Why is there no real proof of Jesus existing outside of biblical references?

tothetenthpower
reply to post by texastig

 

He did exist out of religious doctrine. The Gospels are historical books.

Not really no.

They are accounts of Jesus written decades after his death.

The Gospels are a religious doctrine, not a history book. At least not to those of us who have extensively studied ALL religious doctrine from that era, before than era and beyond.

Why is that the most convinced people are the ones who know the least about it?

All of the other 'gods and saviors' writings came hundreds of years after.

Ah no, that's just false.

Prometheus.
Dionysos.
Osiris!
Horus,
Mithra.
Krishna.
Apollonius of Tyana*
Zarathustra.

MOST all of these were stories that surfaced FAR BEFORE Jesus.

Jesus was written about 25 years after his resurrection by Paul which means no myths and fairy tales could be inserted.

That's ridiculous logic. Do you mean to say that because Jesus was written about 25 years after his 'resurrection' that they could not have lied about it? Or embellished it?

The logic behind that statement is dumbfounding.

~Tenth

edit on 1/2/2014 by tothetenthpower because: (no reason given)

Don't forget Tammuz and Bachhus. They were born under the same conditions as well. And guess what they are all Solar Messiah's. Jesus like the rest of them is symbolic!

I don't want to be rude here or offend anyone, but is there any proof that god exists?

reply to post by Scope and a Beam


The consensus among people who should know ?
Most historical scholars consider any idea of Christ not existing to be
very simply false.

" “To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has ‘again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars.’ In recent years ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus’—or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.”
Grant, historical scholar ( 1977 )

“Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their [i.e., Jesus mythers] arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.”
Van Voorst ( 2000 )

“No serious historian of any religious or nonreligious stripe doubts that Jesus of Nazareth really lived in the first century and was executed under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea and Samaria.”
C.A. Evans in Evans and Wright (2009)

Of course he existed, just like the thousands of other people the Romans crucified in absolute
obscurity and of whom there is hardly any historical record or none at all. But Jesus Christ didn't
remain in that obscurity. Hardly at all. It is common that once someone meets their end. People
forget and move on. Not so in his case. Why would Jesus just happen to be so different?

ThePro
I don't want to be rude here or offend anyone, but is there any proof that god exists?

Apart from the usual biblical stuff? Nope!

If there was a God then all the Catholic Priests and the Vatican would be in hell by now.

I used to be a Christian indoctrinated into the Church of Scotland. Right about the same time I believed in Santa Clause. No such thing as God and with that being the case then what's the chance of a Jesus character being real?

Just a lot of Hocus Pocus and Nonsense designed to control the masses and have them living in fear of Hell.

You'll notice the leaders of our countries have no empathy and conscience when committing genocide all over the world. They know the truth. We don't! That's the way they want to keep it and God and Allah etc is designed to keep it that way!

MamaJ
reply to post by windword

 

Do you agree that Christos (Christ or any other language --spelling --you choose for it) is also another name for Logos?

No it's not
Christos (Χριστός) is the one who has the Χρίσμα (the gift, an endowment)
So in other words Christ means a gifted person

Logos = reason,and the force that makes things happen! it is also the speach, the proccess of making random thoughts into
a spoken reasonable sentence.(hense the chaos into order), like taking some dirt and make art with pottery.
But Mr windword said it better previously.


reply to post by MamaJ


Your post has a logic which although I don't agree seems sensible...
But when trying to understand ancient greek philosophies and religion you have to realize that their consept of God(s)
was entirely different from the Judeochristianic ideology.

Logos is not a ''God'' it is the law of creation the, reason behind intelligent life.
There cannot be one God because simply there is not only one law in nature.
Gods are ''personalizations'' of aspects of nature and human consiousness n existence.
for ex. Love is immortal, it can ''live'' forever and guide or manipulate humans, all people know it exists, they feel it, they practice it, it is not a being, then what is it?

It is a God! (a goddess to be precise, If Love was a human it would be Aphrodite).
So is war, might , intelligence,Kronos symbolizes time, Zeus the power of nature and the power of will, etc.
the gods aren't only 12, they are 100s.

