Jesus Christ



Jesus Christ, according to Christian Doctrine, is the "Only begotten Son of God," who came to die for the sins of man, so that all people may have everlasting life in heaven.

The Jesus of the Bible is shown to perform miracles, such as walking on water, curing the blind, and raising the dead. He also commands great respect with his disciples.

Historical Jesus
Today, there exists little in the way of historical documentation for Jesus' life beyond the Biblical Gospel, and it is likely that these accounts were not written by eyewitnesses. This lack of evidence makes it very difficult to discern actual historical facts behind the Christian stories that describe him. This, however, has not stopped scholars from defending the existence of a historical Jesus, as well as specific views of who Jesus was.

Some atheists consider discussion of a historical Jesus to be a red herring and argue that, while a person named Jesus may or may not have existed, there is clearly no reason to believe that he had special powers, was the son of God, or performed miracles. Even if it could be firmly established that Jesus, the man, existed, this would not be evidence for the extraordinary claims that make up the foundation of the Christian religion.

The Apocalyptic Jesus View
The Apocalyptic Jesus refers to the hypothesis that Jesus believed the world would end within his lifetime, and is based on numerous passages within the Gospels, such as, where Jesus at least seems to express such a view. It makes sense within the context of the general apocalyptic fervor of the time, as well as the beliefs of John the baptist and early Christians such as Paul and the author of the book of Revelation. Its most famous proponent was Albert Schweitzer. Since the publication of Schweitzer's book The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1906, it has been embraced by a large number of Biblical scholars. Modern proponents include Dale Allison, Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludemann, and E. P. Sanders.

The Great Teacher View
Scholars who believe that Jesus was a great moral teacher tend to argue against the historicity of passages where Jesus predicts the end of the world. The most prominent example of this view is the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar argued that there are passages in the Gospels where Jesus expressed the view that the Kingdom of Heaven was not something that was coming through radical future changes but existed at the time in a spiritual sense. Such sayings, the argument goes, would not have been invented by later, apocalyptically oriented Christians, and are therefore more likely to be historical than sayings in which the Kingdom of Heaven is portrayed as a radical future upheaval.

The Mythic View
A few well-publicized writers have argued that Jesus probably never existed. Although, these scholars are in a minority amid Biblical scholarship circles. Examples include G. A. Wells and Earl Doherty. A major argument against the historicity of Jesus is that Paul's letters seem to show no awareness of such an individual (see ). This is disputed by other scholars, however, who argue that Paul's letters contain clear references to a historical Jesus.

Miracles of Jesus
There is almost no evidence for the miracles of Jesus outside the hearsay reports of the Gospels. For this reason, there is no basis for accepting that he worked actual miracles. On the other hand, faith healings and exorcisms happen today, though investigations show there is no reason to regard them as actual supernatural events. This suggests a possibility that Jesus was a fraudulent or self-deceived wonder worker and there were witnesses who really believed they had seen him work miracles.

Unlike Jesus' other miracles, Paul mentions post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in I Corinthians. Unlike the Gospels, I Corinthians probably was written by its traditionally assigned author. However, the reference provides no better evidence for the resurrection than the evidence for angelical authentication of the Book of the Mormon. It is also not the sort of evidence that many psychical researchers would demand for the existence of ghosts or telepathy.

Morals of Jesus
Many Christian apologists have claimed that the high quality of Jesus' moral teachings is undisputed and is evidence of his divinity. However, Jesus' status as a moral teacher has been disputed on many occasions.

In Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell argued that while many of Jesus' teachings were good, the Gospels clearly portray him as believing in eternal punishment, and this is unbecoming of a truly humane person.

Ancient historian Richard Carrier has argued thatt the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus was a better moral teacher than Jesus. Among other things, Carrier cites Rufus' belief in equality for slaves and his belief that "freedom of speech means not suppressing whatever one chances to think."

In chapter 7 of his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins praised Jesus because he "was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures of his upbringing... Since a principle thesis of this chapter is that we do not, and should not, derive our morals from scripture, Jesus has to be honoured as a model for that very thesis." However, Dawkins criticizes New Testament ethics on the issues of original sin and Jesus' demand that people must abandon their families to follow him.

It should be noted that some secularists hold very positive views of Jesus' ethics. For example, there is a website called Atheists for Jesus whose stated mission is "to provide a method of communication between religious and nonreligious people who believe in the message of love and kindness put forth by Jesus" and which argues that Jesus' actual teachings were at odds with the stance of modern Christian fundamentalists.

Naming
"Jesus" is the anglicised version of the Latin Iesus, from the Greek Iesous, from the Hebrew Yeshua (which translates 'salvation'), from which we get the modern westernised name Joshua (in Hebrew, Yehoshua, derived from same root as Yeshua; translates 'YHWH is salvation').

"Christ" is the anglicised version of the Greek word christos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach (Messiah), meaning "[one who is] anointed". Contrary to the popular opinion, Christ isn't a reference to Jesus' family or surname in the modern western tradition. Christ refers to the state of being "annointed" (a common reference to being a teacher or priest or some form of authority). Many Christian sects refer to him as Christ Jesus.

More precisely, he should be referred to as Jesus the Christ. As a person, he is normally referred to as Jesus of Nazareth; one may argue that this obviously contradicts the tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a quick reading of the first two chapters of Luke reveal Jesus was only born in Bethlehem because of an official Roman census' requirement for Joseph to travel there, a mere coincidence of timing. The text states in Luke 2:39 that after all the traditional Jewish rights were performed in Jerusalem (a few weeks' time) the family returned to Nazareth where he was raised and explains the title 'Jesus of Nazareth'. To call this a contradiction is as preposterous as telling someone I grew up in city A (the location of the hospital I spent my first few days in) as opposed to city B a few miles away (the location of my parents' home where I lived until college).

Birth Date
According to accounts in the Gospels, Jesus was either born in the year 6 CE (during the first census of the Roman provinces of Syria and Iudaea; during the reign of Quirinius) or in the period 37-4 BCE (during the reign of Herod the Great). Traditionally on December 25th, although the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to celebrate Christmas for the reason that the gospels suggest that sheep were still out in the fields suggesting that it wasn't the start of winter (among other reasons). So, at best there are 9 years (4BCE - 6CE, no year 0) where neither Gospel allows Jesus to be born and the rest of history where at the least one Gospel contradicts the date.

A common apologetic response to the discrepancy is to suppose that perhaps Quirinius served as legate to Syria twice, thus allowing his earlier service to coincide with the life of Herod the Great. This is unlikely, however, as Quirinius' career is well documented, and there is no reference to his service as legate to Syria as having occurred any earlier than 6 CE. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that P. Quinctilius Varus was legate to Syria from about 6 BCE until 4 BCE, which is the precise time that Quirinius would have had to have served in order to reconcile the account given in Luke to the one given in Matthew.

Jesus' Race
Traditionally, White skinned people represent Jesus with Leonado da Vinci's painting above being typical. Jesus, if he existed, would have been a dark skinned Jewish Arab.