What exactly is the standard in your mind for whether a historical figure existed?
Hard evidence has never been the standard for proof that a historical figure existed. Corroborating records are. It’s great if you can find some hard evidence, but if that was the standard then most people in history wouldn’t have any historical proof of their existence. And even when there is a corpse, we still rely on burial records to be certain that the corpse is who we think it is. Or if there are letters, we can’t confirm they were written by the same person we think they were.
Like a third of the bible as well as several contemporary documents all point to the existence of a guy named something like Joshua (which we now translate as Jesus) who traveled around Palestine preaching and was crucified in around 33AD. There are plenty of historical figures who we mostly agree existed despite having approximately the same amount of proof as for Jesus.
several contemporary documents all point to the existence of a guy named something like Joshua
IIRC, there’s really only a single mention of a possible link to someone of this name that was crucified at the supposed time, and that single mention happened at least 50 (maybe 100?) years later, and there’s evidence that this passage was added even later.
So I didn’t think it’s true that there are “several contemporary documents” like you claimed…
Like, there’s lots of information about Bilbo Baggins in Lotr, that doesn’t mean it was written in the third age of Middle Earth homie
The conceit of the LOTR appendices is that Lord of the Rings, as published in English, is really just the Red Book that Bilbo writes at the end. Dr. Tolkien merely found the manuscript somewhere and has graciously translated it from Third Age common language into English for the benefit of us modern people.
There’s a Jesus that got crucified, but no mention about him being able to perform miracles
Obviously miracles aren’t real. I wasn’t claiming otherwise. We’re talking about whether or not the person Jesus existed, not if magic is real.
It sounds like we agree
I don’t think any of it was written till decades after he supposedly died tho…
Okay but it was written by people who claim they were there and met him personally.
To borrow your asinine LOTR analogy, it is more like you are claiming Thorinn Oakenshield never existed simply because Bilbo only wrote “There and Back Again” after he got home from memory.
If your only requirement is that a man once existed by the name of Jesus and was crucified, then the bar is on the floor. Jesus was not a rare name, and the Romans crucified many, many people. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these two common data points would overlap and give us a crucified Jesus.
Is there proof that it was THE Jesus though? Do we have corroborating evidence of a man travelling the countryside with his posse, changing the minds and hearts of the masses?
I feel like there’s some room for Occam’s Razor here. Is it more likely that dozens of people got together and agreed to start a cult centred around a fictional person that they were all going to agree existed? Or that the guy actually did exist? Like why would all the people who say they followed him around lie about that but also be on the same page about so many details of him?
Like, we know the posse existed, so why is it a stretch that the guy they all went on to turn into a religion was really there in the middle of it all?
To be clear (and I can’t believe I have to say this, but there are some idiots in this thread) I’m not claiming magical miracles are real, just that there was a real dude in the middle of that posse that those followers went on to turn into a religion.
A bunch of the books in the new testament are letters written by Jesus’s followers. We can’t prove whether they really are that, but they all agree that a dude named Jesus existed. If a bunch of people all wrote about a guy they knew, and most of the details match, that guy probably was real.
Yeah I’m not arguing with that. You’re just nitpicking semantics because you have lost this argument. Literally the very next sentence after the one you quoted I qualified that by saying it’s debatable.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but man, let it drop. The person who’s fighting for ridiculous improbabilities here is you. Nobody you’re arguing with in this thread is even making a claim that Magic Jesus existed. Just that the man named Jesus who is talked about by the early Christians likely existed (which is scholarly consensus, not even a niche claim). They’re specifically not claiming that the fantastical claims made by the early Christians about that man are true.
“There’s a Jesus that got crucified, but no mention about him being able to perform miracles”
We know this from somewhat later annals. The texts are closer in the timeline to the historical figure than in the case of Diarmait mac Cerbaill, and are more numerous.
We share a general contempt for Christians and Christianity.
What are you driving at bringing up the semantics of ‘contemporary’??
