Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.

[Xithras]

251. I'm an agnostic, but I believe that some person named Yeshua probably existed.

It's interesting, but there are really only two possibilities here:

1) A historical Jesus existed.

2) There was a deliberate conspiracy to invent a new religion undertaken over a period of decades by people who DID exist and who were, in the later part of their lives, geographically separated by thousands of miles and months of travel. These people persisted in proclaiming their conspiracy even while being tortured and executed. None ever broke or sold out their compatriots.

Do I believe that Jesus walked on water, performed miracles, and was the son of a diety? No. But I do believe that a physical person named Yeshua existed, and that he inspired his followers to go out and found the religion. It's even possible that THEY believed him to be a messiah.

My reasoning is simple...the odds of a geographically dispersed conspiracy of that magnitude being pulled off in that era, without ANYONE ever revealing the truth, seems more unlikely than the possibility that some loon in the desert inspired a few dozen followers to follow his new faith. If Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Marshall Applewhite (Heavens Gate) can convince people to KILL THEMSELVES because they've so thoroughly convinced them that they're some kind of messiah's, why is it so hard to believe that someone from a Judean backwater did the same thing a couple of millenia ago? We even have a relatively recent, large scale example of it happening. Joseph Smith forked Christianity in the 1820's the same way Yeshua forked Judaism in the 0030's. He took an established religion, convinced people that he was a messenger sent to fix that religion, and created something new out of it. One guy in an American backwater started preaching, convinced people that he was some sort of messiah, and less than 200 years later there are over 15 million people around the world follow Smith's faith. Hubbard did the same thing in the 1950's and has over 50,000 true believers today, decades after his death.

The possibility that Christianity was started by a lone preacher is HIGHER than the possibility that it was a grand conspiracy, and it is a possibility that is consistent with modern observable human behavior.