The recent find of what might have been the burial box of James, brother of Jesus, has brought up again a debate most people haven't heard about: Was there really a historical Jesus?
Most of the Historical Jesus debate has been about a different topic, namely to what degree the real Jesus, a Jewish miracle worker and teacher living in 1st century Palestine, is correctly described in the Gospels. I will put that debate aside for now, and concentrate on a much more puzzling possibility: that there never really was an historical Jesus, and that the stories about Jesus Christ is entirely mythological in origin.
Ahistoricity is not, and has never been, a majority position. Few historians consider it overwhelmingly likely that Jesus was totally non-existant. On the other hand: very few historians will assert Jesus' historicity is beyond debate. Such an argument would be emotional, not rational, since the evidence for historicity will hardly overwhelm anyone. It is just that the majority says, and I have tended to agree, that it's a little bit more likely that Jesus was one among many charismatic religious miracle workers in 1st century Palestine than it is that Jesus not at all existed. It was the disappointed followers of Jesus, who had been executed by the Roman authorities, who came up with the idea that Jesus had been resurrected by God.
After having expierienced an alleged supernatural revelation from the same Jesus, the person Paul managed to transform a very obscure Jewish sect into a powerful hellenistic mystery-religion. So, why the historicity debate? A principle of historical research: the higher the proportion of material about an alleged historical person that is totally mythological in content, the lower the probability this is a historical person. When the accounts about a person is obviously copied from known mytholigical thema, repeated through the centuries and attributed to countless deities and heroes everywhere, we have to call historicity into doubt. One example of such a hero is Siddharta Gautama, aka The Buddha. So much of what he allegedly did and said is obviously mythical, and resembles the "saviour hero/god" model we find all around the world, that there is serious doubt he even existed. Another example is Jesus. Some serious questions that must be answered before you can brush aside the historicity question.
A real person has a father and a mother and other family members. Further, he has a place and time of birth. So why are the records from Jesus' followers about these things so totally and absurdly self-contradictory? It's a common mythical theme that a hero's birth is predicted by spirit beings, that it happens in some miraculous manner, and that the opponents try to kill the child at birth. This is true about Moses, it is try about Cyrus the Great and about Appollonius. We find such traditions about Muhammad and the Buddha as well. Since all this is myth, where does the real history come into it? In the case of Cyrus, we have much real history and data to help us distinguish myth from reality. In the case of Jesus (and the Buddha, and Moses, and Appollonius): when we cut away all the myths, hardly anything is left. If Jesus was a real person, we should at least expect the sources to know where he was born. Yet, the fabrication of the account about his birth in Bethlehem for transparent theological reasons hardly add much weight to historicity claims.
A public execution is a clear and distinct historical event. So how come the tradition and the accounts about Jesus' trial and resurrection is so hopelessly a-historical, mythological, improbable and downright silly at times? When we remove the myth and the totally improbable events, what is left? (The ruthless Pilate suddenly afraid to insult Jewsih leaders? Not very likely. Guards agreed to admit sleeping on guard, a capital crime? Silly to even think about.)
Why don't we have any consistent message from Jesus through the early sources? We have a consistent theology from Paul, but he adamtly denied having received it from people who knew Jesus. He claimed to have receive it supernaturally, and that makes the whole gospel message Paul's not Jesus! From the gospels we have no consistent theology. What should someone do to be saved? Well, the gospels could hardly be more confusing. What is the nature the relationship between God and Jesus? Well, that's a can of worms, simply because Jesus obviously didn't bother to answer it. If there is a "theology" of Jesus of the gospels, it is that all ethical considerations are mostly irrelevant: mere belief in the person Jesus is the sole important basis for salvation. It's hard to imagine a more arbitrary basis for Divine judgment! How many religions has gullibility as the sole criterium for salvation?
The sayings of Jesus: Obviously the most powerful message of Christianity is the moral teachings attributed to Jesus Christ. The problem for the historicity is that we know those statements were indeed uttered by many others, earlier. Hillel seems to be a powerful influence, and there are others.
Christians will often respond with an ad hominem here: that non-Christians want to discredit the historical Jesus to avoid having to follow Christianity. It is important to note that for non-Christians, it matters little whether Jesus lived or not. The central theme of Christianity is Christ's resurrection, not his birth, and the resurrection is such an obviously ahistorical myth that its refutal does not at all need to deny a historical Jesus.
The possibility that Jesus never existed is not a mere assertion, it is based on sound reasoning. Whether it's true is another issue, and I will agree that it may have probability slightly against itself.
The debate about the existance of (alleged) historical persons, for which the majority of accounts are clearly mythical in form and content, is a serious scholarly debate that has been going on for a long time. In its most general form the question can be asked: what, if anything, can we know about the historical background of myths? Does there exist any valid basis for assuming that well-known myths that exists in many world religion has some foundation in historical fact?
Historical studies has more and more come to the conclusion that the answer is that there need not be a historical basis at all. For example, there is no historical basis for xtian myths about Satan worship. Satanists existed only in the fantasy of Christians for many centuries before some oddballs, quite recently, decided to match reality to fantasy.
Time will tell whether the recent discovery of James' burial box, that may or may not be genuine, again tips the scales in favour of a real, historical Jesus.
What remains a fact is that our knowledge of Jesus, one of the most influental figures in history, is so sparse we cannot reliably attribute any action, any teaching or any saying to a real, historical figure.
Ahistoricity is not, and has never been, a majority position. Few historians consider it overwhelmingly likely that Jesus was totally non-existant. On the other hand: very few historians will assert Jesus' historicity is beyond debate. Such an argument would be emotional, not rational, since the evidence for historicity will hardly overwhelm anyone. It is just that the majority says, and I have tended to agree, that it's a little bit more likely that Jesus was one among many charismatic religious miracle workers in 1st century Palestine than it is that Jesus not at all existed. It was the disappointed followers of Jesus, who had been executed by the Roman authorities, who came up with the idea that Jesus had been resurrected by God. 