They are all inside nature and our Kosmos and not something outside the universe and the realms of reality.
It is nature worhip, the gods are not persons or beings, they never existed as persons but they exist as Gods and
they are all real. And thats coming from an atheist.

For the Trojans it was a blasphemy to present gods as statues with human characteristics but Greeks thought otherwize and they also go wild with mythology which beside the unreal spicy stories, they were used to teach ethics and morals to the people of that time.
I am already off-topic so I'll stop.

Hercules was a half-God, He was a human but his achievements made him a Hero, and Heros were considered immortals,
mainly because they will be remembered ''forever''

After that I understand that Jesus is a God too (with the pagan meaning), since he sympolizes the redemption
to the souls of so many people, and they still speak of him and his teachings,so he ''lives'' inside the hearts of people so many years after his supposed existence.

I don't even care if he existed or not as a person. and I also don't believe any of the miracles, since magic tricks and charlatanism were too common back then in Judea
And according to ''pagan'' polytheism his resurraction is a blasphemy to nature, as Celsus stated in his writings.

Celsus (178ce) also accepts Yessuah(Jesus) existed, but I won't state his story since it might offend many of the
mighty Christian missionaries in this forum

windword

That's the doctrine of Logos. It has nothing to do with the life and/or teachings of Jesus the Nazarene. His message was not new or unique. It is the same message that the Buddha taught, that Lao Tzu taught and the ancient Egyptian mythology and the Eleusinian mysteries are echoed in Christian ritual and mythology.

I can't just superimpose the philosophies of Pythagoras, the logic of Platonic solids and the harmonics of the creation of the universe onto the "Jesus" figure, hanging in perpetuity on a wooden cross.

edit on 2-1-2014 by windword because: (no reason given)

I wish I could give you sir, a thousand stars for this post.

texastig

Thecakeisalie
Firstly, literacy wasn't common back in the time that Jesus was said to walk the Earth, so there would only be few people that would be capable of recording his activities.

That is not true. Matthew was a tax collector and he had to keep records. Then you have Luke who was a physician.

Again, these threads simply demonstrate an anti christian dementia of sorts, a cognitive dissidence. Folks just fire off the stupidest comments with such frequency that it becomes clear over time that they have not even bothered to educate themselves in the most elementary of matters required for even an elementary debate.

reply to post by Dr1Akula

That's the doctrine of Logos. It has nothing to do with the life and/or teachings of Jesus the Nazarene. His message was not new or unique. It is the same message that the Buddha taught, that Lao Tzu taught and the ancient Egyptian mythology and the Eleusinian mysteries are echoed in Christian ritual and mythology. Windword

This is simply a dissimulation. Anyone reading the above and then feeling satisfied with its explanation enough not to look into the matter should consider themselves "tooled". You were simply confronted by the troll at a fork in the road and directed by same down the wrong path. You would find, if you continue down the right road, a clear departure of Jesus from these would be lights in the darkness.

C21H30O2I

I'd love to see some!

I'm not convinced. I have much more the impression . . . that . . . as mother would say . . . "You'd argue with a fence post."


It is exhausting dealing with arrogant rebels against Almighty God.

Hardheadedness, and well, blind, hostile anti-faith isn't proof of anything....

the whole anti-Christian pseudo-"logic,"

is sooooooooooo a 4000 year old broken Babylonian record... sheeesh

It doesn't seem to me that you've done a shred of quality research . . . except to dig up stuff which flatters your biases.

However . . . do carry on . . . there's a huge percentage of ATSers who hold your perspective as

a major cardinal doctrine of their anti-God-Almighty RELIGION. They'll scarf up such blather ad nauseum with great cheers and mutual backslapping reflexes.

texastig

........... Compare Alexander the great, he was written about 400 years after he died....... People believe that Nero, Alexander the Great, Caesar were real. There are historical standards that are used for someone being real.

Although I don't want to focus in the existence or not of Jesus, I have no problem to accept he actually existed

But the gospell writers, his sollowers where worshiping Jesus as a God, They believed in him and they wrote their stories about him. that's it. They were simple people of that time who didn't even knew how to write in their own language, and suddenly they start writing in greek.
The new testament says they were blessed by the holy spirit after ressuraction when Jesus appeared to them. and they suddenly knew to speak all other languages.
But for me that's unbelievable
which means their stories were written by telling them to others who could write
they were not indepentend respectable historians of their time who wrote about Jesus among other historic figures
Thats the kind of historic evidence we look for.

