What do we really know about this person? Is he really a historic figure, or is he just literary fiction? Are there proofs of his existence and what do we really know for certain about his life?
Regardless of the other details of his life, there is a historical consensus that these three facts are true:
He was baptized
He was crucified
His followers believed he rose from the dead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Testimonium_Flavianum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/09/04/an-atheists-defense-of-the-historicity-of-jesus/
>"He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees"
- Bart Ehrman
>"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.
- Michael Grant
>"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.
- Richard Burridge
He was a carpenter
>>1254852
You know as much about Jesus as you want to know, at all times, and in ever increasing increments.
You can know nothing, or you can know Him personally, develop a relationship, and live in awe of Him every moment of every day, knowing that it will take an eternity to fully know Him as He knows us.
Each man can choose what level He is at; but like Pilate, each man must decide what He will do with this Jesus, this King of the Jews.
>>1254852
I'm so fucking sick of seeing this image on this board.
All it ever says is "hurp derp, Christ wasn't a white man with long hair" "HOW DO WE KNOW HE EVEN EXISTED?? XD"
>>1254981
But you don't blink whenever you see white Jesus, Chineesus, or Wewus
Face it, archeological evidence shows that if god incarnated as a Jew living around that time, he probably would have looked like that.
>>1255002
WE WUZ KANGS AND SHEEEEEEEIT
>>1255002
I think it makes a lot more sense, both archaeologically and theologically. If God was "laid low" in the form of a (transiently?) mortal man, why would he still have utterly perfect idealized features? Even his disciples noted that the man offered nothing to them whatsoever but doctrine and piety. That would, by all means, presumably include physical appearance.
Isn't eschewing the riches and beauty of the material world in anticipation of the next what Christianity is all about?
>>1255014
People naturally appear more trustworthy, intelligent, and charismatic when they're good-looking. Would you still follow the word of Jesus Christ if he looked like Hodor?
We know his name wasn't Jesus.
>>1255014
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
>>1255002
Why does he have to be ugly and have such rough features? There's plenty of attractive people in the middle east.
>>1255010
I acknowledged wewus as inaccurate
however historical Yeshua would have been ethnically not European, unless theories of the impregnation of Miryam by the Roman soldiers is true.
>>1255045
"Ugly equals Evil" is an old cultural staple, and one of the reasons for vapid celebrity worship and the need to constantly repeat truisms like "Don't judge a book by its cover" to each generation.
It frustrates me.
The way Jesus is depicted is to me more proof that anything he might have said was eventually hijacked by the government that killed him, three centuries later.
>>1255090
I hate to say it, but Paul probably looks like what /pol/ thinks Jews look like.
>>1255093
It was. It turned into the abomination called Roman Catholicism.
>>1255002
Yeah, he probably would have done. I'm not disputing that.
But autists constantly use it as apparent evidence that Jesus never existed or it's is used to somehow refute religious belief.
>>1255070
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him…Like one from whom men hid their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not.” Isaiah 53:2
He was an impoverished man living under the impression of an expansionist regime.
He was basically a trailer park boy in Roman occupied Judea.
>>1255050
No, but calling him Jesus now is perfectly fine as it's the natural development of 'Yeshu' (apart from Joshua)
>>1255105
*oppression, not impression
FUCK!
>>1255107
Why should we call Jesus by the name given him by the people who executed him?
Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeaorum was an insult meant to mock Yeshua, and yet we use the council of Nicea and other Roman innovations as our chief sources of Christian dogma.
>>1255105
>He was basically a trailer park boy in Roman occupied Judea.
Yeah He was. Humble origins, mocked by the religious folks, one robe, one pair of sandals, no house....
He went from God in heaven to that, for us.
>>1255116
God usually takes what people mean for evil and turns it into good.
Christian is also a pejorative word, as in "these idiots think their dead leader is coming back to life".
>>1255116
That's the point.
By calling him by the name he was given while imprisoned and crucified is what makes it so profound.
We mock those who captured him and demonstrate the importance of his crucifixion, dying for our sins.
>>1255116
Was it really mocking though, when Pilate refused to change it at the request of the conspirators?
>>1255135
They wanted it removed because they didn't want it to imply that he was the King of the Jews.
What you're mistaking is that Pilate was attempting to mock Jesus by calling him the King of Jews/ Pilate was simply putting in up to remain impartial to Jesus' divinity and go against his conspirators.
>>1255102
I only use it to troll christfags with.
>>1255002
>Face it, archeological evidence shows that if god incarnated as a Jew living around that time, he probably would have looked like that.
The problem with your logic is that no god would ever willingly be a nigger.
>>1255151
It didn't imply He was the King of the Jews; it stated it.
Pilate found no fault with Jesus, and knew that the Jews, who threatened him, had nothing against Jesus.
Jesus is the King of the Jews, so calling Him such is hardly mockery.
If anything, Pilate is mocking the Sanhedrin for killing their King.
>>1255182
Why would a Christian be racist when the biggest Christian denominations exist outside Europe, in dirt-poor Africa and South America?
The thing is, if jews didn't look like this wouldn't all the monks in 6th century Sinai have noticed?
>>1255163
No, you only use it to identify yourself as an idiot, which most people find fairly helpful.
>>1255263
Looks like a richfag version of OPs pic. Richfag because he's not tanned.
>>1255263
Orthodox icons aren't exactly known for their realism.
>>1255290
>>1254865
Basically this.
He was definitely a real person. I'm no longer a believer and I have no sliver of doubt that he existed. That said, modern christianity mostly come from Paul. Jesus was a devout jew, he wouldn't recognize christianity at all.
We also dont know a ton about him. Just because he was real doesn't mean we have primary sources that reference him until later decades after his death. Outside of the Bible we have Joseph us writing 40 years later and basically all he says is 'Jesus the brother of James'. Mark isn't written until about 40 years later, Matthew and Luke roughly 55-65 and John at least 70 years after he died. They were definitely telling stories about him but in the age before cameras think about how much you'd know about say Vietnam or the civil rights movement to get an idea of what we can say definitely.
He was likely born and raised in Nazareth. All traditions seem to tie him to Nazareth so we can be reasonably certain there.
He was probably a follower of John the Baptist, a Jewish apocalypticist - somebody that basically preaches the world is going to end soon and that God would be ushering in a new age and ending current evil. We think this because every single gospel tells the story of the baptism of Jesus by John and every single story tries to explain why Jesus would be subservient to John in different ways. It was clearly embarrassing for them (Jesus being somehow subservient to John) so if Christians still held the tradition despite this then there was likely a very strong association.
(More to come)
>>1254852
Reminder that this is a facial reconstruction based on 3 random skulls which have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ. All of the following features are imagined: wide opened eyes, raised eyebrows, thick lips, mouth breathing, patchy beard and JUST-tier haircut. It looks like Jesus Christ as much as it looks like Bashar Al-Assad. Is pic related "the true face of Boudica"?
>>1255070
That image doesn't look that ugly to me. It just looks like a regular guy with a bad haircut.
>>1255097
Here's the composite made by the German Landeskriminalamt based on historical sources.
>>1255204
Just cuck my shit up senpai.
>>1255002
That's a reconstruction of ONE guy's skull. Here's four more
