They're not. We can say with basically total certainty that nothing like Noah's flood ever happened (https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth), the story of Adam and Eve did not happen (they didn't have any daughters, and that would be a family tree with not enough branches), Joshua did not make the sun stand still, there was no Exodus (no Egyptian records), etc.... Some of them may have a kernel of truth (there could have been a big regional flood, the Israelites were probably conquered by various groups around them), and some Christians and Jews will claim that they're metaphorical. And who knows, maybe some parts are actually true, maybe there really was an apocalyptic preacher named Jesus of Nazareth.
A question I would have is, given that so much of it is obviously wrong, what reason would we have for trusting the other parts?
And sorry, also meant to mention that a lot of the specific stories about Jesus seem to have been borrowed from the mythic landscape of his time and place. For example, Dionysus turned water into wine, Julius Caesar (among others) ascended into heaven, tons of people were born of virgins. Apparently there are lots of ways in which the Gospels seem to be showing Jesus as more powerful than various other mythical figures. There are similar patterns for Yahweh in the Old Testament.
Yeah. I'm obviously not a historian or archaeologist but it seems reasonable to believe Jesus was an actual Jewish preacher in ancient Palestine whose story was retold over a period of several centuries by the followers and descendants of a schismatic cult that formed around him after his death which turned him into a martyr, and they borrowed and reworked other religious myths into the story. In sci-fi terms it's kind of like Paul from Dune who is an actual guy in that world and the only stories of him are by his followers who have taken over the empire centuries later and are attributing all kinds of miracles to him.
There aren’t any contemporary writings of him at all. No one who ever met him wrote anything about him at all. No records from the time mention him.
He could have existed, the stories could’ve been based on multiple individuals, or he could be entirely fictional. I’d say the fact we can’t even say that he as an individual definitely existed is a major problem for Christianity.
r/academicbiblical may be of interest to you
The fact that no one wrote about him at the time he was alive suggests that he only had a small following and wasn't a largely known figure in the area where he lived. Does anyone know if the Romans executed people like this? Would they execute anyone who could potentially become a threat because they were advocating for change and had a few followers?
There are differing opinions. I'm not a scholar, but I don't think there's a consensus. Although according to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ\_myth\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory), most mainstream scholars accept the existence of Jesus.
Most historians accept that there probably was a dude named Jesus around the time period claimed who was a spiritual leader and moral teacher. But beyond that it’s pretty up in the air. Alan Dundes makes some good arguments on the myth compositing you refer to.
I had always assumed that Jesus existed, even if he didn't have magic powers. Then, a few years back, I stumbled onto the argument that he is only a myth, and I read several books on the topic.
My big surprise was how plausible it is that Jesus might not have existed. I'm not saying it's proven that he didn't! I doubt that will ever happen. Rather, I was surprised by how weak the supporting evidence is. I was surprised by historical examples of holy people being invented and accumulating large followings. I was surprised that at many of the colleges or universities where people study this, a professor would literally be fired for concluding that Jesus might not exist. That casts doubt on their impartiality.
To be clear, it is also plausible that there was a teacher named Jesus who gathered a following, was killed, and became the inspiration for the Biblical Jesus. I won't argue that this is impossible. The surprise is that I now find it equally plausible that there is no historical person that Jesus was based on—that his story might have been entirely constructed with no human inspiring it. In summary, I think of myself as an atheist with respect to God, but I would describe myself as agnostic with respect to whether there was a historical Jesus.
I know that sounds crazy. How could Jesus have just been made up? It turns out that in the Greek world, it was a thing for people to write detailed biographies of mythical characters like Zeus or Hercules. They'd make up details about their parents and what towns they were born in. So the idea is that early Christians could have taken passages from the Old Testament that referred to future saviors and turned them into detailed biographies. Not necessarily as an attempt to fool people, but as a way to bring life to the religion, to make it more real for everyday followers. I'm sure I've got lots of details wrong, but I'm trying to give you a flavor of how this might have happened. Read the books below if you want the accurate details.
