For Someone Named Gary

A nice young man that I know asked me a question. It was about Jesus. I know more religious stuff, oh well. Hey, this is my second post for the day, read the one before this one it is about climate change lies. During the course of our conversation I mentioned something quite simple, the teachings of Jesus were unlike those of anyone before him, that certainly implies that he existed. In fact there was a Jewish scholar, it turns out, who said the same thing.

I generally take the attitude that one should not ask a question if they are not willing to honestly look at the evidence. While it was not asked by people alive at the time, hundreds of years later people began questioning whether or not Jesus was a real person. It is sort of a weak question.

I will start with the easy stuff. Nope, he didn't exist. A group of fishermen got together and made him up and then told people in Jerusalem that the Jewish leadership had him killed and many believed it and gave away most of their stuff to these fishermen who then went on to build mansions and buy fancy cars. Obviously the Jews of the time were okay with all of this and didn't bother pointing out that he didn't exist. Somehow that answer seems really stupid.

Then we have Paul. Paul was also a real person and he wrote to real churches in real places and his letters were received and cherished by them. Some people will say that the letters of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by them; but, they ignore the fact that Paul knew these people even though he had not been present when Jesus was alive. Paul's letters have been dated to as early as 12 years after the death of Jesus and Paul was educated. This is the problem, nobody questions that Paul and the apostles were real people. We are left with the possibility that they were all liars or deceived. Okay, but how did they deceive people in Jerusalem into believing that Jesus at least existed?

There are many scholars who have looked at these issues over the last 2,000 years and it wasn't until long after the letters of Paul and the writings of the apostles were hundreds of years old that anyone questioned Jesus' existence. Here is a link to a nice website which goes over this subject.

Yes, I know the next questions, none of this is new. Sincere question come from a sincere quest. There are people who question whether or not the holocaust existed, they are not sincere. There are people who question whether or not we went to the moon, they are ill informed.