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The Roman Legions were known for meticulous record keeping. And yet there is no Roman record of Jesus. Was it all just made up to cause unrest? Was there a motive to cause challenges to the authority of the Roman empire to stabilize Jerusalem?

Why did the Roman Legions lie about Jesus?

I mean, I'm not a Christian myself, but I don't think that is true.

Tacticus, a Roman senator, wrote about Jesus, and in particular described the crucifixion.

but did he make it all up.

scholars think yea

Is there a surviving record of every crucifixion in the Roman empire? There is no reason to believe they even attempted that kind of record keeping and very unlikely that such a record would have survived to the present time even if they did record it.

The Roman's had great record keeping and, much like we do now, when the records no longer served a purpose they were destroyed. One of the finest sources of Roman writing in existence comes from a failed attempt at record destruction at Vindolanda.

Romans kept records for many things, from the census of the Empire's people to trials records. But, there is a problem with Jerusalem. At 70 AD the Jews raised (once more) against the Romans. This time was a strong rebellion and Romans had a hard time subduing it. Fed up with the situation they destroyed Jerusalem and ploughed the soil as was their punishment in such cases (as they did in Carthage) and then they built a city on top of this, Aelia Capitolina. This had a double effect much was destroyed and what wasn't ended buried deep. Today is calculated that Jerusalem of Jesus' era is thirty metres below the modern city.

This explains the loss of many records.
Yet there are records of Jesus life and the trial. For the latter, Pilatus was called to explain to emperor Tiberius along with High Priest Annas and Caiaphas. Annas died at the voyage but the other two appeared in front of the emperor. Pilatus was exiled to Vindobona (near today's Vienna) but Caiaphas was executed not having the benefit of Roman citizenship.

Most of the records of Jesus are decades after his death (Tacticus who Jamie mentioned wrote about Jesus around 116 AD - Tacticus was born at least a couple of decades after Jesus died)...so it is certainly possible that he didn't exist at all. Many historical scholars have compared what is written about Jesus in the new testament to other mythical texts and there are lots of similarities (e.g. ideas of virgin birth/resurrection came well before Jesus). The Jews too were obviously influenced by Zoroastrians when they were captive in Persia.

It is difficult to prove a negative though. Someone tomorrow could find official records showing Jesus official trial and execution. I suspect he probably did exist but just like many other historical figures his life and times were wildly exaggerated.

Almost every scholar thinks Jesus existed. The question is who was he really.

The correct answer is no. They don't prove he didn't exist, and they don't prove he did either. But given that religion is inherently metaphysical and cannot be proven or disproven, it's kind of a useless argument to have.

Succint and to the point. Well done BobMcBob . I agree.

Perhaps the Scientology gang or the Mormon mob may have records purporting to prove the non existence of the Roman Empire?

Why do you ask?

Why do you ask why I ask?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzjYmpwbHEA

This debate sums it up quite nicely and is fairly easy to understand for lay people. To my knowledge Price should be considered qualified but his positions hinges on quite a few extremely fringe subarguments which make his conclusions highly speculative since they more or less depend on each other.

If you have further questions the author of this blog is extremly more equipped to answer them properly. (and willing for a small few). Since proceeds go 100% to charity i highly recommend:

https://ehrmanblog.org/

Some points of this i would like to adress:
- "Scholar" is not a defined terminus and this is a topic particularly many people that are not qualified to speak on do. Not every PhD or other equivalents qualify you.
- While Roman society produced lots of written documents (literacy ~10% of population) the bigger issue is transmission. With the notable exception of Egypt (i think) records from the Roman provinces usually survive only as inscriptions or by chance. So our knowledge is much more partial than you might imagine.
-The historical Jesus was from Roman perspective not a very important person. So there basically is not much reason to expect early attestation except from possibly local documents (much did not survive, c.a.). Basically after the crucifixion Jesus was dealt with from Roman point of view.
- Jesus however is attested in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew) and the letters of Paul which scholars believe to be earlier than Tacitus and indepent from one another. Mainstream scholarly opinion also postulates independent sources for synoptic Gospels and Pauls letters which predate these texts but did not survive outside them called "Q", "L", "M" and for Paul "creeds and hymns" dating back within few years of Jesus´death.
- Basically nothing is known about Pontius Pilate except his prefecture in Palestine. There are some jewish sources about that (Philo, Flavius Joesphus). Everything else is probably later christian legendary.
- Some of the more colourful descriptions of Jesus´ life and ministery in the gospels are indeed not uncommon amongst Jewish and Greek-Roman contexts. However those same stories also are applied to persons who undoubtedly existed (Caesar and Octavian e.g.). This is mostly a literary device and while it calls into questions those narrated details it does not call into question the historicity of Jesus.

If Jesus didn't exist, then how do you explain all these churches?
And then who would God's son be?

Richard Carrier vs. Ehrman would be a much better debate (Richard Carrier much better explains the mythicist argument)...though perhaps there is too much bad blood between the two. He has a blow by blow rebuttal of the arguments Ehrman brought up in the debate here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kOu2s31xt4

My question for a mythicist would be when does it stop being myth?

Okay Jesus is a myth (never seen any evidence to make me believe this but for the sake of argument granted)

Then his disciples would probably have to be myths as well since the stories about the me have them going across the known world preaching about Jesus and going to rather gruesome deaths without recanting (so it's easier if they are myths too because they probably aren't simply liars what would the motive be?)

Then there is Paul (universally he seen as a real guy letters and all) So what? He hijacks a gnostic Jewish sect and invents a historical Jesus and his disciples (Who live concurrently with Paul and Paul interacts with them). Then you have the problem of the Sect of Thomas in India who Paul simply could not have had a hand in founding.

Basically upon what evidence can you say that the Thomas credited with founding the sect in India isn't the disciple? And if he is the disciple, then how do you account for him being an eyewitness to the existence of the historical Jesus?

Now admittedly I am using a tongue in cheek approach (using a possible legend to support a possible myth) to highlight the weakness of the mythicist approach that, as far as I can tell, boils down to denying the existence of a person by basically discounting the evidence provided by anyone who ever professed to meeting him.