Did Jesus Christ really exist?

Resurrection, is not so much did He exist, but rather does He exist, and the answer is resoundingly, and demonstrably "Yes!"

 

The historical question here does not interest me as much as it might have years ago; the way I see it, there is a bit of circumstantial evidence for the historical Christ. While there is more evidence for his existence than might be expected for that of a man who was, in the eyes of the Romans a no-account Jew (indeed the Christian Church today is a part of that evidence which may be traced back to Apostolic times), and while this evidence is more than enough (and perhaps even entirely superfluous) for those who believe, it will never be enough for those who do not believe to definitively say that there was, in fact, a historical Jesus. Indeed, these individuals are often justified in their skepticism from a historiographical perspective; there are problems with clearly defining Christ as a historical person, using traditional methods. This difficulty presents no obstacle to the faith. It deals with the historical analysis of One who we Christians know exists. What is problematic, however, is that some would try to infer impious things from the fact that there is limited evidence for a historical Jesus. Some would infer that because defining Him historically is difficult, He may never have existed historically, and thus, does not exist.

 

For those who follow Him, however, Jesus Christ is more than a historical person. He is present all around us, abides in us, and if we let Him, works through us. Thus, the knowledge of Christ, for the Christian, is experiential; we know Him through our connection in private prayer and in public worship, in times of joy and times of hardship, in our filial adoration of Him and in our fraternal connection to each other. For the Christian, He simply IS.

 

Indeed it is laughable that we now question the existence of the self-existent One, who is Existence itself, attempting to use our trite systems of historical analysis to reach beyond history--indeed beyond temporal definition itself--and into He who is incomprehensible and eternal.

 

I think, in this discussion, that we need to be ever conscious of the different epistemological approaches to the ontological question: "Christ?"

 

-Akolouthos

 

But gcle2003, isn't Christ just Jesus' last name?

 

Originally posted by New User In some ways it might have been better if he never did exist.   Can anyone list the actual primary sources for his existence cos that would be a good starting point to find out if he was a historical person.