Truth Saves - Did Jesus Exist

The figure

Jesus Christ

Never existed.

But how do historians know this?

There is absolutely no historical evidence to suggest he existed*

Despite claims by apologists, not historians, there is absolutely no historical evidence to suggest Jesus Christ existed. There is not even any contemporary mentionings of him in religious texts. Historically speaking, the absolute lack of historical evidence means one of two things.

A.) The figure did not exist, or
B.) The figure was very insignificant.

The figure Jesus Christ is described to be VERY significant so that leaves us with option A which is why all notable historians agree, Jesus Christ never existed. Plain and simple.

A Plagiarized Savior

A great deal of Jesus Christ's life according to scriptures is simply a plagiarized version of earlier mythology. The story of Jesus sprouted up in an age when mythological deities were the norm and in the area where people where a great deal of claims were made about supposed savior gods as predicted in scriptures. There is nothing about Jesus Christ that makes him unique from any other false savior that was believed in during the time.

Conflicting accounts of existence

Everything we know about the figure Jesus Christ comes from religious scriptures written several decades and even centuries after Christ's supposed lifetime. The accounts these scriptures give conflict with each other, the Marcionites thought Jesus came to defeat the rival god of Moses & Abraham and the Ebionites thought Jesus was a human adopted by God. Even within biblical scriptures Luke and Matthew place Christ's birth during historical events separated by at least 10 years. These dramatic discrepancies are traits of folklore, not historical documentation.

What about Historical Jesus?

The figure dubbed "Historical Jesus" by historians is NOT the figure Jesus Christ. This figure is the St. Nicolas of Jesus Christ. He is derived from the knowledge that Jesus Christ never existed and is used to explain what some of the legends about Jesus Christ are based upon. The figure Jesus Christ is based upon a collection of various mythologies, folklore, and legends. Some of these legends where likely derived from actual events involving a regular human. Historians have dubbed that possible human "Historical Jesus." The likely existence of the figure Historical Jesus does not suggest that the figure Jesus Christ exists any more than the existence of St. Nicolas suggests that the figure Santa Clause really exists.

*False & Dishonest Claims

about supposed historical evidence

If you are convinced that there is historical evidence of Jesus Christ then you have probably read or heard of alleged "evidence" that is widely spread in books by well known Christian Apologists. At face value the cases they bring up do look like actual historical evidence but if you move on past the books' agenda and do your own research you will quickly realize the "evidence" presented is nothing more than false or dishonest claims. Below we will expose the full story on the most common false claims for Jesus Christ's existence.

If there were historical evidence for Jesus Christ Christians would look to historians, not apologists. Apologists like Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel are people who make up claims despite historical evidence to give people what they want to hear, not what is true. In turn they also make a great deal of money selling such books while taking advantage of their followers.

