Historical proof for Jesus?

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My friend is beyond believing Jesus was God, she insists that He never even existed as a person, and was just a made up figure.

It isn’t enough for me to say that it’s irrational to think the biggest religious movement in the history of the world was started based on a man his contemporaries would have known was fake. And obviously the Bible doesn’t do anything for her.

Is there any hard historical evidence and atheist would accept for Jesus living, supernatural stuff aside? Any a-religious ancient historians who wrote about a prophet in the area who was executed? Would the Roman empire have kept a record of prisoners they executed? Anything like that?
 
There is NO doubt Jesus was a historical person.

There countless sources from the 1st century that mention him. Most are Christian, but there are also some non Christian sources and they even too mention miracles (Josephus).
Also, there is no reason for discarding Christian testimonies. Yes, they are biased but so is every other text from the ancient era. Why would you believe a Roman what he wrote about Caesar (or even believe Caesar what he writes about himself in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico)? Isn’t he biased as Roman?
Another thing why materialists discard Christian texts is because they mention miracles and they believe in this “supernatural nonsense”. Why wouldn’t they if they saw it with their own eyes! There is no clear wedge between the supernatural and the natural, there is just what is real and what is not real.
Facts about the ancient times aren’t as well documented as more modern history. If she doesn’t believe that Jesus was a real person, ask her why she believes that Alexander the Great, Plato or Constantine are real. There is the same amount of evidence for them as for Jesus Christ. Every serious historian (atheista nd agnostics included) believes Jesus was real.

If she still won’t believe you. Send her some Wikipedia articles. That’s as secular as it gets and they still claim Jesus of Nazareth really walked the Earth.
 
When I was in undergrad, I was an archaeology major. I remember one kid asking in class, “How do we know that Jesus existed?” And the professor basically saying, “Well, it used to be debated back in the day, but the historicity of Jesus is pretty much settled. There’s no reputable scholar who would deny the historicity of Jesus; the only thing they argue about is what his existence meant. So pretty much anyone who says Jesus never existed is going to be a nut.” Meaning, scholars were comfy talking about whether Jesus was a real person around whom a complicated mythology had been built; or was he a real teacher whose disciples went ahead and took his message into some other area than what he meant; or was he who he said he was; or whatever— but no one was going to say, “Hey, guys, what if Jesus was totally imaginary?” and expect to be taken seriously.

Fast-forward mumblemumble years, and of course, we’re back at that same point in the cycle that’s been revisited however many times before. “I’m a serious scholar, and these are my seriously scholastic reasons for doubting that Jesus was ever a real person!” And, of course, since the internet is full of armchair scholars and armchair archaeologists, everyone finds someone whose theories agree with theirs, and they sign on without really thinking it through.

Your friend sounds a bit like reasoning, logic, history, and archaeology aren’t her strong suit. You can bring up your Tacitus and your Josephus; and you can trot out your arguments about how the early Christian authors are clearly drawing from firsthand information and that eleven out of twelve Apostles somehow managed to go to their deaths knowingly embracing a fiction and stubbornly carrying that secret to their graves; and you can talk about how it was a death-penalty crime to be Christian for large parts of the first three hundred years of its existence— but it won’t make a difference until she can put aside her ego, and be open to the idea of— “Well, if Jesus DID exist, and he WAS the Son of God, and he DID die to redeem mankind, how does that affect me and my life, and how do I respond?”
 
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midori said:
that eleven out of twelve Apostles somehow managed to go to their deaths
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Do we know this for certain? The death of James is mentioned in the Bible, but how do we know about the other ten? I know Clement of Rome and Josephus wrote about some, but isn’t the rest just tradition (which isn’t really that reliable, is it?)

If really all except John were killed because of their believes, it would be an almost irrefutable argument even in a court room. 😁
 
Lol one of the responses was in fact “you only know the apostles died for Jesus because the church says so”
 
The evidence for Jesus as a historical person is as solid as evidence for many other ancient figures we consider historical, if you get my meaning. It’s the most parsimonious explanation for what we have.
 
I have a couple more thoughts that I have time to add. Let’s assume I’m non-religious and looking at this question. The claim is that Jesus is a wholly mythological figure, but does that make sense?

The messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, but Jesus was a Nazarene. We’re provided with a complicated explanation for why Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem, but my first thought as a skeptic would be, if this was just mythology, why wouldn’t Jesus have just been from Bethlehem? It seems either the explanation for his birth there is true or made up, but if it’s made up… why make it so complicated? Again with the Crucifixion. We having heard the tale so many times are desensitized to it, but it was highly shameful. The idea of a crucified messiah is, as Paul said, an absurdity and stumbling block for many. It’s almost an oxymoron. Why would this wholly made up mythology involve a crucifixion? Why not just have him ascend or disappear? In fact, many scholars think the Passion narrative is among the oldest parts of the gospels.

