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Who can forget when the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly declared in 2013 that Jesus, like Santa Claus, “was a White man, too,” and “that’s a verifiable fact,” a remark she later said was meant in jest.
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First, while the classic Nordic Jesus remains a popular image today in some churches, a movement to replace the White Jesus has long taken root in America. In many Christian circles — progressive mainline churches, churches of color shaped by “liberation theology,” and among Biblical scholars — conspicuous displays of the White Jesus are considered outdated, and to some, offensive. In a rapidly diversifying multicultural America, more Christians want to see a Jesus that looks like them.
But in some parts of the country, the White Jesus never left. The spread of White Christian nationalism has flooded social media feeds with images of the traditional White Jesus, sometimes adorned with a red MAGA hat. Former President Trump is selling a “God Bless the USA Bible” with passages from the Constitution and Bill of Rights — a linking of patriotism with Christianity that reinforces a White image of Jesus that is central to Christian nationalism.
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Blum says the image of a White Jesus has been used to justify slavery, lynching, laws against interracial marriage and hostility toward immigrants deemed not White enough. When Congress passed a law in the early 20th century to restrict immigration from Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, White politicians evoked the White Jesus, he says.
“One of the arguments was, ‘Well, Jesus was White,’ ‘’ Blum says. “So the theme was, we want America to be profoundly Christian or at least Jesus based, so we should only allow White people in this country.”
The MAGA movement uses the image of a White Jesus to weaponize political battles, he says, pointing to signs at the January 6 insurrection displaying a White Jesus, sometimes wearing a red MAGA hat. To Blum, some Christian conservatives see a White MAGA Jesus as “an anti-woke symbol.”
Is that a broadly accepted historical criteria, or just one of the many made-up ones used by biblical historians? Why would the "enemies" themselves have any reason to think that some dude a lot of people talk about isn't even real? In a world with no photography, no printing press, no telegraph? How, was there not one single first-hand account? Evidence of belief is not evidence of existence. If it were, we'd have to acknowledge the historical reality of God, Satan, Zeus, Thor, and Bigfoot. At least there are contemporary first-hand claims from people who say they saw Bigfoot.
It's accepted by literally everyone, there's fantastical reports about Caesar and Augustus, and yet we don't think they were just myths. Why? Because they're well attested by multiple sources.
For the same reason you're doing it now?
The closest thing we have to a first-hand account of the life of Jesus is the Gospel of Mark, a book of uncertain authorship (likely wasn't the Mark the Evangelist or Mark the Apostle that the churches claim) written 30 years after the death of Jesus. The reason it took so long for a record we have to be written is of some debate, but the most agreed upon is that the followers of Jesus likely would've been illiterate, and likely so would've Jesus himself, and the first gospel was likely only written after decades of "playing telephone" across Hellenistic Jewish communities in the eastern mediterranean. It's also possible that there was an earlier written record that Mark copied from, but if it exists we haven't found it, which isn't exactly surprising for what would likely be basically a 2000 year old pamphlet/small novel.
True, but it is usually the first step towards finding something that does exist, Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria believed he existed and apparently had reason to believe he existed since him and all of his contemporaries never thought to question Jesus's existence. That doesn't mean that they believed the "divine son of God" Jesus existed, they clearly didn't and thought of him as any other man.
That's an entirely different criterion, though. I honestly don't even know how to respond to this non-sequitur.
You mean to say these "enemies" would have doubted that Jesus existed because they heard that there is some historical debate on the matter, and that there may not be any good evidence to support the claim, looked into it, agreed, and found it to be an interesting topic to debate on the Internet? That seems really unlikely to me.
Look at it this way: if I told you that a guy I know claims that his buddy Frank, who died ten years ago, had made certain religious and political statements, which I agree with, and you found those statements to be blasphemous and offensive, would you argue back with "well, uh, how do we know this Frank guy even existed? Huh?!" Or would you take his existence as a fairly trivial given, and argue against the actual statements he allegedly made?
It's honestly bizarre to me that anybody would imagine this "enemies" argument has any weight at all. That's not how people work.
I don't mean no first-hand in-depth account, that's some serious goal-post moving. If anybody even remotely describable as a historic Jesus existed, that dude made waves. He would have been a public figure, of great interest, and some contemporary would have probably at least written down something about him that would have survived to the historical record.
Is it? When has that happened? I think the first step towards finding something that exists is observing it, or observing its tangible effects that cannot be explained in other, simpler ways.
Again, why would they? Would you, honestly, in their place?