things that interest you that others dont care about probably thread

[sral]

Originally Posted by uh-oh

josephus was a jew, who literally wrote the history of JUDEA during the 1st century, and made one passing mention of a guy people called christus. christus=messiah. so he makes reference to a man named jesus people called the messiah.

that doesn't mean the man existed. it means people referred to a man they call jesus the messiah. the greeks referred to a man called the son of god, hercules. did he exist? maybe. where is the proof?

jesus was allegedly crucified in 29ish AD. josephus wasn't born until 37 AD. in 64 BC nero was blaming fires on and executing christians, IN ROME. christians were in rome 35 years after the death of the alleged jesus. in a big enough number to be mentioned by the emperor. meanwhile josephus is still jewing it up in judea, getting ready to fight in the jewish rebellions against rome. before losing and defecting to rome, and then writing the history of judea during the time of jesus

you would think such a giant historical figure would get more than a passing mention

tacitus is the same deal, only less credible because he is from the south of france (or belgium or northern italy) and is speaking from even further from the events

the point being that when these men are writing the history of a region they need sources, sources are people. if christians already proliferated the myth of jesus, those sources would speak of him as if he existed because people talked as if he did

First of all, we will need to establish what you/we mean by "proof he existed".

In the ancient world, historical records were rather thin on the ground, and were often written several generations or centuries after the fact. As a few examples:

Much of what we know about the foundation of Athens, the early history of the Persian Empire, and the war between Greece and Persia comes from a single source, namely Herodotus. Herodotus wrote around 430 B.C. and covered events from well over a century earlier, up to events fifty years prior.

Josephus, the only Jewish historian of the first century, wrote in 90 A.D., covering events in Jewish history ranging from Old Testament times up to the first century. Most of the people and events he covered, we know about only from him.

For most of the pre-Socratic philosophers, and many from later times as well, all we know comes from biographies or fragments written anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years later.

In comparison to that, with Jesus we have the first biography, Mark's Gospel, probably written about 35 years after the fact, and three further biographies, the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, written probably 40-60 years after the fact. By the standards of ancient world history, this is a phenomenally large amount of evidence, not even including mentions of the life of Jesus in the epistles.

[uh-oh]

Originally Posted by sraL

First of all, we will need to establish what you/we mean by "proof he existed".

In the ancient world, historical records were rather thin on the ground, and were often written several generations or centuries after the fact. As a few examples:

Much of what we know about the foundation of Athens, the early history of the Persian Empire, and the war between Greece and Persia comes from a single source, namely Herodotus. Herodotus wrote around 430 B.C. and covered events from well over a century earlier, up to events fifty years prior.

Josephus, the only Jewish historian of the first century, wrote in 90 A.D., covering events in Jewish history ranging from Old Testament times up to the first century. Most of the people and events he covered, we know about only from him.

For most of the pre-Socratic philosophers, and many from later times as well, all we know comes from biographies or fragments written anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years later.

In comparison to that, with Jesus we have the first biography, Mark's Gospel, probably written about 35 years after the fact, and three further biographies, the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, written probably 40-60 years after the fact. By the standards of ancient world history, this is a phenomenally large amount of evidence, not even including mentions of the life of Jesus in the epistles.

no it isn't. for one, the bible can't be viewed as a historical document. the founding of rome was documented by plenty of romans. it doesn't mean that romulus and remus were really breastfed and raised by a she-wolf that dragged them out of the river. we, like others can look at shit people wrote and call malarkey on it as needed. we can call malarkey on things because 1, its illogical or 2, there is evidence from other sources

herodotus prefaces that in his writings leading up to the greco persian wars he is relaying what was told to him. he was alive during the majority of the actual greco persian wars however. no one debates that these wars occurred. the proof is everywhere. the same historians that come after him criticize him and call him a barbarian lover, but still pick up where he left off, without feeling the need to re-write anything. (thucydides) who was alive in the same era, just writing a generation after him. still during and up to the end of the greco persian wars

there is supporting archaeological evidence for these wars, global politics of the time was centered and affected by these wars centuries after the fact.

the proof of the wars is everywhere, you can't take any one historians word as gospel, its just what it is, a single persons viewpoint on the events. he helps shed light on the events as he was the only person around witnessing it whose writings survived. this was also almost 500 years before alleged jesus existed.

this is largely the reason im ENRAPTURED by the roman empire, because there were so many historians and so much of the work comes down to us today. they were also a global force so you have other nations commentary on events as well as their own, their political systems were similair enough that you had populares and conservatives so when a guy like julius caesar is basically cnn writing how things happened you get the fox news angle from the cicero's. and alot of it is personal letters, it can be corrobarated with actual documents, there was a grain shortage in blah blah, they have the actual shipping transactions from egypt lmao

so when an empire like rome that keeps such meticulous records doesn't even give a passing mention to "THE figure of history" until well after his death, and after the rise of the religion, just kindly fucketh offeth. gospels aren't viewed as historical documents.

religions are all founded on nonsense mythical tales. so like you pointed out earlier, if an actual human named jesus of nazareth existed, his life was embellished to the point of him not being an actual figure. one might even say they portrayed him as a god lmao. who are they? what is their background? did they study with egyptian scholars, were they historians or mushroom eating dirty footed hippies? jesus could have existed as an actual person. there just isn't evidence of it.