Twisting the Text The following are real documents that do mention Jesus Christ... but that is all Christian apologists want you to know. Here is what they "forgot" to mention.. NONE of them are contemporary. NONE of these writers were even alive during Jesus' supposed life time. NONE are making any historical claims about Jesus. ALL of them either only mention Jesus while talking about the myths Christians believing in or do not actually refer to Jesus Christ at all.	Lucian In "The Passing of Peregrinus" by Lucian of Samosat there is a passage describing Jesus Christ which Josh McDowell claims is evidence for a historical Jesus but in reality the passage is describing the belief of Christians, not a historical figure or events. Lucian was also not a historian, he wrote fiction and satire and is credited as one of the earliest science fiction writers. "The Passing of Peregrinus" is a satire in which the lead character, Peregrinus Proteus, takes advantage of the generosity of Christians. Lucian also wrote parodies of tales told by Homer in the Odyssey along with stories of space travel and interplanetary warfare. Also... • Lucian was not even born until 125 CE so this cannot be an eye witness account.
Tacitus In Annals XV.44. the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus writes about Nero prosecuting the Christians in order to draw attention away from himself for Rome's devastating fire of 64 CE. Christian Apologists very commonly cite the following line as historical evidence for Jesus, "Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius..." However, if you actually read the entire passage Tacitus is simply giving a quick description of where Christians got their name and is not making a historical reference. Even more importantly Tacitus goes right on to say that what he just said about Christus (Jesus Christ) is a "pernicious superstition." Also... • The passage is set during 56 CE, over twenty years after Jesus' supposed death. • Tacitus was not even born until 56 CE so this cannot be an eye witness account. • Annals XV.44 was written in 115 CE, FAR too late to be a contemporary account or to serve as historical evidence.	Suetonius In Chapter 25 of a biography titled "The Life of Claudius" by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus there is one line that mentions the name/title "Chrestus." It reads, "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome." There is absolutely no reason to suggest this line has any specific reference to Jesus Christ. Even if you substitute "Christus" for "Chrestus," Christus is merely the Greek-Latin translation of "anointed" which is a title that to could even be used to refer to a number of people or a group of people. Just as a reference to a "king" would not validate the legend of King Author, reference to a title that looks like Christus by no means validates the story of Jesus Christ. Also... • The passage is set during 50 CE, twenty years after Jesus' supposed death. • Suetonius was not even born until 41 CE so this cannot be an eye witness account. • "The Life of Claudius" was written in 115 CE, FAR too late to be a contemporary account or to serve as historical evidence.
The Talmud The Talmud is a massive compilation of rabbinic customs and traditions that is divided into two parts, the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna was not written until 200 CE and the Gemara was not written until 500 CE making both of them extremely invalid sources of historical evidence when it comes to the supposed events of Jesus Christ. Also... • There can be no denying that the authors of the Talmud did not believe in Jesus' messiahship or his divinity. • There is also NO specific reference to Jesus Christ anywhere in the Talmud. For a full rebuttal of every dishonest claim made by Josh McDowell on the Talmud please visit http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html	Pliny the Younger In writings by Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger) while corresponding with the emperor Trajan, Pliny mentions and describes the beliefs and practices of Christians in Asia Minor while asking Trajan for advice about what action to take against them. Pliny's writings provide no historical confirmation of the events in the New Testament, he is simply say that these are what the Christians believe. All these writings prove is that there were indeed Christians living in Asia Minor, which no one disagrees with. Also... • Pliny the Younger was not even born until 61 CE so this cannot be an eye witness account.
Flavius Josephus Flavius Josephus is a well known historian who lived close to the time Jesus Christ is said to have lived and also in the same area. In his works titled "Antiquities of the Jews" Jesus Christ is mentioned two times, the first is in a section known as the Testimonium Flavianum that speaks of Jesus, his disciples and his crucifixion at the hands of Pilate (miracles are not mentioned in the original texts). The second briefly mentions Jesus while talking about his brother James. Christian apologists continuously use these writings by Josephus because they do appear to be the strongest evidence supporting a historical Jesus Christ, well that is if you don't do any research on Josephus or his works. Once you take the time to double check things you soon realize there are major problems making Josephus' writings 100% invalid as historical evidence. Not an eyewitness or contemporary account Antiquities of the Jews is not an eye witness account nor written during the supposed life time of Jesus, it was not written until the year 94. Josephus was also not even born until the year 37, seven years after the supposed life of Jesus Christ. Not a historical reference A great deal of the Antiquities of the Jews are not documents about historical events but rather documents about the Jewish communities' stories believes. The sections referring to Jesus are only talking about the beliefs of a Jewish sub group that were well known by the year 94. Antiquities also talks about non historical stories like the tower of Babel and Adam & Eve along with most other popular stories from Hebrew Scriptures. Josephus never believed in Jesus Christ Finally, Josephus died in the year 100 as an orthodox Jew and never believed in the existence of a lord and savior named Jesus Christ. We know this from an autobiography about his life and personal beliefs. Even if you ignore the two previously mentioned points the works of Josephus could only be used to support the insignificant "Historical" Jesus and not Jesus Christ aka "Biblical Jesus."

Dishonest Tactics & Forgeries

The following are items that fall into two categories. On is well known forgeries that apologists continue to preach as valid evidence. When a forgery or dishonest claim has been made publicly known to a group apologists simply try to find a new group who are not aware yet of their falsehoods and preach it as valid evidence to them. The second category is not evidence at all but rather dishonest tactics to avoid questioning such as falsely claiming we don't have historical evidence for anyone in history in an attempt to avoid the questioning about the lack of evidence for Jesus Christ.

We can't know if anyone existed that long ago?