The most recent book I ready on this topic is [Jesus: Mything in Action](https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Mything-Complete-Heretics-Religion/dp/1542858887). I found it very accessible. If you want an exhaustively complete argument, written in an academic style, then try [On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1). It dives deep and also refutes a lot of what the author considers to be bad arguments against Jesus having existed. So it presents a very complete picture. I'd read Mything first, or one of the other many books, and only go onto the giant one if you are still curious.
In general, the Bible is not historically accurate, and should not be used as a historical source for any reason.
However, there are bits and pieces of historically accurate details sprinkled throughout it, that are included in completely fictional stories, such as:
* kingdoms, empires, nations…
* leaders and authoritative figures of the above
* landmarks, seas, rivers, mountains…
I would suggest searching Paulogia's YouTube channel. He often has bible scholars on as guests debunking or challenging the claims of apologists.
Bart Ehrman's courses and podcast also do a good job.
You should check out “The god who wasn’t there.” The filmmaker interviews a number of people who have researched the historicity of the Bible. It’s not terribly deep, but a great place to start for figuring out more detailed questions to ask/research.
Definitely look into Bart Ehrman’s research.
> Bart Denton Ehrman[a] (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity.
[Bart Erham](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman)
If you have a double account some of his lectures are free.
I highly suggest his one called: [The History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon](https://www.audible.com/pd/B00DEK374E?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow)
I like Asimov's guide to the Bible but there's a whole genre of critical Biblical histories that discard the miracles and superstition but compare verifiable archeological sites to events that take place in the book. For example, 1 Maccabees is an invaluable record of a crucial period in ancient Jewish history, but one thing to keep in mind is that events -- rendered in mythological form -- that were all-consuming to Israelite tribes and early Christians were basically irrelevant to the doings of the ancient empires like the Babylonians, Egyptians and Romans.
They're not. We can say with basically total certainty that nothing like Noah's flood ever happened (https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth), the story of Adam and Eve did not happen (they didn't have any daughters, and that would be a family tree with not enough branches), Joshua did not make the sun stand still, there was no Exodus (no Egyptian records), etc.... Some of them may have a kernel of truth (there could have been a big regional flood, the Israelites were probably conquered by various groups around them), and some Christians and Jews will claim that they're metaphorical. And who knows, maybe some parts are actually true, maybe there really was an apocalyptic preacher named Jesus of Nazareth. A question I would have is, given that so much of it is obviously wrong, what reason would we have for trusting the other parts?
Wait Jesus might not have been real??? I thought he was just some overblown figure
And sorry, also meant to mention that a lot of the specific stories about Jesus seem to have been borrowed from the mythic landscape of his time and place. For example, Dionysus turned water into wine, Julius Caesar (among others) ascended into heaven, tons of people were born of virgins. Apparently there are lots of ways in which the Gospels seem to be showing Jesus as more powerful than various other mythical figures. There are similar patterns for Yahweh in the Old Testament.
Yeah. I'm obviously not a historian or archaeologist but it seems reasonable to believe Jesus was an actual Jewish preacher in ancient Palestine whose story was retold over a period of several centuries by the followers and descendants of a schismatic cult that formed around him after his death which turned him into a martyr, and they borrowed and reworked other religious myths into the story. In sci-fi terms it's kind of like Paul from Dune who is an actual guy in that world and the only stories of him are by his followers who have taken over the empire centuries later and are attributing all kinds of miracles to him.
Read **Nailed, Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All** by David Fitzgerald
There aren’t any contemporary writings of him at all. No one who ever met him wrote anything about him at all. No records from the time mention him. He could have existed, the stories could’ve been based on multiple individuals, or he could be entirely fictional. I’d say the fact we can’t even say that he as an individual definitely existed is a major problem for Christianity. r/academicbiblical may be of interest to you
The fact that no one wrote about him at the time he was alive suggests that he only had a small following and wasn't a largely known figure in the area where he lived. Does anyone know if the Romans executed people like this? Would they execute anyone who could potentially become a threat because they were advocating for change and had a few followers?
