Did Jesus Exist? It Doesn't Really Matter
Oh, wow! There was this guy who did these amazing things way back when
Some people question whether Jesus of Nazareth really existed. Skeptics note that the ancient evidence about Jesus is third-hand, sketchy, and biased.
We may summarize this criticism quickly: First, Paul, the oldest witness, never even met Jesus. Second, the gospels were compiled late. Third, Jesus remained unmentioned outside his cult for almost a century. Jesus, the skeptics say, is just a myth.
One wonders, however, myth or man, does it really matter? Rather than trying to prove a negative, we can argue something less slippery but equally startling and more convincing. Namely: the Jesus who has come down to us is little more than a character sketched by his disciples, and we do not know what he taught.
The following article compares the evidence about Jesus to the evidence about two other ancient, revered teachers: Pythagoras and Socrates. People don't wonder whether Pythagoras and Socrates existed, yet we don't know what they taught, either.