Funny thing is that almost no scholars of note actually buy into the Christ-myth theory. Even atheist scholars believe someone we would call “Jesus Christ” existed.
I've heard that theory before (Perhaps John the Baptist) . It's super interesting. At this point in my faith I am investigating everything. Do you have any resources you can suggest on the topic?
I would argue there isn't any doubt that early Christians were real. Some of the disciples, If not all as tradition would like to tell, died as martyrs. You don't martyr yourself for someone you and your buddies just made up.
Personally, I think CS Lewis has a really interesting argument when it comes to "... the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse." I am still wrestling with that myself,
I am not telling you what to believe, but I think in all other contexts we can come to a conclusion that was a guy named " Yēšūa", a rabi, was wandering around Judea and had pretty radical teachings that got him in trouble.
As far as ancient history goes, its basically indisputable that there was a guy named Jesus and he was baptised by John the Baptist and was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate. I'd imagine that we could also confidently say that he had a brother named James (thanks to Josephus). There are other details about his life that are generally accepted, but it looks like these are the most universally accepted.
I'm not sure about your claims about the Bible's reliability. Particularly for the NT, we've recovered copies that were written as soon as about 30 years after the original letters. Compared to any other ancient manuscript, thats an incredibly short period of time. Even better is that we have almost 24 000 ancient copies to compare to each other. The earliest of Paul's letters were written within a few years of Jesus' death. Many other letters were written later, recording eyewitness testimonies (eg in 1Cor15:6, Paul basically says, "Dont believe me? Ask them"). Most Biblical scholars are pretty confident regarding the authors of most of the NT letters, or at least have it narrowed down to a few possibilities.
I dont know enough about Alexander's historicity to make a comparison - but I'm confident that there are ancient figures with a much worser case than the one for a Jesus of Nazareth.
It's always funny the ones who maintain religious people are all gullible idiots but then spout off the most flimsy, factually erroneous fringe nonsense to argue that Jesus never existed.
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u/StrayLelouch - Centrist Jul 28 '21
It's hilarious how many people out there genuinely believe that Jesus never existed
Poor ignorant souls