We don't know. That's the thing. People create real life characters all the time to advance their own ends. this could be another one of those.

Good point. For a man who never wielded pen nor sword, the impact of his presence certainly suggest something special.

Didn't He write in the sand?
Didn't he say he came to bring the sword?

Yeah, yeah, not what you're looking for.

Personally, I'd state the one often talked about never existed in any recognizable form.
The special message gman may be looking at is the power of propaganda and the ever present victory of might over the weak. For without those, the greatest story ever told...wouldn't.

Let's say there was a single person named Jesus upon whom all this Christianity it based. Could he have been illiterate? He never wrote anything down?

The Gospels indicate that Jesus could read, whether he could write is debatable, though it's entirely possible.

Joe, as I said, the bible states He wrote in the sand. During the abortive stoning of the adultress IIRC.

It's a matter of conjecture what he could have writen then...some say he was spelling out the sins of the potential stoners.

edit: John 8:7

I mean write to the extent of being able to record, for example, a Gospel or Epistle. Even people we would consider illiterate are generally capable of writing a few words.

Originally Posted by Jo Bennett

I mean write to the extent of being able to record, for example, a Gospel or Epistle. Even people we would consider illiterate are generally capable of writing a few words.

My understanding is that even literate people had scribes to do writing (maybe this is for the wealthy). When did the tradition of epistles and gospels start? Why wouldn't Jesus have done this, if many of his followers saw this as the way to spread the word? (Pure speculation, of course, just wondering if anyone has any thoughts.)

Originally Posted by Jo Bennett

The Gospels indicate that Jesus could read, whether he could write is debatable, though it's entirely possible.

how can you be able to read but not write?

How would the Gospel writers know what Jesus could do? They lived and wrote long after his alleged death and existence.

Good point! and it also apply to historians who write about events they did not witness?

so scrap history and concentrate on journalism. Fox news anybody?

Originally Posted by samiinh

How would the Gospel writers know what Jesus could do? They lived and wrote long after his alleged death and existence.

Actually, two of the Gospel writers are believed to have been of the 12disciples, the other two wrote within 50 years of Jesus' death.

Originally Posted by samiinh

How would the Gospel writers know what Jesus could do? They lived and wrote long after his alleged death and existence.

You act like Jesus lived in a vacuum samiinh. You forget that in addition to the thousands who saw, heard, and met Him personally in life, witnessed His miracles and then saw Him crucified and then again after He raised from the dead, many of those people numbering in the thousands lived as many as 50 or 60 years longer as living testimonials to what they witnessed with their own eyes and ears.

The fact is that it would have been totally impossible for a person to have lived as public and well traveled life as Jesus did, to have touched, healed and ministered to as many people as He did for anyone to claim He never even existed and was some historically fictional character. He was so well known that Roman Historians who never even travelled to Judea wrote of this man Jesus Christus even though they weren't believers in Him, but they never denied His existence.

And how do you explain that so many people that lived contemporary to Jesus, then witnessed His death continued to follow a dead man if He didn't raise from the dead and actually appear to the masses in His resurrected body just as the bible says ? Why would intelligent and faithful Jews abandon the religion of their fathers to follow a fictional character if He wasn't precisely what He claimed to be and didn't do precisely what He said He would do ?

Originally Posted by Archangel

You act like Jesus lived in a vacuum samiinh. You forget that in addition to the thousands who saw, heard, and met Him personally in life, witnessed His miracles and then saw Him crucified and then again after He raised from the dead, many of those people numbering in the thousands lived as many as 50 or 60 years longer as living testimonials to what they witnessed with their own eyes and ears.

The fact is that it would have been totally impossible for a person to have lived as public and well traveled life as Jesus did, to have touched, healed and ministered to as many people as He did for anyone to claim He never even existed and was some historically fictional character. He was so well known that Roman Historians who never even travelled to Judea wrote of this man Jesus Christus even though they weren't believers in Him, but they never denied His existence.

And how do you explain that so many people that lived contemporary to Jesus, then witnessed His death continued to follow a dead man if He didn't raise from the dead and actually appear to the masses in His resurrected body just as the bible says ? Why would intelligent and faithful Jews abandon the religion of their fathers to follow a fictional character if He wasn't precisely what He claimed to be and didn't do precisely what He said He would do ?

I have recently found this website: http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/, which I have found quite informative on the subject. I've begun to read Doherty's book: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin With a Mythical Christ?

I have found it quite interesting so far, and reccomend it to anyone interested in the subject of a Historical Jesus versus a Mythical Jesus.

I'm not saying I agree completely with him (in fact, I think it is very likely that a "popular" faith healer that had views considered heretical was put to death - his name might very well have been Yeshua, but likely nothing close to what is described in the NT), but I think his hypothesis is interesting, and I guess time will tell if this becomes accepted by more scholars.