The only time that word was used was when you said (incorrectly), “That is contemporary literary evidence of his existence.” – the annals are centuries after the 6th-century reign of Diarmait at Tara. We don’t have any 6th-century manuscripts. The situation in the Roman Empire is quite a bit better, lots of texts.
Would you say that a person called Caius Vipstanus existed because Tacitus mentioned him in his annals a few decades later? Isn’t that valid inference from the text?
Right. I think we’re in agreement. There was a historical Diarmait. There was a historical Jesus. We know this from textual sources dated a little later than the historical figures.
His life was written about while it happened in the Irish Annals…
We have no Irish texts as old as Diarmait’s reign. CELT date the Orgguin trí mac Diarmata Mic Cerbaill “Created: Possibly in the Old Irish period. Date range: 700–900?” So we rely on things written 100+ years after the historical figure. And that’s referring to when it was originally written; it’s know from later transcriptions; the oldest physical Irish manuscript we have (Lebor na hUidre) is around 1100. So how do we know there was a historical Diarmait?
In the case of Yeshu the Nazarene, it’s similar, though some texts are a little nearer his historical period than in Diarmait’s case.
Hard evidence has never been the standard for proof that a historical figure existed. Corroborating records are. It’s great if you can find some hard evidence, but if that was the standard then most people in history wouldn’t have any historical proof of their existence. And even when there is a corpse, we still rely on burial records to be certain that the corpse is who we think it is. Or if there are letters, we can’t confirm they were written by the same person we think they were.
Like a third of the bible as well as several contemporary documents all point to the existence of a guy named something like Joshua (which we now translate as Jesus) who traveled around Palestine preaching and was crucified in around 33AD. There are plenty of historical figures who we mostly agree existed despite having approximately the same amount of proof as for Jesus.
IIRC, there’s really only a single mention of a possible link to someone of this name that was crucified at the supposed time, and that single mention happened at least 50 (maybe 100?) years later, and there’s evidence that this passage was added even later.
So I didn’t think it’s true that there are “several contemporary documents” like you claimed…
And there’s not enough to prove that Jesus Christ existed…
There’s a Jesus that got crucified, but no mention about him being able to perform miracles
I don’t think any of it was written till decades after he supposedly died tho…
Like, there’s lots of information about Bilbo Baggins in Lotr, that doesn’t mean it was written in the third age of Middle Earth homie.
Name one and I’ll disporve it.
The conceit of the LOTR appendices is that Lord of the Rings, as published in English, is really just the Red Book that Bilbo writes at the end. Dr. Tolkien merely found the manuscript somewhere and has graciously translated it from Third Age common language into English for the benefit of us modern people.
Obviously miracles aren’t real. I wasn’t claiming otherwise. We’re talking about whether or not the person Jesus existed, not if magic is real.
It sounds like we agree
Okay but it was written by people who claim they were there and met him personally.
To borrow your asinine LOTR analogy, it is more like you are claiming Thorinn Oakenshield never existed simply because Bilbo only wrote “There and Back Again” after he got home from memory.
If your only requirement is that a man once existed by the name of Jesus and was crucified, then the bar is on the floor. Jesus was not a rare name, and the Romans crucified many, many people. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these two common data points would overlap and give us a crucified Jesus.
Is there proof that it was THE Jesus though? Do we have corroborating evidence of a man travelling the countryside with his posse, changing the minds and hearts of the masses?
I feel like there’s some room for Occam’s Razor here. Is it more likely that dozens of people got together and agreed to start a cult centred around a fictional person that they were all going to agree existed? Or that the guy actually did exist? Like why would all the people who say they followed him around lie about that but also be on the same page about so many details of him?
Like, we know the posse existed, so why is it a stretch that the guy they all went on to turn into a religion was really there in the middle of it all?
To be clear (and I can’t believe I have to say this, but there are some idiots in this thread) I’m not claiming magical miracles are real, just that there was a real dude in the middle of that posse that those followers went on to turn into a religion.
Not really, and definitely not the 1/3 you were claiming…
Like, where are you getting any of this?
