Was Jesus a real person

Answer 1

The Bible makes it very clear that he was a real person. Even so, the early Gnostics taught that Christ was, in actuality, a type of spirit or God-manifestation that possessed a human body. The Gnostics further taught that during his execution the spirit of Christ exited the body since it could not be subjected to death and thus Christ never truly died. The early Church was quick to condemn Gnosticism as a heresy and due to its beliefs having no apostolic verification, an amorphous body of doctrine, discrediting from Christian leaders, constant apologetic attacks and moral pressures and finally the embracing of the Catholic Church by the Roman Empire, Gnosticism as a distinct movement phased out.

Answer 2

Jesus was real and is real. God sent his only son to Earth to die on the cross to save us. He made you and every living creature like... the ocean, the sky, the planets, animals ect. His Apostles wrote everything in the Bible.

Jesus Christ was an actual person however I would like to point out that he was never called this during his life time. The name Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Jewish (Hebrew) name Joshua, and Christ is a Greek epithet that means Christened, a substitute for the Jewish (Hebrew) word Messiah. Now during Jesus's life-time people really didn't use surnames all that much, only if you were royalty or nobility. Usually if a person wanted to be distinguish from all the other persons of the same name they would invent a descriptive epithet for themselves such as "Joshua the baker at Palmyra". Such epithets would not evolve into surnames passed down from father to son for many years afterwards -- but I hope you can see how such an epithet could change into things like Baker or Palmer.

Now Jewish citizens didn't go walking around calling themselves 'the messiah' during Christ's life-time. Oh No! At that time Messiah meant 'he who will lead a revolt and re-establish the Jewish Nation' and as the Romans currently occupied Palestine such a claim would quickly get you crucified. Jesus was leery about accepting the Epithet, qualified it on at least a couple of occasions, but other people seem ENTHUSED to apply it to him -- the consequences of which we all know. So if Jesus were to give himself an epithet it would something like 'the carpenter at Nazareth', or 'Bar-Joseph' (the son of Joseph).

Answer 3

Answer 1 - Christian

YES! He most definitely was! He lived on earth for about 33 years before being crucified on the cross by people who hated him for saying he was the Son of God, HE WAS but they were afraid of him because he performed miracles and loved the lowest of the people he lives now this very minute you can choose whether or not to believe me and supervisors are probably gonna delete this anyway but if you ever have any more questions feel free to ask me personally!

Answer 2 - Muslim

Yes, Muslims believe in Jesus as human and one of the five greatest prophets. The other four are: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad. However, they don't believe in Jesus as God or son of God. They believe also Jesus didn't claim that he is God or son of God.

In the Quran, there is a complete chapter titled 'Maryam' (Mary) that confirms Maryam virgin birth. The Quran states the following on the birth of Jesus (peace be upon him):

(Remember) when the angels said, "O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him (God), whose name is the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, revered in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (to God). He will speak to the people from his cradle and as a man, and he is of the righteous." She said, "My Lord, how can I have a child when no mortal has touched me?" He said, "So (it will be). God creates what He wills. If He decrees a thing, He says to it only, 'Be!' and it is."

[Quran, chapter 3, verses 45-47]

Jesus was born as miracle by the word and command of God "be" then "it is". This command is, as said in Quran, the same command that had brought Adam into being with neither a father nor a mother. God has said in Quran:

The case of Jesus with God is like the case of Adam. He created him from dust, and then He said to him, "Be!" and he came into being.

[Quran, chapter 3, verse 59]

During the prophetic mission of Jesus (peace be upon him), Jesus performed many miracles. God tells us that Jesus said:

"I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I make for you the shape of a bird out of clay, I breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God's permission. I heal the blind from birth and the leper. And I bring the dead to life by God's permission. And I tell you what you eat and what you store in your houses...."

[Quran, chapter 3, verse 49]

Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified. They believe that the enemies of Jesus (peace upon him) plotted and planned to crucify Jesus. However, God miraculously saved Jesus and raised him up to Him (to God). God, the all Powerful and the all Capable, put the likeness of Jesus (peace upon him) over another man. The enemies of Jesus (peace upon him) thought that the this other man is Jesus and they took him and crucified him. God has said:

{...They said, "We killed the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God." They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but the likeness of him was put on another man (and they killed that man}...

[Quran, chapter 4, verse 157]

The generally accepted Muslim view is that Jesus is still living in the body in the Heaven and that he will appear just before the Final Day , after the coming of the Mahdi, when the world will be purified of sin and unbelief. There will be a final death before the final Resurrection.

It is worthy to emphasize that both Jesus (peace upon him) and Mohamed, or may be spelled Muhammad, (peace upon him) came to mankind to call for worshiping only and the only one God. Neither of them nor Moses came to change the basic doctrine of the belief in one and only God. this doctrine that was brought by earlier prophets; including Noah, Abraham, Isac, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others. Both Jesus and Muhammad received the revelation from God to confirm and renew the doctrine of worshiping one (and only one) God.