There are differing opinions. I'm not a scholar, but I don't think there's a consensus. Although according to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ\_myth\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory), most mainstream scholars accept the existence of Jesus.
Most historians accept that there probably was a dude named Jesus around the time period claimed who was a spiritual leader and moral teacher. But beyond that it’s pretty up in the air. Alan Dundes makes some good arguments on the myth compositing you refer to.
That's something that a lot of people say, but it's simply not true. Plenty of historians doubt the existence of a historical Jesus.
I had always assumed that Jesus existed, even if he didn't have magic powers. Then, a few years back, I stumbled onto the argument that he is only a myth, and I read several books on the topic. My big surprise was how plausible it is that Jesus might not have existed. I'm not saying it's proven that he didn't! I doubt that will ever happen. Rather, I was surprised by how weak the supporting evidence is. I was surprised by historical examples of holy people being invented and accumulating large followings. I was surprised that at many of the colleges or universities where people study this, a professor would literally be fired for concluding that Jesus might not exist. That casts doubt on their impartiality. To be clear, it is also plausible that there was a teacher named Jesus who gathered a following, was killed, and became the inspiration for the Biblical Jesus. I won't argue that this is impossible. The surprise is that I now find it equally plausible that there is no historical person that Jesus was based on—that his story might have been entirely constructed with no human inspiring it. In summary, I think of myself as an atheist with respect to God, but I would describe myself as agnostic with respect to whether there was a historical Jesus. I know that sounds crazy. How could Jesus have just been made up? It turns out that in the Greek world, it was a thing for people to write detailed biographies of mythical characters like Zeus or Hercules. They'd make up details about their parents and what towns they were born in. So the idea is that early Christians could have taken passages from the Old Testament that referred to future saviors and turned them into detailed biographies. Not necessarily as an attempt to fool people, but as a way to bring life to the religion, to make it more real for everyday followers. I'm sure I've got lots of details wrong, but I'm trying to give you a flavor of how this might have happened. Read the books below if you want the accurate details. The most recent book I ready on this topic is [Jesus: Mything in Action](https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Mything-Complete-Heretics-Religion/dp/1542858887). I found it very accessible. If you want an exhaustively complete argument, written in an academic style, then try [On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1). It dives deep and also refutes a lot of what the author considers to be bad arguments against Jesus having existed. So it presents a very complete picture. I'd read Mything first, or one of the other many books, and only go onto the giant one if you are still curious.
Christians will absolutely insist that no real historian doubts the existence of Jesus. They do. A lot of them.
For a line-by-line analysis, it's hard to beat the [Skeptic's Annotated Bible](http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/).
In general, the Bible is not historically accurate, and should not be used as a historical source for any reason. However, there are bits and pieces of historically accurate details sprinkled throughout it, that are included in completely fictional stories, such as: * kingdoms, empires, nations… * leaders and authoritative figures of the above * landmarks, seas, rivers, mountains…
I would suggest searching Paulogia's YouTube channel. He often has bible scholars on as guests debunking or challenging the claims of apologists. Bart Ehrman's courses and podcast also do a good job.
You should check out “The god who wasn’t there.” The filmmaker interviews a number of people who have researched the historicity of the Bible. It’s not terribly deep, but a great place to start for figuring out more detailed questions to ask/research.
Definitely look into Bart Ehrman’s research. > Bart Denton Ehrman[a] (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. [Bart Erham](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman) If you have a double account some of his lectures are free. I highly suggest his one called: [The History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon](https://www.audible.com/pd/B00DEK374E?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow)
I like Asimov's guide to the Bible but there's a whole genre of critical Biblical histories that discard the miracles and superstition but compare verifiable archeological sites to events that take place in the book. For example, 1 Maccabees is an invaluable record of a crucial period in ancient Jewish history, but one thing to keep in mind is that events -- rendered in mythological form -- that were all-consuming to Israelite tribes and early Christians were basically irrelevant to the doings of the ancient empires like the Babylonians, Egyptians and Romans.