And as you read through you will notice a heavy bias towards the assumption he did exist…but again, without proof. It’s kind of silly the lie he was real is so prevalent.
Each attempt to prove his existence relied on very loose reasoning. The closest they have ever come breaks down to one actual historical figure who wasn’t a Christian mentioning some thieves who believed in Jesus numerous decades after Jesus supposedly died - which for a long time was proof enough…somehow.
At this point scholars have admitted they will never have actual proof that he existed - that proof is “ultimately unattainable”. And much like you noted with “political impact” they have moved the goal posts to the impact on society the concept of Jesus had as their proof. So… yeah, definitely not proven.
What did you expect? We’re talking about one guy who might have lived over 2000 years ago. You’re not going to find his birth certificate and social security number.
The best anyone can do is assign a probability to his existence. And reading the article you yourself linked to, that probability seems to be pretty high.
The best anyone can do is assign a probability to his existence
For a person that is considered an actual god, we should expect more than “probable” existence. I think pointing out the lack of evidence for a supposed god is perfectly acceptable.
You’re missing the point or you’re being deliberately obtuse. Either way, nobody’s trying to prove that Jesus Christ existed in this thread (at least, nobody that is arguing in good faith - no pun intended). We’re talking about the real guy that MOST LIKELY really existed but, putting aside his supposed divine heritage, would have been basically a regular guy back then.
How Jesus Became God covers that process. Early Christianity was very complicated and divergent. Some groups thought Jesus was just a guy, others that he was just a guy who was raised to divinity, and still others that he was divine from the start. And then even among those who thought he had some sort of divinity, not all of them agreed with the trinity idea. And then Gnositcs come along and have a whole different cosmology about everything.
The Council of Nicaea didn’t come up with anything on its own. It was an official stamp on what set of existing ideas were considered orthodox or not.
We have two sources for Spartacus: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Appian of Alexandria. Both were written a century after he died. The two accounts mostly agree, but in the middle of the story they go completely different directions and then meet up again for the ending.
Spartacus is generally regarded as existing. We don’t know which account had it right, and it’s possible neither of them are. We will probably never know.
Point is, if you’re not a ruler, then historical evidence of your existence tends to be thin. Jesus likely existed, and we have better evidence for him than Spartacus.
Might not be intentional lie. Take for example how we today call government “Uncle Sam”. It’s not hard to imagine made up person back in the day used for similar purposes so records survived but there’s no physical evidence. We do it all the time, witches, santa claus, boogeyman, etc.
Note how the article uses the word “scholars” as opposed to scientists. Scientists would simply state that there is no actual evidence about the existence of this guy so this is all speculation.
Then you have to do the same for a huge number of other historical figures. You end up with history being a huge blank beyond people who were rulers. That’s not useful, and not necessary.
What historical figures do you have in mind? The difference between a historical and a mythical person is the evidence available for their existence. History (the scientific kind) has a pretty clear idea which is which.
I’ll copy my writeup from elsewhere in the thread.
We have two sources for Spartacus: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Appian of Alexandria. Both were written a century after he died. The two accounts mostly agree, but in the middle of the story they go completely different directions and then meet up again for the ending.
Spartacus is generally regarded as existing. We don’t know which account had it right, and it’s possible neither of them are. We will probably never know.
Point is, if you’re not a ruler, then historical evidence of your existence tends to be thin. Jesus likely existed, and we have better evidence for him than Spartacus.
When did I say that? I said there’s no definitive proof. That’s not denying the possibility that the guy actually existed. But as you said, the evidence is rather thin.
We can say he was from Thrace, that he was captured as a slave and fought as a gladiator in Capua, he led a slave revolt, and ran the Roman Army ragged all over the Italian peninsula. Including armies led by Marcus Crassus and Julius Caesar.
We can say that Jesus was from Nazareth, he started a weird little apocalyptic group within Judaism when he was around 30 years old, was baptized by a guy who started a parallel apocalyptic group (there were a lot of these guys running around Israel at the time), and he was crucified by the Romans. He almost certainly wasn’t trying to start a whole new religion separate from Judaism; that came later, likely with Paul.
And that’s it, that’s the claim. Nobody is asking you to believe in the superstitious aspects, just the completely mundane claim that Christianity likely has a singular individual that inspired the movement.
James Cameron did a national geographic documentary proving the guy existed. They found his ostuary. Which fits the time period. It was some astronomically absurd chance that it wasn’t him. Since everyone in the tomb had the family names of all of his relatives. Something like it was a 1 in 10 million chance that it wasn’t the nuclear family’s buried remains.
That is hilariously untrue, have you any idea how big that news would be? They don’t even know if Arimathea was a real place, we certainly don’t know about Jesus family - none of them are mentioned outside the limited references in the Bible
Real talk, he hasn’t been proven to exist. Not even a little.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus
And as you read through you will notice a heavy bias towards the assumption he did exist…but again, without proof. It’s kind of silly the lie he was real is so prevalent.