Some assume that since we did not have modern cameras and the internet that it was uncommon for anyone to be documented back in the 1st century. That simply is a very false assumption. The 1st century was a well documented time and if Jesus Christ did exist like the Bible describes him then he would have been far too large of a figure to have slipped through history. Jesus Christ would have even been a bigger name than Julius Caesar yet unlike Jesus Christ we have a rather complete history of Caesar's life including an exact date of birth and death. We don't have any historical evidence for Jesus Christ because he did not exist as history clearly tells us. Even if a person named Jesus who was believed to be the foretold messiah and influenced some of the stories of Jesus Christ did exist, the reason for the lack of evidence would be because he was a very insignificant human, not because of the time he supposedly lived in.

Historical Evidence	Caesar	Christ
Personally written texts	YES	NO
Writings by friends about him written during his life time	YES	NO
Writings by enemies about him written during his life time	YES	NO
Sculptures/artwork of him created during his life time	YES	NO
Artifacts confirming his life	YES	NO
Artifacts confirming his death	YES	NO
Known day of death	YES	NO
Known day or even known year or decade of birth	YES	NO
Known last name	YES	NO

He Was Influential - People Died For Him

Some will say that since the stories of Jesus and the teachings in scripture were very influential then the stories must be true. That however is an absolutely ridiculous reason to believe in something. The stories of almost all mythological gods were influential, the Egyptians and Mayans built giant pyramids for their gods and based their entire life style around their beliefs about these gods. Is this evidence that these gods really existed? No. The influence of stories about Jesus give no more credibility to his existence than a fan-fair does for the existence of Harry Potter.

"But historically some Christians were willing to die for Jesus and people would not kill themselves for a lie." This is also another common statement made. People are willing to kill themselves for a lie all the time, when the believe the lie is actually true. The terrorists of 9-11 were willing to die because they believed that the lie about 72 virgins in paradise was true. The Christians mentioned however were basing their believes on scriptures and stories, not historical events they witnessed as such religious devotion came long after the supposed life time of Jesus.

What About the Bible & the Gospels?

There are several reasons why the Bible could not serve as historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. The most obvious problem is that all the scriptures contained within the Bible were written after, in some cases well after, the supposed life time of Jesus. Thus none of the biblical scriptures serve as a contemporary account and can not be taken as historical evidence.

Also...
• The gospels are not eyewitness accounts. All the gospels were written anonymously and the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were simply applied to the otherwise unknown authors by later readers. Based on guesses and wishful thinking later readers associated each gospel with Matthew the disciple who was a tax collector, John the "Beloved Disciple" mentioned in the fourth gospel, Mark the secretary of the disciple Peter and Luke the traveling companion of Paul.

Not only do none of the actual writers claim to be eyewitnesses but Matthew is written completely in third person (e.g. Matthew 9:9). The author of John even claims in 21:24 that he is not the beloved disciple John but just a person who got some of his information from the supposed disciple. In reality the gospels were written 36-65 years after Jesus' supposed death by people who did not know him, did not see anything he did, did not hear anything he taught and who spoke a different language and lived in a different country.

• The gospels are not independent sources and are not free from collaboration. Mark was used as a source for Matthew and Luke who both plagiarized (largely word-for-word) the gospel of Mark.

• The gospels are also loose credit since they disagree with one another when it comes to the story of Jesus. Matthew and Luke even place Jesus' birth during two separate historical events that occurred over 10 years apart.

Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is a forgery. After independent analysis by the University of Arizona, Oxford and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology all results date the shroud to be from between 1260 and 1390 CE. Besides, even if it was from the wrappings of a dead body during the 1st century this would still not be evidence that Jesus Christ existed. It would only be evidence that a person died during the 1st century.

Letters of Abgarus and Jesus

The "Letters of Abgarus and Jesus" are said to be a pair of letters that were allegedly written to Jesus from the Kingdom of Osroene ruler Abgar V of Edessa (13-50 CE) and back to Abgar V as a reply from Jesus. Historians however do not not take these letters as authentic but rather a forgery. There is no known copy or mentioning of the letters dating to Jesus' supposed life time or even to a time prior of the gospel writings. The letter forged as Jesus mirrors passages from later versions of the gospels, for example the passage in the letter in which "Jesus" says that he cannot visit Edessa and heal Abgar because he has to finish his mission but promises to send someone after his ascension mirrors John 16. This passage was not even taken from the original gospels, however. It more closely resembles the equivalent passage from the Diatessaron which was written sometime between 150-160 CE which would place the actual date of these letters to be sometime after that.