his time and would be better understood by his readers.

It is notable that the information that Tacitus gives on Christ and Christians is entirely consistent with given in the New Testament that Christ was executed during the reign of Tiberius, the execution was carried out by Pontius Pilate; Christianity originated in Judea and had reached Rome.  This is also the only reference in classical literature to Pontius Pilate reflecting the general lack of interest of Roman writers such as Tacitus had in Judea.  Tacitus would probably not have mentioned Christ at all if it had not been for the effects of their presence in Rome and, without Jesus, Pontius Pilate would have had no mention whatsoever in classical literature.