As for Alexander the Great, there have been so many bandalisms in ancient greek literature that its is a miracle we have what we have today(1%), among with the library of alexandria and so many other Roman book and papyrous burnings.

What we do have now is the ancient historians Αρριανός, Διόδωρος Πλούταρχος Κούρτιος Ιουστίνος
Those been the ancient historians of their time based their stories on historic research
When the stories gathered where in contrast, then they stated both sides of the story without making out stuff or choose what they thought was the truth.

Besides them we find parts that refer to Alexander in fragments and piecies of papyrous of unidentified writers whos names or works aren't saved. Also there are hundreds of local papyrous and signs from the areas he concured.
And some villages in Asia still tell the story Alexander which became a part of their history and traditions.

Πλούταρχος based his story on Καλλισθένη who was the ''official chronographer''* (historic writer of the army of alexander)

*(Sorry for my english I know they are bad and I have a difficult time trying to express myself in english)

The Above historians based their writings on other more ancient respectable historians;
Πτολεμαίο Αριστόβουλο Νέαρχο Μεγασθένη Ερατοσθένη, Καλλισθένης, Ονησίκριτος, Χάρις. who took part on the great compaign with Alexander who actually took part on the compaign with Alexander.

And other historic sources as well, those of Αναξιμένης, Δούρις, Έφιππος Κλείταρχος, Μαρσύας, Μεγασθένης, Τρόγος, Φύλαρχος

Among them some others wrote false stories about Alexander full of myths and hypes but having all the above relliable stories is easy to detect the lies.
those writers were Ψευδοκαλλισθένης, Φιρντουσί, Νιζάμι, Ποτάμωνας etc.

So in other words Alexander existence is a historic fact while Jesus existance is not
Archeological discoveries in the areas descrobed by the ancient historians have found Alexander battle remains, temples builded by him, and coins, and weapons with his figure.
What evidence do we have of Jesus miracles?

reply to post by Dr1Akula


What magnificent erudition . . . what an objective perspective . . .

arbitrarily declare something as UNTRUE

merely because you chose to label it utterly impossible.

impressive. /sarc

Lazarus was dead 3 days.

Feeding the 5,000+ sounds more than some slight of hand parlor trick.

Oh, never mind.

The truth is obviously unimportant to those who's biases were formed out of rebellion and defiance then set in concrete. Impressive. /sarc

These baiting threads could be reduced to a formula.

reply to post by Dr1Akula

Your post has a logic which although I don't agree seems sensible...
But when trying to understand ancient greek philosophies and religion you have to realize that their consept of God(s)
was entirely different from the Judeochristianic ideology.

Really? lol Maybe you should read my posts because then you would see this here above is something I realize.

Logos is not a ''God''

Again, Where did I say this above? Please re read my postS.

It is nature worhip, the gods are not persons or beings, they never existed as persons but they exist as Gods and
they are all real. And thats coming from an atheist

Oh... never mind. Carry on with your logic.

reply to post by Dr1Akula

But the gospell writers, his sollowers where worshiping Jesus as a God

Will you show me quotes of the gospel writers calling him God.

I would say they thought of him as all others did who foretold of his coming. King, Priest, Lord, Anointed one, Son of God, Son of Man, Christ..... Jesus did not equate himself with God.

And... if you go back and re read what I said about Logos and how it could be another term ( modern to those days) as Christ, you may see where I'm coming from. Maybe not... as we are seeing things different per our perspective and research.

The "word" made in the flesh/reality = Christ = Logos.

windword
Certainly, Jesus Christ never existed.

Christ means "anointed" one.
"christ"
occurs 555 times in 522 verses in the KJV

windword
Jesus, if he existed, didn't have the last name "Christ". In fact, there were many "Christs" before and after the advent of the birth of Jesus, if he existed.

