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.
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.
Sure, there’s a real possibility that this was the case. I’m not in any way denying that, just pointing out that there’s no way to be sure.