Was Jesus Real

Was Jesus real?

Though some may not believe Jesus was the divine Christ that Christianity venerates as the Son of God and savior of the world, and may regard accounts of the miracles and wonders attending him as mere legendary accretion; nevertheless they certainly believe there had to have been a central figure that began Christianity. Perhaps he was just a wandering teacher, or an exorcist, an apocalyptic prophet or a zealot who opposed the Romans. Perhaps he was all these things, or even a composite of several such early first-century figures; but at any rate, surely there had to be somebody at the original core of Christianity, arguably the most famous individual in human history. All this seems to be a perfectly reasonable, completely
So with all this attention focused on him and his incredible achievements from cradle to grave, how is it that we have no contemporary record of any of this? After having won the admiration of royal officials, Roman leaders and Synagogue officials, how is it that he wasn’t whisked off to the royal court and even Rome itself? How is it that none of his astounding new teachings were recorded by anyone at the time? We have absolutely no trace or mention of Jesus’ exploits anywhere until the New Testament books are written decades later. And outside of them, there is no mention of Jesus whatsoever for nearly a century after Jesus’ alleged death. This is a staggering omission, and totally at odds with the picture given to us by the Gospels. Jesus’ Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem - Jesus’ tremendous popularity peaks out and then, completely inexplicably, immediately fizzles out, crashes and burns after his triumphant - albeit short-lived - entry into Jerusalem, when the whole town turns out for the miracle-working prophet from Nazareth (and then promptly turns on him without
But like the miraculous Star of Bethlehem, no one recorded any such thing at this time. And yet they had plenty of opportunities to appear in print: Astronomical marvels like these could never have been ignored by works like Pliny’s Natural History, Seneca’s Natural Questions, Ptolemy’s Almagest, the works of Tacitus or Suetonius, and any number of other authors whose works no longer survive but who still would have been sought out by those later Christian writers eagerly looking for historical confirmation of Jesus. We are also told that the veil of the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom, Jerusalem was rocked by not one but two different earthquakes, strong enough to split rocks open, and perhaps my own favorite overlooked historical detail, the mass resurrection of many dead Jewish saints, who emerge from their graves and “appeared to many” in Jerusalem. Does anyone really believe that everyone in history but Matthew simply forgot about this little incident? Of course, the final icing on the Jesus cake is his resurrection and ascension into Heaven in front of many witnesses. It’s strange enough to realize that such a world-altering supernatural event, if true arguably one of the most