The explanation that makes sense, even from an extreme skeptical (to the supernatural) standpoint, is that his origin as a Nazarene and his crucifixion were and are historical facts that they couldn’t just ignore. To the skeptic, it would seem the complicated narrative of his birth in Bethlemem and the resurrection and ascension are attempts to rectify these factual inconveniences.

I of course am not such a skeptic, and I don’t mean to cause any fellow believers doubt. But just for the sake of the original question I’m trying to just address the bare minimum for historicity.

You’ll notice the early criticisms addressed by the Early Church were never against claims it was all just made up. The skeptical accusers accepted the historicity, but called Mary vulgar names (as they had other ideas about what happened besides a virgin birth) and stuff like that. They rejected some of the supernatural claims and mocked them, but the criticisms were not that there wasn’t a Jesus of Nazareth who was a Galilean rabbi.
 
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Atheist scripture scholars have no reason to argue that Jesus lived, and would certainly like to proclaim Jesus a myth, if they could. There are maybe some 30,000 well known biblical scholars across the world, and about one third, maybe even one half of them, are atheists, who spend their time trying to undermine Christianity. Yet they all insist Jesus lived, and was a real human being.

Elaine Pagels hates Christianity, and wrote a book stating that, yet even she insists Jesus lived.

Bart Erhman has made a fortune writing popular books in which he pokes holes in Christian belief and scripture. Yet he even wrote a book insisting Jesus lived, and was no myth.

Yes, there are a teeny handful of people who continue to proclaim that Jesus was a myth. Freke, Gandy, Price, and Carrier are the most notable. Yet everyone with a background in the subject regards these men as blithering morons and embarrassments to intelligent atheists.
 
There’s considerably more evidence for the historical Jesus than there is for many secular figures. The gospels, firstly, are modeled after Greco-Roman biographies of the first century AD, in terms of length, the history they cover (these biographies rarely discussed the birth and childhood of the subject, instead focusing on their public works and death), etc. (as an example)
 
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As a non religious but fascinated religious investigator, I did a deep dive into this question a couple of years ago.

What I concluded is that…

It’s very hard to investigate when Christians are doing the research as it is hard for them to separate theological history from secular history.

Many of the historical claims are often on shaky grounds.

Mythicists have some major holes in their arguments and have to make some large leaps of presumptions.

99.9% of critical historical scholars feel certain that Jesus existed.

I go with the scholars. He existed. Unless or until evidence is found that contradicts what we currently know, I have no reason to think otherwise.
 
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nfinke said:
My friend is beyond believing Jesus was God, she insists that He never even existed as a person, and was just a made up figure.

It isn’t enough for me to say that it’s irrational to think the biggest religious movement in the history of the world was started based on a man his contemporaries would have known was fake. And obviously the Bible doesn’t do anything for her.

Is there any hard historical evidence and atheist would accept for Jesus living, supernatural stuff aside? Any a-religious ancient historians who wrote about a prophet in the area who was executed? Would the Roman empire have kept a record of prisoners they executed? Anything like that?
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There is plenty of hard historical evidence that Christ existed if you apply the same historical standard of evidence that you use for any other historical figure. Unfortunately your friend is either purposefully denying the use of the same historical tools, or is ignorant to the methods of historians.

The way we know of pretty much any figure in ancient history is primarily from the writings by or about the person in question. So for example, we know of figures such as Pericles and Alcibiades primarily from the writings of Thucydides. We know of many of the figures in Roman history from the writings of people such as Tacitus and Suetonius.

We actually have a wealth of biographical material about Christ, that was written by his contemporaries and later historians. The gospel accounts, each of which purport to be historical biographies of the ministry of Christ, provide us with very close contemporary accounts of the life of Christ. Even the later dates for the gospel accounts are within one generation of Christ, providing pretty reliable evidence when compared with other characters we accept as historical figures. We also have the writings of Paul who references living witnesses to the ministry of Christ, naming some of them by name. But besides them, we have hundreds of writings by patristic fathers. Not only that, but we have writings from secular historians such as Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius that admit the existence of Jesus and that people followed after him. There are even Midrashic references admitting to the existence of Christ. The biographical material for Christ is probably richer than any other figure in ancient history.

Direct archeological evidence for a historical figure is quite rare. So for example, we have no direct archeological evidence or the existence of Alexander the Great, we rely solely on the written accounts of his life. There are however a few pieces of direct archeological evidence of Christ. So for example, you have the James ossuary, which was at first looked at skeptically by scholars, but is becoming more and more accepted as an authentic piece of archeological evidence directly linked to Christ. They also believe that Peter’s home in Capernaum has been found.

