I think Lemmy has a problem with history in general, since most people on here have degrees/training in STEM. I see a lot of inaccurate “pop history” shared on here, and a lack of understanding of historiography/how historians analyze primary sources.
The rejection of Jesus’s historicity seems to be accepting C S Lewis’s argument - that if he existed, he was a “lunatic, liar, or lord,” instead of realizing that there was nothing unusual about a messianic Jewish troublemaker in Judea during the early Roman Empire.
Jesus was in no way a historical figure.
Secular sources for his existence aren’t exactly abundant, but they’re fairly convincing. Certainly there are historical figures from that long ago with less evidence for their existence
Very convincing argument./s
Can you provide evidence of a 1st century conspiracy to make such a figure up? What was the purpose of that conspiracy?
The onus is not on them to find you anything. The onus is on you to prove that he’s real.
Uhhh… no. Let’s use Occam’s razor here.
We have evidence of a group of followers of Jesus within a few decades of his death. Paul’s letters are probably the earliest written examples, written in the 60’s, where he is writing to groups of early Christians. We have independent confirmation in Josephus of “Jesus, who was called Christ” as well as the existence of John the Baptist.
The idea that a group of people in the mid first century all decided to collectively make up a guy who had supposedly died less than a few decades ago would require some kind of weird conspiracy. Lacking evidence of that conspiracy (or even evidence of a similar conspiracy?) the more reasonable explanation is that the guy existed. It’s not an extraordinary claim. We have about as much evidence for Socrates, who doesn’t automatically generate this kind of response.
The claim that the guy doesn’t exist has a lot more evidence than the claim that the guy does. The null hypothesis is that he existed, because it is the simplest way to explain the evidence we have, and doesn’t require a conspiracy that stretches over several communities and cities in the 1st century Roman Empire.
Again, the methodology of history is not the same as STEM. I want you to consider what you think the standard of evidence for providing someone exists is, and whether a personal dislike of the guy’s followers is coloring your interpretation of historical evidence.
I need you to stop patronizing people. I am well aware of how history works. People in STEM are capable of understanding other things. Wild, I know.
Historians do not agree on this, no matter how much you pretend that it’s a fact.
Who? Give me some historians that disagree. The free one I’ll give you is Robert Price, who will even admit that the mainstream historical consensus disagrees with him.
Yeah, people in STEM are capable of understanding other things, just like people in the humanities are capable of understanding other things. But if one’s background is in Asian history, and they start to claim that the mainstream academic consensus on general relativity is wrong, they’re going to need to provide some serious justification.
Have you read a text from before 1400?
You can’t make that shit up lmao