All the historical evidence for Jesus in one room

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

    Very well. You must believe in ghosts.

    Simply because we lack proper primary sources concerning Jesus from during his lifetime does not mean that he never existed.

    It also means that we can’t assert that he did. We do have evidence however that he didn’t exist. The accounts all differ and are convenient for those spreading it. So while I can’t disprove him or ghosts I can point to the people making money off ghost hunting shows.

    Additionally, those who would care most about the existence of Jesus couldn’t care less about historical proof; they’ve already accepting everything on faith.

    If you mean modern people: Just because other people have a low bar doesn’t mean we have to.

    If you mean people at the time: that is convenient. Suspiciously so.

    but it’s a meaningless hill to die on.

    I disagree.

    • fkn@lemmy.worldM
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      1 year ago

      You are in a bad spot here.

      1. Your argument is poorly formed and not a very valuable one to fight for.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

      1. Your argument shows a distinct lack of awareness of how history is analyzed and measured for authenticity.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism

      1. You are being extremely aggressive about a thing you are simply wrong about.

      It doesn’t even take that long to find credible sources to demonstrate that denying the historicity of Jesus is the fringe theory.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

      This is a meaningless hill to die on. You are simply wrong and you should move on to things that are actually valuable.

      Edit: and the first comment even linked how you are wrong and you still want to fight this battle???

        • fkn@lemmy.worldM
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          1 year ago

          I already provided evidence for my position. If you would like to provide references that refute the Wikipedia pages on these topics I will be happy to read them.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldOP
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            1 year ago

            Dumping a link is not providing evidence. Let’s start with something basic:

            Please show me a single contemporary record of his life or even a single record of someone after his death who personally saw something.

            Not what someone heard, not a fifty year old oral account, not a Bayesian analysis. A direct peice of evidence. Which should be really easy for you to provide since the gospels make it clear that he was famous.

            When you find that piece of evidence let me know.

            • fkn@lemmy.worldM
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              1 year ago

              That’s not how this works. Go gish gallop elsewhere.

              To refute your only relevant point in this post:

              Dumping a link is not providing evidence.

              I made a claim and I linked a specific article as a source.

              You are making a fringe claim. Even if you were an expert, which you are not, the claim you are making is a fringe argument.

              I backed that position up with a specific article (which also has sources) explicitly stating backing up my position.

              If you have a relevant source refuting this, I will happily continue this discussion.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldOP
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                1 year ago

                Right so if you could just point out the evidence instead of link dropping that would be great. Something like a single eyewitness account written during the time he was alive. You do have evidence for your claim, yes?

                • fkn@lemmy.worldM
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                  1 year ago

                  Once again, I already provided evidence for my claim. What about my evidence is unsatisfactory?

                  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldOP
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                    1 year ago

                    You really didn’t. You link dumped but whatever.

                    I want a contemporary record of the man. Someone alive when the events went down and wrote down that they saw Jesus.

                • theneverfox
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s essentially what the gospels were - the story and beliefs of Jesus passed on in the oral tradition of the rabbis before being written down a few generations later

                  As for like, bureaucratic forms? It was 2000 years ago, so by the time we started to care we basically are left with only whatever happened to be preserved in a collapsed building no one cared to demolish or rebuild - libraries and record halls tend to get burned down over the years. This is at a time when writing was expensive and a rare skill - it would be extremely strange for a record of a trial of a revolutionary run by a Pontius (basically the lowest rank of administrator sent to back water provinces) to have kept detailed records of executions (the Romans were extremely hierarchical and did a lot of executions)

                  Plus, the movement grew big enough to catch the attention of the local ruler (and the collaborating religious leadership who pushed for his execution) in the span of months. There was every incentive for uprising to be suppressed - it would be an embarrassment that they’d have every incentive to keep quiet

                  By the time anyone even started to consider that this Jesus guy was more than a run of the mill revolutionary in some backwater the empire barely cared about, it was because the ideas had spread to the point they started to threaten Roman rule. Probably through the Roman legions, who were largely conscripts sent to the other side of the empire “earning” the right to be Roman (part of the reason why there were so many uprisings)

                  During the time he was alive, no one took up arms or disrupted trade. By the time the nobility even heard his name, it was decades later - and at this point, we do have the odd surviving correspondence mentioning the issue

                  Frankly, I would be extremely skeptical of any document describing Jesus when he was alive - I think the only record there was a Pontius Pilates is some military discharge record of someone with that name in the right time and with enough honors to corroborate his existence

                  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldOP
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                    1 year ago

                    That’s essentially what the gospels were - the story and beliefs of Jesus passed on in the oral tradition of the rabbis before being written down a few generations later

                    That’s the thing, we really don’t have evidence of that. The Gospel of Mark shows borrowings from the letters of Paul, Greek and Roman stories, and Jewish writings. We can even see parts where the author looks to be siding with James over Paul like the curtain ripping.

                    As for the other three they all borrowed from Mark and again from different stories around. There just isn’t a need to invent an oral tradition when we have a written one.

                    As for like, bureaucratic forms? It was 2000 years ago, so by the time we started to care we basically are left with only whatever happened to be preserved in a collapsed building no one cared to demolish or rebuild - libraries and record halls tend to get burned down over the years. This is at a time when writing was expensive and a rare skill - it would be extremely strange for a record of a trial of a revolutionary run by a Pontius (basically the lowest rank of administrator sent to back water provinces) to have kept detailed records of executions (the Romans were extremely hierarchical and did a lot of executions)

                    That really isn’t my problem. You can’t produce evidence doesn’t mean I have to lower my standards of evidence. Besides which the Gospels you are invoking mention word of Jesus spreading all over the province and yet silence. Everyone likes to quote that one sentence in Josphius but no one likes to mention that he went into multiple paragraph details about other would be Messiahs. And again Paul was in Jerusalem during the events and yet he saw nothing.

                    Plus, the movement grew big enough to catch the attention of the local ruler (and the collaborating religious leadership who pushed for his execution) in the span of months. There was every incentive for uprising to be suppressed - it would be an embarrassment that they’d have every incentive to keep quiet

                    Oh? Because we have letters of Pilot’s enemies talking about other acts of cruelty. What evidence do you have that the Romans would have destroyed records of an uprising? They don’t seem to have a problem with noting other ones.

                    By the time anyone even started to consider that this Jesus guy was more than a run of the mill revolutionary in some backwater the empire barely cared about, it was because the ideas had spread to the point they started to threaten Roman rule. Probably through the Roman legions, who were largely conscripts sent to the other side of the empire “earning” the right to be Roman (part of the reason why there were so many uprisings)

                    Speculation. You have no proof of this bonfire of the evidence.

                    During the time he was alive, no one took up arms or disrupted trade. By the time the nobility even heard his name, it was decades later - and at this point, we do have the odd surviving correspondence mentioning the issue

                    That doesn’t prove that there was a Jesus that proves that Christians existed a century later.

                    Frankly, I would be extremely skeptical of any document describing Jesus when he was alive - I think the only record there was a Pontius Pilates is some military discharge record of someone with that name in the right time and with enough honors to corroborate his existence

                    Ok? I mean we have more than that might want to look into Pilot a bit.

                    I am not following your logic here. I am too accept lower standards of evidence because if better evidence exists it would be too hard to find so…yeah help me out with this one. If tomorrow someone digs up say a family genealogy that lists Jesus being born in Nazareth that would disprove he existed? This sounds a bit like the Babble Fish logic in the Hitchhiker’s guide to the universe.