In other words, if your friend will allow for the use of a reasonable standard of evidence, then there would be no justification for denying that Christ existed.
 
Kullervo said:
Do we know this for certain? The death of James is mentioned in the Bible, but how do we know about the other ten? I know Clement of Rome and Josephus wrote about some, but isn’t the rest just tradition (which isn’t really that reliable, is it?)
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Well, why not go through them one-by-one and decide which traditions you think were passed down through legitimate oral history, and which ones you think were made up because they sounded nice and gruesome?

We can start with Peter. All the early writers agree that he died around the same time as Paul, and that it happened in Rome under Nero, and it happened sometime around 67-68’ish, and that he was crucified. At least Origen puts forth that he felt unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Master, and so he requested to be crucified upside-down.

There’s the leader of the conspiracy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any evidence put forth to suggest that it was fictitious-- and pretty much everyone writing would know.

Peter’s tomb was found where tradition stated it would be found— and it was identified back during WWII.

Speaking of tombs, the Apostle Philip’s tomb was found in Hierapolis within the last 10 years. According to tradition, he preached in Phrygia and died in… Hierapolis.
The tomb wasn’t discovered at the center of the octagonal hilltop martyrium as long expected, however, but in a newly excavated church about 40 yards away. D’Andria’s team found a first-century Roman tomb located at the center of the new church, which he says originally contained Philip’s remains. This early church of Christian Turkey was built around the tomb in the fourth or fifth century, and the nearby martyrium was built around the same time, in the early fifth century.

The remains of the apostle Philip are no longer in the tomb, however. According to D’Andria, the saint’s relics were very likely moved from Hierapolis to Constantinople at the end of the sixth century and then possibly taken to Rome and placed in the newly dedicated Church of St. Philip and St. John (now the Church of the Holy Apostles), although 12th-century reports describe seeing Philip’s remains still in Constantinople, the seat of Christian Turkey.
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So in this case, Tradition was able to remember where they’d buried Philip’s remains 300-400 years after the fact, and built two structures to honor him: a church and a martyrium. And at some point, after the remains were removed, the church lost its importance… and everyone focused on the martyrium.

At that point, you can get into a discussion as to whether it was Philip the Apostle, or Philip the Deacon (whose journey ended in Caesarea, although there’s also a late tradition that has him as Bishop of Tralles).
 
nfinke said:
My friend … . . insists that He never even existed as a person, and was just a made up figure.

Is there any hard historical evidence and atheist would accept for Jesus living, supernatural stuff aside?
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The Shroud of Turin has now been scientifically proven to be 2000 years old, and the British Museum’s interpretation of the Shroud’s carbon fourteen evidence as proof of a date has been debunked.*

The image on the Shroud is scientific evidence that Jesus not only existed, but also that He was executed exactly as descibed by four authors of the first century.

Many fine books by reputable authors are available on this subject. Unfortunately, my experience has been that atheists refuse to even consider reading them.

+THE SHROUD OF TURIN, FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST !, Fanti, Malfi, 2015
 
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I did not hear about the new info on the shroud of Turin.

I would think a really simple response to that is that even if it’s 2000 years old that doesn’t mean the face it was on was Jesus face. I’m guessing that aspect of it is based on faith.
 
nfinke said:
Is there any hard historical evidence and atheist would accept for Jesus living
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An atheist, by definition, would never accept any evidence you bring up. Descartes said that, by reason alone, everything can be doubted, except one’s own existence.
 
nfinke said:
I would think a really simple response to that is that even if it’s 2000 years old that doesn’t mean the face it was on was Jesus face. I’m guessing that aspect of it is based on faith.
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Then you would probably ask them, “What’s your theory to explain why would someone bother making a negative image of some random guy, 1800 years before the invention of photography and the ability to turn it into a positive and see what it was supposed to look like? And, um, can you go ahead and make one yourself? Like, with no paint? No pigment? No scorch? You know, to show me how you think it could have been made?”

It’s easy enough to discard anything someone brings up. But it’s far more difficult to make a counter-hypothesis, and have it stand up to Facts. That’s the difference between someone who refuses to believe in x, versus someone who merely has a differing opinion about x. By arguing about the nature of x, we’re able to debate Truth, and thereby get closer to God and understand what we believe and why we believe it, but someone who merely wishes to be a naysayer has no interest in determining Truth. They’re just comfortable where they are, and don’t wish to have that comfort disturbed by inconvenient discussions about stuff that might affect them, their choices, how they live, how they perceive their place in the world, how they relate to others, and so on.
 
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