Jesus did exist, just a Caesar, Nero, Alexander the Great, etc... To say He didn't exist is to say that all other ancient people of antiquity didn't exist. The same historical data used for Caesar, Nero and Alexander the Great, is used for everyone and that includes Jesus.
Not a single other person on the earth was the anointed as Christ was and He proved with His miracles.

windword
Christ is a pagan construct that was used by multiple pagan cults to describe initiates, deities, leaders and teachers.

There is no historical evidence for that.

windword
If modern believers were truly sincere in their desire for a more intimate relationship with the Lord, they would immediately want to know and question why "early believers avoided" using the name Christian? When it is realized that even the very name Christian was in use prior to the time of Jesus, we truly begin to grasp the Pagan connection. The name Christian was a term employed to describe one who was an initiate, and understood the inner meaning of the Greek and Roman mystery religions. Thus, the early followers of Jesus refused to be called Christian, and call Jesus the Christ, because the word was used in reference to enlightened Pagans and their gods.

No historical evidence for that either.

windword
Since early Christians weren't even called "Christian", but "Nazarene", there is no way that Jesus, if he existed, was called Jesus "Christ" during his lifetime. Why would Jesus, a Jew, and probably, if he existed, an Essene of the Nazorean sect, from Nazareth, a tiny farm settlement at the foothills of Mount Carmel, Essene headquarters, would NEVER accept a pagan title!
Jesus Christ certainly NEVER existed. Jesus the Nazarene, maybe.

Again, there is no "if He existed", He did exist, just like Nero, Caesar and Alexander the Great. The Early Church Fathers writings throw out your pagan accusations.

windword
Jesus, in a way, was a founder of a religious movement. He founded, through his apostles, the sect of the Nazarenes within Judaism. The sect did not last more than four centuries. It was another religion, Christianity, which claimed him not only as its founder but also as God incarnate. It was something the historical Jesus would have probably been shocked to hear, as we can vouched from the reaction of the Nazarenes to it. The sect he founded dwindled and disappeared form the face of the earth. One man, Paul, took his name and expounded his own theology that developed the heretical doctrine which was called Christianity. The historian Hugh Schonfield summarized the situation thus:

That's funny. Jesus came to Saul of Tarsus. Then he became Paul the Apostle. Paul the Apostle went and talked with Jesus' disciples and they were "all" on the same page.

windword
It is to the Nazarene records that we ought chiefly to look for our knowledge of Jesus, and we must regard Nazarenism as the true Christianity. As the Nazarenes throughout the period of personal recollection and down to the third generation, that is to say at least seventy five years after the death of Jesus, denied his deity and his virgin birth, we must recognize that these are alien doctrines subsequently introduced by a partly paganized Church, as Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century more or less admits. The Church which received them had no other course open than to belittle the Nazarenes and denounce them as heretics. The historian here has no difficulty in detecting the real heretics..

Again, the Early Church Fathers throw out those accusations.

Windword: That's the doctrine of Logos. It has nothing to do with the life and/or teachings of Jesus the Nazarene. His message was not new or unique. It is the same message that the Buddha taught, that Lao Tzu taught and the ancient Egyptian mythology and the Eleusinian mysteries are echoed in Christian ritual and mythology.

Jesus’ teachings WERE on the doctrine of the ‘Logos’ there is nothing higher to be taught. Yes what Jesus taught was the same message that other prophets taught throughout the ages i.e. doctrine on the Logos or word where it was called mysticism and NOT Religion, but had fragments of all religions in it.

reply to post by texastig


Outside of Biblical records there is no proof Jesus ever existed. But let's see what other info we can dig up?!

"What profit has not that
fable of Christ brought us! "
Pope Leo X

Contrary to popular belief, there was no single man at the genesis of Christianity but many characters rolled into one, the majority of whom were personifications of the ubiquitous solar myth, whose exploits were well known, as reflected by such popular deities as Mithra, Heracles/Hercules, Dionysus and many others throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. The story of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels is revealed to be nearly identical in detail to that of the earlier savior-gods Krishna and Horus, who for millennia preceding Christianity held great favor with the people in much the same way as Jesus does today.

Thus, the Jesus character is not unique or original, not "divine revelation." These redeemer tales are similar not because they reflect the actual exploits of a variety of men who did and said the identical things, but because they are representations of the same extremely ancient body of knowledge that revolved around the celestial bodies and natural forces.