Answer 3

The question of whether Jesus is the divine "Christ" is not what we are answering here. For the sake of discussion let's put all supernatural presuppositions about him aside and look exclusively at the evidence for the existence of the man Jesus.

1. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

All four gospels have been dated as to being written before 100 CE. The latest is most likely John which dates somewhere around 90 CE. Matthew, Mark and Luke were most likely written just before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Now if Jesus died in approximately 30 CE that leaves around a 40 year gap between his death and the first gospels. By today's standards this is an extensive time period in which to wait to write about someone's life. However by ancient standards 40 years is very quick. For instance Alexander the great of Macedonia does not appear in a "biography" until around 1800 years after his death. Also during these 40 years there would have been plenty of people alive who knew Jesus and his works that would have been able to correct any of the gospel writers if they were wrong. Also, the fact that the New Testament has more manuscripts of it than any other book of antiquity, more than 20,000 to be exact, adds to the conclusion that there was indeed a man named Jesus.

2. The 1st Corinthians 15 creed.

This creed was written down, most likely by Paul, in the letter of 1st Corinthians in approximately 55 CE. This was a spoken creed that Paul mentions had been passed down to him through spoken word until he pinned it. It thus means that the creed itself predates 1st Corinthians by a time, probably a few years. This makes it the oldest Christian creed currently in existence. The creed itself probably does not date more than 8 years after the death of Jesus. This also adds to there actually being a living man named Jesus.

3. Evidence outside the Bible.

There are multiple writers, both Christian and non-Christian a like, who give mention of Jesus. Most notably of these is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. While it appears that there are indeed some Christian additions in his writing the majority of it appears to be genuine. However, Josephus aside, there are other mentions of Jesus in secular material. These include mentions of Jesus by Pliny the Younger, Tacitus as well as by the Jewish Talmud. Early Christian authors include Ignatius, Polycarp and Justin Martyr. All of these sources give more credibility to the existence of Jesus. The Jews would NOT have made mention of Jesus if here did not indeed exist. It gave them far too much controversy to deal with.

4. The Rise of the Christian faith

Previous evidence aside the fact that there is a Christian church at all provides substantial evidence for the existence of Jesus. If Jesus did not exist that means men like Matthew, Andrew, Stephan, Peter and James would have invented the story. This in a way would have been them signing their own death certificates. There would have been no motivation to start a religion that threatened Judaism in Jerusalem. Also, it must be noted that Paul and James (the half-brother of Jesus) were not believers at first. They were converted and later killed for their faith. There would have been even less motivation for Paul who as Saul was a devout Jewish leader. Every single apostle, minus John, was killed for their faith. None of them would renounce it as a lie even in the face of death. Also, these were very simple people; some were fishermen, one a tax collector. None of whom were people that could enact revolutionary religious change especially not where they would have done it. It appears that all of them did in fact follow a man named Jesus who died and left them with a charge to grow a faith he started.

In light of this evidence it is up for you the reader to decide what to believe or not. Also, I invite you to research this on your own, check my information and come to a conclusion on your own. Again, the purpose of this entry was not to provide proof to the deity of Jesus but to explore whether he existed at all. However, much could be made of this evidence of there being a man named Jesus who was in fact the Christ.

Answer 4

Scholars have spent over a hundred years asking this question, and it is now one of the most discussed topic among scholars of the New Testament. This would certainly not be the case if it were not possible to doubt whether Jesus ever lived.

We have no contemporary accounts of Jesus, but this would not be surprising if he did not perform any of the miracles that came to be associated with him: there were many other wandering preachers, so he would not have come to the notice of writers unless he did something special in his own lifetime.

The gospels are insufficient evidence. We now know that we do not have four indenepndent accounts, but just one - Mark's Gospel - which was the principal source, directly (Matthew and Luke) or indirectly (John). Many of the events portrayed, and sayings and attributed to Jesus, can be traced back to the Old Testament and to Greek myths, meaning that these were probably literary creations that do not point to a historical Jesus. Not one of the epistles ever refers to statements the gospels attribute to Jesus, leading Wells and others to insist that it is inexplicable, if there was a historical Jesus, why they never quote him. It is thought that the epistles and the gospels come from two parallel strands of early Christianity.

Whether Jesus was a real, historical person or, for example, a dying or rising God of pre-Christian myth, may never be answered conclusively, but scholars are looking for the answer.

Answer 5

Although Christians often point to"evidence" of the existence of a real Jesus, there is none that secular historians support. The biggest problem is that there is no contemporary (at the same time as the Jesus figure was felt to be alive) evidence. Most of the accounts are written several years or several centuries later based on oral traditions.Even if Jesus were determined to be real, both Christian and Moslem traditions support the existence of a Jesus. The next problem would be to sift through the attributes of the figure to identify nature of the person.

Answer 6

Yes he was a real person, a Prophet of God