Unpopular Opinion
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Can someone share a link or two that confirms the existence of historical Jesus?
UsefulCharts just released a youtube video on the topic. The argument is basically "the earliest documents referencing Jesus aren't explicit that he was real but on the other hand it wasn't long before he was treated as real". Basically there wasn't a lot of time for myth to be reinterpreted as history.
Personally I'm ambivalent, Sherlock Holmes wasn't real but he may have had a real effect on criminology. People may confuse his historicity. Compared to Houdini.
I was under the impression that historians more didn't have any evidence to discount the existence of the guy than so much as distinct records of him, so because of Christianity it's generally accepted a guy existed. But it's been a while since I looked into it and my memory is kinda shit, I'm getting old.
This passage in Josephus’s Antiquities would be the best evidence outside of the New Testament texts. Josephus refers to “Jesus, who was called Christ”’s brother James being executed, likely due to his role in leading an early group of Christians.
You can also read Bart Ehrman for some analysis and arguments from a professional historian.
Context: Josephus was born 4 years after Jesus' supposed death, and he wrote his Antiquities some 60 years after that...
I don't know if that's trustworthy in archaeology / history, but that doesn't feel very trustworthy to me.
I dunno, Rebecca Skloot was born 21 years after Henrietta Lacks died, but The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is still widely hailed as one of the best and most accurate biographies ever written. Jonathan Eig was born 4 years before MLK died, but his biography of the man from a couple years ago (55 years after King's death) isn't spurned. Heck, Ron Chernow missed Alexander Hamilton by a century and a half but it was so faithful that even the rap opera based on it was hailed for its accuracy.
Doesn't seem to me that such a range is necessarily disqualifying of the account.
Those seem like poor examples, contemporary authors have access to vastly more resources.
Maybe. Vastly more disinformation to identify, too, though.
The passage refers to the killing of James, which would have happened sometime in the 60s CE, only about three decades before the writing of the Antiquities and during a time when Josephus was alive.