Do you think Mary, Joseph and Jesus existed?

[Papergirl1968]

Do you think Mary, Joseph and Jesus existed? I thought about putting this under religion, but thought there’d be a wider range of views on chat.
I’m not religious any more (was raised Methodist) but the Christmas story is something I think about occasionally, usually when I’m singing carols to the cat .
My own view is that they probably did exist, but I don’t buy the son of god thing. I’d hazard a guess that Mary got pregnant by Joseph when they were being intimate, even if they didn’t technically have sex. So she panicked and either invented or dreamed a convenient story about the angel telling her she was carrying the son of god.
I believe there’s evidence that they would have had to travel to Bethlehem - although not at Christmas - and that there was a bright star in the sky etc.
And I think Jesus may well have had children. Or maybe I just took the Da Vinci Code too seriously...
Would be interested to hear what others think.

I think it's widely accepted that Jesus existed as a historical figure. No idea about Mary and Joseph...it's fascinating though.

I do believe they existed, although I'm using the Bible as evidence which of course has it's own bias.

I don't believe Jesus had children.

Yes I believe it

Well Mary was apparently a teen mum.

Can you imagine that? Like whatevs?

What do ya mean I av to av this baby in a shed?

So rather than the serine figure she's made out to be may be she was a totally stroppy madam!!

That would make an interesting twist on proceeding

Mary and Joseph live round the corner from us and Jesus plays for Manchester city.

Mary is the most ironical figure in history, fictional or not, given the way the organisation that reveres her has regarded unmarried mothers. I'd be inclined to think she didn't exist and was just invented as a 'backstory' for Jesus.

I believe there was a Jesus who obviously had parents and that he probably did a lot of good for people but in a 'normal' way, nothing extraordinary like by feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, he probably just helped people with food or organised a food bank type situation. That in itself is obviously a very nice thing of him to have done. That's one example where I think it can be brought back to a more day to day level of someone helping people.

No I don’t think they do, I see the bible as story telling to get across concepts. Then again Im an atheist

No. I also haven’t heard of any contemporary evidence that Jesus existed.

Nope. It's a fictional story.

No

There isn’t any eye witness or contemporary evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus. Of course Christians are biased and will insist that Jesus did exist, because to admit otherwise would invalidate their beliefs.

Joseph is basically the biggest cuckold in the history of the world.

Mary didn't have an excuse, so made up some crap about being impregnated by angels.

Jesus carried the fallout when he was raised to be delusional about his own divinity since both parents had to keep up the pretence their whole lives.

Shame about the Romans turning up, really.

I don't think there's any doubt that Jesus existed. This article goes into the historical evidence in some depth:
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/14/what-is-the-historical-evidence-that-jesus-christ-lived-and-died

The star of Bethlehem could be explained as a comet or one of the planets being visible to the naked eye.

I think Jesus did exist but was more of a biblical David Blaine type, who rose in notoriety.
( no offence to anyone religious)

I think there's a fair amount of evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish preacher who was crucified. Not lots, but there's not lots of evidence on many people born 2,000 years ago, unless they were Emperors orPharoahs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

I'm not aware that there's any evidence for Mary or Joseph being real people, though.

Aren't there Roman records of a "Jewish prophet" who fits the bill for Jesus?

There is no record of a census at the time he was born, or any census which required people to return to another city to be counted. There is a bit in the old testament which says that the Messiah had to come from a specific bloodline and be born in a specific place. Virgin birth stories are quite common in mythology. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births

It has been established for a very long time that Jesus did exist. There are historical references to him relatively close after the time he was said to have lived.
I had thought Jesus existence was general knowledge for most people just like Mohammed.

Wikipedia reckons most modern scholars agree that Jesus 1. existed, 2. was baptised by John the Baptist, and 3. was crucified. But that there is ‘much to dispute’ about his previous life.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

I think "Jesus" was one of many, many radical bigmouths who were executed by the occupying Romans for rabble-rousing and political activism.

There's no evidence that the "Christmas story" ever happened, and no evidence that Jesus was anything more than an executed rebel.

I believe all three did exist. I remember I read years ago that at the time the word 'virgin' just meant a women who hadn't had children, not a women who'd never had sex. I don't think we have a word in common use English (not a medical word) for a women who's hasn't had children, odd that we do have a word for somebody who hasn't had sex, you'd think this would be less significant than having children or not.

No.

Yes I believe it absolutely.

Jesus birth is celebrated today in winter time however I think that he was born in summer time.

Jesus definitely existed. The Romans were uber bureaucrats and wrote down all sorts of tiny details. He turns up there. Obviously he had parents but there's no record of them AFAIK.

I love the Christmas story although I'm not religious. The idea of a deity who wanted so much to understand us, to be among us, that he put himself at risk as a helpless infant born to working class parents is very moving.