Each attempt to prove his existence relied on very loose reasoning. The closest they have ever come breaks down to one actual historical figure who wasn’t a Christian mentioning some thieves who believed in Jesus numerous decades after Jesus supposedly died - which for a long time was proof enough…somehow.
At this point scholars have admitted they will never have actual proof that he existed - that proof is “ultimately unattainable”. And much like you noted with “political impact” they have moved the goal posts to the impact on society the concept of Jesus had as their proof. So… yeah, definitely not proven.
What did you expect? We’re talking about one guy who might have lived over 2000 years ago. You’re not going to find his birth certificate and social security number.
The best anyone can do is assign a probability to his existence. And reading the article you yourself linked to, that probability seems to be pretty high.
For a person that is considered an actual god, we should expect more than “probable” existence. I think pointing out the lack of evidence for a supposed god is perfectly acceptable.
You’re missing the point or you’re being deliberately obtuse. Either way, nobody’s trying to prove that Jesus Christ existed in this thread (at least, nobody that is arguing in good faith - no pun intended). We’re talking about the real guy that MOST LIKELY really existed but, putting aside his supposed divine heritage, would have been basically a regular guy back then.
That came later, first council of nicaea was where the thing with holy trinity was made.
How Jesus Became God covers that process. Early Christianity was very complicated and divergent. Some groups thought Jesus was just a guy, others that he was just a guy who was raised to divinity, and still others that he was divine from the start. And then even among those who thought he had some sort of divinity, not all of them agreed with the trinity idea. And then Gnositcs come along and have a whole different cosmology about everything.
The Council of Nicaea didn’t come up with anything on its own. It was an official stamp on what set of existing ideas were considered orthodox or not.
Literally everything about Jesus came later, though.
We have two sources for Spartacus: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Appian of Alexandria. Both were written a century after he died. The two accounts mostly agree, but in the middle of the story they go completely different directions and then meet up again for the ending.
Spartacus is generally regarded as existing. We don’t know which account had it right, and it’s possible neither of them are. We will probably never know.
Point is, if you’re not a ruler, then historical evidence of your existence tends to be thin. Jesus likely existed, and we have better evidence for him than Spartacus.
Might not be intentional lie. Take for example how we today call government “Uncle Sam”. It’s not hard to imagine made up person back in the day used for similar purposes so records survived but there’s no physical evidence. We do it all the time, witches, santa claus, boogeyman, etc.
Note how the article uses the word “scholars” as opposed to scientists. Scientists would simply state that there is no actual evidence about the existence of this guy so this is all speculation.
Then you have to do the same for a huge number of other historical figures. You end up with history being a huge blank beyond people who were rulers. That’s not useful, and not necessary.
What historical figures do you have in mind? The difference between a historical and a mythical person is the evidence available for their existence. History (the scientific kind) has a pretty clear idea which is which.
I’ll copy my writeup from elsewhere in the thread.
We have two sources for Spartacus: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Appian of Alexandria. Both were written a century after he died. The two accounts mostly agree, but in the middle of the story they go completely different directions and then meet up again for the ending.
Spartacus is generally regarded as existing. We don’t know which account had it right, and it’s possible neither of them are. We will probably never know.
Point is, if you’re not a ruler, then historical evidence of your existence tends to be thin. Jesus likely existed, and we have better evidence for him than Spartacus.
That’s the whole point. We assume the guy existed but there’s no proof.
So you’re going to deny the existence of Spartacus? Really?
When did I say that? I said there’s no definitive proof. That’s not denying the possibility that the guy actually existed. But as you said, the evidence is rather thin.
We can say he was from Thrace, that he was captured as a slave and fought as a gladiator in Capua, he led a slave revolt, and ran the Roman Army ragged all over the Italian peninsula. Including armies led by Marcus Crassus and Julius Caesar.
We can say that Jesus was from Nazareth, he started a weird little apocalyptic group within Judaism when he was around 30 years old, was baptized by a guy who started a parallel apocalyptic group (there were a lot of these guys running around Israel at the time), and he was crucified by the Romans. He almost certainly wasn’t trying to start a whole new religion separate from Judaism; that came later, likely with Paul.
And that’s it, that’s the claim. Nobody is asking you to believe in the superstitious aspects, just the completely mundane claim that Christianity likely has a singular individual that inspired the movement.
James Cameron did a national geographic documentary proving the guy existed. They found his ostuary. Which fits the time period. It was some astronomically absurd chance that it wasn’t him. Since everyone in the tomb had the family names of all of his relatives. Something like it was a 1 in 10 million chance that it wasn’t the nuclear family’s buried remains.
That is hilariously untrue, have you any idea how big that news would be? They don’t even know if Arimathea was a real place, we certainly don’t know about Jesus family - none of them are mentioned outside the limited references in the Bible
The Lost Tomb of Jesus https://g.co/kgs/A1gqTdn