Literary proof is, but also doesn’t exist for Jesus Christ.
There’s a few mentions of just a “Jesus” but its not like no one else was named Jesus, and those don’t really make any mention of him being remarkable in any way.
I agree with you that Jesus wasn’t God, who doesn’t exist, and that there were no miracles, which are impossible. However, this is not the same thing as saying that there’s no evidence for the existence of Jesus, the Jewish apocalyptic preacher.
The earliest documents about Jesus, such as the Pauline Epistles, were written by people who knew people who knew him. In a mostly illiterate society 2,000 years ago, this is about as good as evidence gets. It’s also the exact same kind of evidence as a journalist or researcher writing an account based on interviews with people. This was how, e.g, Herodotus wrote his histories. When Herodotus says ‘A guy rode a dolphin once’ we dismiss that. But we don’t say ‘The people in the Histories didn’t exist, except those for whom there’s physical evidence, which is about three of them, not including the author’. We do much the same with Jesus and the miracles.
If the Apostles had wanted, for some reason, to make up a guy, that would have been risky. Other people would have just said, ‘That guy didn’t exist’. If they had anyway decided to make up a guy, they’d have invented someone who actually fulfilled the Jewish propehcies of the Messiah, instead of inventing Jesus, who obviously didn’t. This suggests they didn’t invent him, which strengthens the plausibility of the evidence we do have.
A third way of looking at this is to ask if there are any comparable figures, religious founders from the historic era, who we now think were wholly made up in the way you’re suggesting. But there aren’t. The Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Zoroaster - they all certainly existed. Indeed, I can’t think of any figures form the time period who were actually imaginary.
I have a pet peeve about this phrase. A) yes there is. B) that’s not the standard, e.g. it would be incorrect to say there’s no evidence aliens abduct and probe people: there are eyewitness accounts
I don’t believe that, and since it’s impossible to show evidence something doesn’t exist, the people claiming evidence Jesus existed is gonna have to do some linking…
that’s not the standard
You mean evidence?
Evidence isn’t the standard for things existing?
What exactly is the standard in your mind for whether a historical figure existed?
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.
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.
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.
Of course not. There are millions of examples of false claims for which there is more than zero evidence. e.g. I can claim I know which stocks will rise tomorrow, and point to various data of times I’ve been right. You can’t correctly say “There is zero evidence Frightful Hobgoblin is prescient about stock movements”.
There often exists evidence of two mutually incompatible propositions. This is basics.
If you want to research the historicity of Jesus it’s easily done. If you want to argue on the internet… you know what they say about that.
Its easy to put bones together and say that it existed but there’s no way to guarantee “these are certified bones of Jim the stegosaurus, religious figure”
That’s because there weren’t multiple people around to write down what they saw. You’re confusing paleontology and history. They have very different standards for proof.
There are tons of historical figures for whom we have no physical evidence. But we have tons of written evidence from people who all experienced those people.
The Egyptians also mummified their dead, preserving the corpses into the modern era. “Older” ≠ “more evidence”
We have loads more records from the Romans than from the Norse for example, even though the Norse came later, because the Norse didn’t keep as many records as the Romans.
That’s prehistory. Everything we know about history comes from written accounts. Historians study written documents and argue whether or not the available evidence makes it more likely that something (or someone) was real or fiction.
Most historians agree that there was a Jewish man named Jesus (yehoshua), who preached in Judea and the Galilee in the early first century, who gained followers and was crucified by Rome. There are also historians who examine the same evidence and conclude it is more likely that no such person existed, because that’s how academia works.
The point is that you are asking the wrong question sort of. If we only accepted physical remnants of someone or their life to prove they exist, Jesus wouldn’t be the only one we would have to throw out.
Not to say I know how to prove stuff historically, it does sort of seem like magic sometimes. If we found out today that carbon dating was off by a magnitude I would not be shocked, so that’s all the faith I have in it due to my bad understanding of it.
Archaeology in good at giving us clues about the living thing. References to people existing is almost purely based on text people wrote. The proof would be someone writing down “Chrestos, popular among the poor was crucified for his crimes for spreading heresy” as a contemporary. But since the earliest reference we have is a century after his death it’s not necessarily accurate or true.
You won’t find fossilized Jesus, he apparently got resurrected and became wine & cookies, so some people started eating him on Sundays. And he doesn’t want us to say fuck, or shit, or do it in the butt. But that’s not really related to the question.
No. But physical proof is not the standard we use for determining someone’s historical existence.
Literary proof is, but also doesn’t exist for Jesus Christ.
There’s a few mentions of just a “Jesus” but its not like no one else was named Jesus, and those don’t really make any mention of him being remarkable in any way.
There’s just no evidence
I agree with you that Jesus wasn’t God, who doesn’t exist, and that there were no miracles, which are impossible. However, this is not the same thing as saying that there’s no evidence for the existence of Jesus, the Jewish apocalyptic preacher.
