You realize that a significant portion of the bible is the collected letters and works that were at the time (that it was assembled) considered credible, right?
There’s a period of around 80 years that’s pretty hard to account for, but unlike the four gospels where there’s little corroborating evidence that tracks back into that 80 year period, the epistolary works are pretty likely to be authentic. They also reference a bunch of other letters that didn’t survive, something that tends to make them more likely authentic than not. And they involve people who were eyewitnesses of a man named Jesus (or Joshua or Yeshua if you prefer) and his younger (step) brothers.
The rest of the statements about him were solidified by 80 years or so after his death, but all the accounts don’t quite line up — which is actually a good argument for them being based on actual events.
So while there may be plenty of room for debate as to how much of the biblical teachings actually originated with a man named Jesus, his actual existence seems more evident than, say, Shakespeare.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Chances are he was more like a cult leader it wasn’t until a decade or two after his death that things really got into full swing, so chances are the actual Jesus would be quite surprised by everything “he” did.
But there were a lot of Jewish mystics cropping up at the time so it’s not impossible or even implausible for some one vaguely matching the description to have existed.
Psychodelic@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Good thing back in the day there were probably very few cult leaders…
Does anyone wonder about how the story of Jesus being plagiarized from the Egyptian myth of Horus affects the narrative about the Jesus that supposedly lived and died a century earlier? You know the one that happened to have incredibly important political value for the established leaders of the time?
No? Me either. Praise Horus!
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Exactly. An example from outside the Bible might be Achilles. There was probably a great warrior with that name in the Mycenaean Greek world. Later storytellers probably just added more to make it sound better or the material was from other warriors who were like Achilles.
Some of Jesus’ teachings definitely come from the milieu of the Roman era in Judea and Palestina.
Personally my favorite head canon is that Jesus was, or his parents were, Egyptian born Jews or Coptic converts to Judaism. It’s a reverse Obamas birth certificate. There is so much time spent establishing the lineage and explaining the flight to Egypt.