Gday,
To be honest, I don't know the texts personally
So, you haven't actually checked the alleged 'evidence' ?
but I've not heard of a historian casting any serious doubt on it.
So, when you DO hear of historians casting doubt, you'll change you mind, right?
Here is a list showing that many historians have cast serious doubt on the existence of Jesus :
C.F. Dupuis, 1791, Abrege De L'Origine Des Cultes
Robert Taylor, 1829, Diegesis
Bruno Bauer, 1841, Criticism of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
Mitchell Logan, 1842, Christian Mythology Unveiled
David Friedrich Strauss, 1860, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined
Kersey Graves, 1875, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours
T.W. Doane, 1882, Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions
Gerald Massey, 1886, Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ
Thomas Whittaker, 1904, The Origins of Christianity
William Benjamin Smith, 1906, Der vorchristliche Jesus
Albert Kalthoff, 1907, The Rise of Christianity
M.M. Mangasarian, 1909, The Truth About Jesus ? Is He a Myth?
Arthur Drews, 1910, The Christ Myth
John M. Robertson, 1917, The Jesus Problem
Georg Brandes, 1926, Jesus – A Myth
Joseph Wheless, 1930, Forgery in Christianity
L.Gordon Rylands, 1935, Did Jesus Ever Live?
Edouard Dujardin, 1938, Ancient History of the God Jesus
P.L. Couchoud, 1939, The Creation of Christ
Alvin Boyd Kuhn, 1944, Who is this King of Glory?
Karl Kautsky, 1953, The Foundations of Christianity
Herbert Cutner, 1950, Jesus: God, Man, or Myth?
Guy Fau, 1967, Le Fable de Jesus Christ
Contemporary historian Richard Carrier has doubted Jesus' existence.
Earl Doherty is the premier MJer of the day - if you actually want to learn what the main MJ theory actually says, I would suggest reading Doherty's latest book :
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Neither-God-Case-Mythical/dp/0968925928
His web site has much to read too :
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/
Contemporary historian G.A. Wells initially argued against a HJ, but after copping flack from believers, he has changed his tune somewhat.
So now that you HAVE heard of historians who cast serious doubt on the existence of Jesus, I expect you'll want to check the arguments for yourself now, right?
I would have thought the Jews would have disproven it if they could.
When the Gospel stories finally became known to the wider community in mid-late 2nd century, Jews and pagans did everything they could to discredit Jesus. But people then were much more gullible - they believed in all sorts of gods and beings and god-men. There was no scepticism about the existence of any of them - that's why no-one argued Jesus didn't exist - because no-one argued that ANY god-man didn't exist. There was NO tradition of scepticism then.
Anyway - the Gospels did not become widely known until mid 2nd century - after TWO wars with the Romans, after the Temple was destroyed, after Judea was erased from the map, after several generations, after most of the Jews had been killed or dispersed. HOW could anyone then know whether Jesus existed long long before?
BUT -
what we DO see is all sorts of attacks and criticisms of Jesus when the stories become known. The Jews did everything they could to discredit Jesus - they said he :
* was a bastard
* was conceived during menstruation
* that he practiced black magic
* that he worshipped a brick bat
* that he was stoned to death in Lydda
* that he now spends eternity in a vat of boiling shit.
* that he stole magic from Egypt by secreting a scroll in his thigh so he wouldn't forget the magic word when the magic memory-erasing dog barked at him on the way out
Is THAT somehow confirmation of a historical Jesus?
Of course not.
It's Jews trying every trick they can to discredit Jesus.
And it shows that no-one, not even the Jews, ever knew anything about a historical Jesus. It's all stories from long after the alleged events.
Still, I'm sure we'll never know definatively but the circumstantial evidence is fairly strong.
How would you know?
You said you hadn't checked for yourself.
Instead, you have heard people SAY it's strong - AND you have managed to competely AVOID contact with anyone saying otherwise. You are making a decision on completely ONE-sided information.
See - this is the problematic pattern we see endlessy repeated about HJ.
Everyone believes that Jesus exists -
because
everyone believes that Jesus exists!
This BELIEF is extremely strong - because it's built in to our culture - Jesus is a house-hold name, the most recognisable name in Western Society.
But - the ACTUAL evidence is NOT strong at all.
So we get endless repeats of threads like this :
"The evidence for Jesus is strong"
Really? have you checked?
"Well, no actually, but everyone believes it, so I do too"
Kapyong