Was Jesus a myth? No evidence in historical records
Historical researcher Michael Paulkovich has claimed that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist after being unable to find any verifiable mention of Christ in historical texts by 126 writers during the ‘time of Jesus’ from the first to third centuries.
He claims that he is a fictional character invented by followers of Christianity to create a figure to worship.
He says this is surprising despite his ‘global miracles and alleged worldwide fame.’
The 126 texts he studied were all written in the period during or soon after the supposed existence of Jesus, when Paulkovich says they would surely have heard of someone as famous as Jesus – but none mention him.
‘When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not – and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumram and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions – I must conclude that Christ is a mythical character,’ he writes.
‘”Jesus of Nazareth” was nothing more than urban (or desert) legend, likely an agglomeration of several evangelic and deluded rabbis who might have existed.’
Mr Fitzgerald said: ‘There is nothing implausible to think that Jesus was a real person, but I just don’t think that he can have been a single person if he existed at all.
‘We also have no mention of Jesus in other historical texts from the time. There were certainly people writing about Judea at the time like Philo of Alexandria.
‘During this period there were many other messiahs and wannabe messiahs who did far less exciting things than Jesus, but all of them managed something Jesus did not – to make a dent on the historical record.
‘Two billion people believe all these miracles happened yet there is no evidence they did.’
The earliest mention of Jesus yet to be discovered is a limestone ossuary on which the words ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’ is inscribed.
The box, which has been dated to 64AD – several decades after the crucifixion – was seized by the Israeli Antiquities Authority and its owner arrested for forgery in 2003.
Although he was later cleared in 2012, doubts about the authenticity of the inscription remain.
Others have said there could have been several people named James, whose father was called Joseph and had a brother called Jesus living in Jerusalem at the time.
Source: DailyMail.co.uk