It sounds like what they teach at one of those “bible colleges”
A bunch of the books in the new testament are letters written by Jesus’s followers. We can’t prove whether they really are that, but they all agree that a dude named Jesus existed. If a bunch of people all wrote about a guy they knew, and most of the details match, that guy probably was real.
Yeah I’m not arguing with that. You’re just nitpicking semantics because you have lost this argument. Literally the very next sentence after the one you quoted I qualified that by saying it’s debatable.
What?
So you’re arguing that “anything is possible” and that means you “won” if someone can’t prove something isn’t real?
You can’t prove I’m not 6 year old baby Jesus on a time traveling Blackberry…
But anyone that believes that doesn’t have a rationally sound mind.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but man, let it drop. The person who’s fighting for ridiculous improbabilities here is you. Nobody you’re arguing with in this thread is even making a claim that Magic Jesus existed. Just that the man named Jesus who is talked about by the early Christians likely existed (which is scholarly consensus, not even a niche claim). They’re specifically not claiming that the fantastical claims made by the early Christians about that man are true.
You just 100% conceded. /thread
There was a Paul that lived in Midwest America
Is that proof he had a big blue ox?
Like, you know the Romans were pretty big fans of crucifying people for pretty much anything?
Like, we have that elusive physical evidence that 6,000 of Sparticus’ followers were crucified…
There’s a pretty good chance at least one of those guys was named Jesus too mate, it was a pretty common name
I do not understand.
Go on then. Show us the evidence.
Not all the texts use that name. Some say Christus or Chrestus, ha-Notzri, Yeshu, ben Stada or ben Pandera.
That is clear.
You want me to physically show you? Like roll up to your house with it?
Can’t I just give you a link that provides the info about it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#Ancient_Rome
And you definitely didn’t understand that last bit you quoted…
You haven’t understood all of this.
I get it man, you have “faith” but that’s not evidence.
It doesn’t mean anything
You don’t
I don’t.
The evidence we’re talking about is the textual references in Pliny etc.
Say we have a textual reference like this: “In the year of the consulship of Caius Vipstanus and Caius Fonteius, Nero deferred no more a long meditated crime. Length of power had matured his daring, and his passion for Poppaea daily grew more ardent.”… would you say that a person called Caius Vipstanus existed from that evidence?
I think we are in agreement on the major points:
“There’s a Jesus that got crucified, but no mention about him being able to perform miracles”
We know this from somewhat later annals. The texts are closer in the timeline to the historical figure than in the case of Diarmait mac Cerbaill, and are more numerous.
We share a general contempt for Christians and Christianity.
You just made up #2 and apparently don’t know what contemporary means…
But I don’t think explaining is going to help.
What are you driving at bringing up the semantics of ‘contemporary’??
The only time that word was used was when you said (incorrectly), “That is contemporary literary evidence of his existence.” – the annals are centuries after the 6th-century reign of Diarmait at Tara. We don’t have any 6th-century manuscripts. The situation in the Roman Empire is quite a bit better, lots of texts.
Would you say that a person called Caius Vipstanus existed because Tacitus mentioned him in his annals a few decades later? Isn’t that valid inference from the text?
Says who?
Diarmait mac Cerbaill
Yes.
His life was written about while it happened in the Irish Annals…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_annals
That is contemporary literary evidence of his existence.
Not just some dude named Diarmait existed in Ireland at some point.
Right. I think we’re in agreement. There was a historical Diarmait. There was a historical Jesus. We know this from textual sources dated a little later than the historical figures.
We have no Irish texts as old as Diarmait’s reign. CELT date the Orgguin trí mac Diarmata Mic Cerbaill “Created: Possibly in the Old Irish period. Date range: 700–900?” So we rely on things written 100+ years after the historical figure. And that’s referring to when it was originally written; it’s know from later transcriptions; the oldest physical Irish manuscript we have (Lebor na hUidre) is around 1100. So how do we know there was a historical Diarmait?
In the case of Yeshu the Nazarene, it’s similar, though some texts are a little nearer his historical period than in Diarmait’s case.