The result of this myth making has been foretold in a book called "The Christ Conspiracy - The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

In this highly controversial and explosive book, archaeologist, historian, mythologist and linguist Acharya S marshals an enormous amount of startling evidence to demonstrate that Christianity and the story of Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion.

In making such a fabrication, this multinational cabal drew upon a multitude of myths and rituals that already existed long before the Christian era, and reworked them for centuries into the story and religion passed down today.

Yes! Hence Mithra, Dionysys, Krishna, Bacchus, Tammuz etc. They are all the same with the same Birth, Life and Death sequence!

It has also been demonstrated that the world into which Christianity was born was filled with assorted gods and goddesses, as opposed to a monotheistic vacuum. In fact, in their fabulous exploits and wondrous powers many of these gods and goddesses are virtually the same as the Christ character, as attested to by the Christian apologists themselves.

In further inspecting this issue we discover that "Jesus Christ" is in fact a compilation of these various gods, who were worshipped and whose dramas were regularly played out by ancient people long before the Christian era....

Whether your a believer or not you got to admit something is very wrong with the Jesus story. Being an ex Christian I for one am perplexed that people still believe in the Jesus myth. Especially when you see what is going on in the world and the behaviour of our so called leaders, Church and Vatican.

Especially with the Church and the Vatican which are corrupt to the core and involved in Drugs, Murder, Paedophilia and Satanic Human Sacrifice.

What God condones that?!

The Christ Conspiracy

Nazareth was a city in Israel with a reputation for sin an debauchery. With a Roman garrison nearby, it was a hotbed for prostitution, gambling and all sorts of unsavoury characters.

A person from Nazareth (a Nazareen, which seems to be confused here with the older nazareen sect associated with Samson) was therefore looked down upon as one of the lowest social levels in Israel.

It was essentially a backwater, redneck town that the religious rulers under Roman occupation wouldn't have bothered to keep detailed records about.

Then when Jesus became a threat to the religious order, the Pharisees had a vested interest in not just killing him, but making sure his message did not survive. It makes perfect sense that evidence of his life were kept to a bare minimum in the records of the people who wanted him erased. We see this happening today.

So all we are left with are eye witness accounts and Roman records. The gospels make it clear that the Romans wanted as little to do with the whole Jesus affair as possible so really we are just left with the witness accounts.

If we go back to the Pharisees for a minute and their desire to wipe him from history, we can now make sense of certain events such as why they went to great lengths to ensure everyone knew he was dead by driving a spear through him after being crucified on a pagan symbol, and making sure his body remained in the tomb.

The last thing they needed was for him to survive, or have his body be stolen and rumours of him still being alive circulating. That stone they rolled over the tomb was not normal practice and it was specifically chosen to prevent stealing the body. then to be sure, they had guards placed at the entrance. Again, extraordinary measures in those days, even for a high ranking official.

Unfortunately there are too many side issues in this thread to address, but I'll leave it at this:
There are a very large number of people who have major misconceptions, gaps in their understanding, and even outright false beliefs about Jesus and God. Much of it comes from the church, much of it from the anti-church, and some just out of ignorance. If you are sincerely interested in seeking the truth about God and Jesus then scripture puts it in a nutshell - Ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.

As far as I'm concerned, the verse before that is just as relevant and is a valuable message to a few in this forum.

wildtimes
Nope! There are only lots and lots of Bibles, and people who've made their careers studying it and writing ABOUT THE BIBLE. There is very little, if any, actual "historical evidence." As many members in this thread have already showed us.

There are more manuscripts for the Bible than any other book of ancient antiquity. The New Testament was written very early which means no myths or fairy tales could have started.
From: toughquestionsanswered.org
When considering the trustworthiness of the New Testament (NT) documents, the first question we need to ask is, “Have these documents been accurately transmitted to us since they were originally written?” In order to answer this question about the textual transmission of documents of the ancient world, historians look at the number of existing manuscript copies (MSS) of the original text and they look at the time gap between the earliest existing MSS and the date when the original document was written. The more MSS, the better we are able to reconstruct the original. The shorter the time gap, the better we are able to reconstruct the original. This is referred to as the bibliographical test. Christians have pointed out for decades that the NT documents are far superior in both dimensions of the bibliographical test. There are more existing MSS and the time gap for those MSS is the shortest when compared to other documents of ancient history. Clay Jones, professor at Biola University, has recently updated the data that compares the Greek NT documents (as a group) to other documents of ancient history in an article published in the Christian Research Journal. Below are the results of his research:

wildtimes
What?!! Are you actually serious with this line of argument, tig?