The earliest documents about Jesus, such as the Pauline Epistles, were written by people who knew people who knew him. In a mostly illiterate society 2,000 years ago, this is about as good as evidence gets. It’s also the exact same kind of evidence as a journalist or researcher writing an account based on interviews with people. This was how, e.g, Herodotus wrote his histories. When Herodotus says ‘A guy rode a dolphin once’ we dismiss that. But we don’t say ‘The people in the Histories didn’t exist, except those for whom there’s physical evidence, which is about three of them, not including the author’. We do much the same with Jesus and the miracles.
If the Apostles had wanted, for some reason, to make up a guy, that would have been risky. Other people would have just said, ‘That guy didn’t exist’. If they had anyway decided to make up a guy, they’d have invented someone who actually fulfilled the Jewish propehcies of the Messiah, instead of inventing Jesus, who obviously didn’t. This suggests they didn’t invent him, which strengthens the plausibility of the evidence we do have.
A third way of looking at this is to ask if there are any comparable figures, religious founders from the historic era, who we now think were wholly made up in the way you’re suggesting. But there aren’t. The Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Zoroaster - they all certainly existed. Indeed, I can’t think of any figures form the time period who were actually imaginary.
I have a pet peeve about this phrase. A) yes there is. B) that’s not the standard, e.g. it would be incorrect to say there’s no evidence aliens abduct and probe people: there are eyewitness accounts
I don’t believe that, and since it’s impossible to show evidence something doesn’t exist, the people claiming evidence Jesus existed is gonna have to do some linking…
You mean evidence?
Evidence isn’t the standard for things existing?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of course not. There are millions of examples of false claims for which there is more than zero evidence. e.g. I can claim I know which stocks will rise tomorrow, and point to various data of times I’ve been right. You can’t correctly say “There is zero evidence Frightful Hobgoblin is prescient about stock movements”.
There often exists evidence of two mutually incompatible propositions. This is basics.
If you want to research the historicity of Jesus it’s easily done. If you want to argue on the internet… you know what they say about that.
I’m pretty sure without the fossilised bones we would think dinosaurs weren’t a thing
Its easy to put bones together and say that it existed but there’s no way to guarantee “these are certified bones of Jim the stegosaurus, religious figure”
Are you doubting about the existence of our Lord Jim the stegosaurus?
Hail Jim Tri dinos in one.
That’s because there weren’t multiple people around to write down what they saw. You’re confusing paleontology and history. They have very different standards for proof.
There are tons of historical figures for whom we have no physical evidence. But we have tons of written evidence from people who all experienced those people.
History is known by:
Archæological evidence
Oral interviews with eyewitnesses
Texts
Archæogenetics
Historical linguistics
Myth (euhemerism)
Maybe some others I’m forgetting
Dino-history isn’t comparable to tthe literate Roman period.
Yet we have dozens of proof about empires and people BEFORE Jesus. Like the Egyptians
The tone of this comment makes it suddenly seem like you’re not asking a question but trying tp prove a point.
The Egyptians also mummified their dead, preserving the corpses into the modern era. “Older” ≠ “more evidence”
We have loads more records from the Romans than from the Norse for example, even though the Norse came later, because the Norse didn’t keep as many records as the Romans.
There are 20th century figures whose historicity is disputed.
Which Egyptians are you referring to? We have lots of archæological proof of the Judaeans.
People. Not person. There is HUGE difference.
That’s prehistory. Everything we know about history comes from written accounts. Historians study written documents and argue whether or not the available evidence makes it more likely that something (or someone) was real or fiction.
Most historians agree that there was a Jewish man named Jesus (yehoshua), who preached in Judea and the Galilee in the early first century, who gained followers and was crucified by Rome. There are also historians who examine the same evidence and conclude it is more likely that no such person existed, because that’s how academia works.
See also for comparison: Genghis Khan
We don’t have the bones of gengis khan either
The point is that you are asking the wrong question sort of. If we only accepted physical remnants of someone or their life to prove they exist, Jesus wouldn’t be the only one we would have to throw out.
Not to say I know how to prove stuff historically, it does sort of seem like magic sometimes. If we found out today that carbon dating was off by a magnitude I would not be shocked, so that’s all the faith I have in it due to my bad understanding of it.
Dinosaurs aren’t people.
Archaeology in good at giving us clues about the living thing. References to people existing is almost purely based on text people wrote. The proof would be someone writing down “Chrestos, popular among the poor was crucified for his crimes for spreading heresy” as a contemporary. But since the earliest reference we have is a century after his death it’s not necessarily accurate or true.
You won’t find fossilized Jesus, he apparently got resurrected and became wine & cookies, so some people started eating him on Sundays. And he doesn’t want us to say fuck, or shit, or do it in the butt. But that’s not really related to the question.