James Dunn no relation historicity of Jesus
Historical existence
Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical criticism are applied to the New Testament, "we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned." There is no indication that writers in antiquity who opposed Christianity questioned the existence of Jesus.Since the 1970s, various scholars such as Joachim Jeremias, E. P. Sanders and Gerd Theissen have traced elements of Christianity to currents in first-century Judaism and have discarded nineteenth-century views that Jesus was based on previous pagan deities. Mentions of Jesus in extra-biblical texts exist and are supported as genuine by the majority of historians. Differences between the content of the Jewish Messianic prophecies and the life of Jesus undermine the idea that Jesus was invented as a Jewish Midrash or Peshar.: 344–351  The presence of details of Jesus' life in Paul, and the differences between letters and Gospels, are sufficient for most scholars to dismiss mythicist claims concerning Paul.: 208–233  Theissen says "there is broad scholarly consensus that we can best find access to the historical Jesus through the Synoptic tradition." Bart D. Ehrman adds: "To dismiss the Gospels from the historical record is neither fair nor scholarly.": 73  One book argues that if Jesus did not exist, "the origin of the faith of the early Christians remains a perplexing mystery.": 233  Eddy and Boyd say the best history can assert is probability, yet the probability of Jesus having existed is so high, Ehrman says "virtually all historians and scholars have concluded Jesus did exist as a historical figure.": 12, 21  Historian James Dunn writes: "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed". In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Ehrman wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.": 15–22  James Crossley and Robert J. Myles admit they "are sceptical about what we can know with confidence" but they do not deny the existence of Jesus and instead "prefer to think in terms of whether ideas about Jesus were early or late and whether they were particular to his geographical location or beyond."The Christ myth theory is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels. In the 21st century, there have been a number of books and documentaries on this subject. For example, Earl Doherty has written that Jesus may have been a real person, but that the biblical accounts of him are almost entirely fictional.: 12  Many proponents use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century: that the New Testament has no historical value, that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus from the first century, and that Christianity had pagan and/or mythical roots.Contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and biblical scholars and classical historians view the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted. Robert M. Price, an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that his perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars. Michael Grant (a classicist and historian) states that "In recent years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus, or at any rate very few have, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." Richard A. Burridge states, "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore.": 24–26
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