I am very serious. Just because the Gospel writers wrote to different peoples of that time and some don't mention His virgin birth doesn't take away anything.

wildtimes
I'll ignore the 'pun', but again -- the birth circumstances and maternal conception would be CONSISTENT if there were any truth to it. AND, where was he during his youth? Hmmm? Just picking his nose for almost 20 years?

I bet you would howl if the all four Gospels were the same and then you would say, "They copied each other."
People have different views and the Gospel writers were writing to different peoples of that time.
Jesus was with His family for around 30 years. At 30, He started His priestly ministry. That's the Jewish way of doing things and you should know that.

wildtimes
Sorry, dear, but you can not claim this as fact. There is ONE PLACE that claims it, and that is in the Bible - not the early texts, and you simply can not use the Bible to prove the Bible is true.

The Bible is made up of many books and you should know that. There is nothing wrong with using the Bible because it is a very historical book. It is a fact that He was sinless, if He wasn't then we'd all be in big trouble. Even the Early Church Fathers know that.

wildtimes
Like most people, but when and where are up for debate among the most learned professionals.

The debate was over hundreds of years ago. It is proven that Jesus was real just as Caesar and Nero was.

wildtimes
"According to the scriptures" is not FACTUAL DOCUMENTATION; and it's very easy to retrofit a legend to fit earlier works that were composed by people 'guessing. Ever heard of "fan fiction"? Nowadays if someone came up with something based entirely on, say, the "Dune" series, and used only those characters and scenarios, they would be writing "fan fiction." If they claimed it was original, it would constitute plagiarism.

Again there are no legends because the New Testament was written very early and people were still alive after Jesus resurrection who seen Him. No time for myths or fables or fairy tales.

wildtimes.
I suggest you do some serious research - not on websites, but in scholarly tomes that are difficult to read and full of notes along with an extensive Bibliography and Suggested Reading section. (Lee Strobel DOES NOT COUNT, btw.) But it's okay, you're not alone in 'buying in' to a clergy's representation. They bank on you doing that. And I mean that as a pun, and a literal phrase.

I have done my research but it seems you haven't. It is common knowledge that if Nero and Caesar are real, then Jesus is real because the same historical standards are used for everyone of ancient antiquity. I have nothing to do with clergy. We have old manuscripts and pieces of papyri that prove that Bible is true and that goes for the Old Testament with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
When you find an ancient manuscript that says Jesus is not the Son of God, then I'll listen to you.

wildtimes
Cheers; happy new year.
It will all be okay in the end. We'll all get there. Might be several lifetimes after this one, but - we will. We all have passports.

We only get to Heaven by placing our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. See John 14:6

There is no physical evidence contemporaneous with the noted life of Jesus Christ that verifies his existence as presented in the New Testament. Period.

The absence of substantial counter-claims, or opposing evidence, or alternate references, or anything CONCRETE for discussion and analysis is common in discussions of religions and religious figures. Posts that merely critique the form of another claim or argument, or attempt to discredit the claimant, usually descend rapidly into vague generalizations, personal attacks, appeals to emotions or beliefs.

Charges of "absence of evidence doesn't prove evidence of absence" or "you can't prove a negative" do not apply. The latter invalidates itself (hint: it's a negative). The former is just silly in all but the most absurd examples.

Absence and evidence are terms that are basically OPPOSITE in meaning.

Simply: NOT(Evidence)=Absence (One term is the negative condition of the other.)

I'll give you Jesus if you give me Hercules. Deal?

If not, I contend that ...

"We are both atheists; I simply believe in one less god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in those other gods, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours."

reply to post by randyvs

Add to that who and when and why, they began questioning the historical Jesus.