Quality of the evidence matters. I’m personally not a historical expert on the topic and in such situations, I’m inclined to believe whatever the people who are experts say - and as far as I gather, most experts are in the “Jesus was a real historical person”-camp.
Comment on Is there any real physical proof that Jesus christ ever existed?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week agoA) yes there is.
I don’t believe that, and since it’s impossible to show evidence something doesn’t exist, the people claiming evidence Jesus existed is gonna have to do some linking…
that’s not the standard
You mean evidence?
Evidence isn’t the standard for things existing?
What exactly is the standard in your mind for whether a historical figure existed?
SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 week ago
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Evidence isn’t the standard for things existing?
Of course not. There are millions of examples of false claims for which there is more than zero evidence. e.g. I can claim I know which stocks will rise tomorrow, and point to various data of times I’ve been right. You can’t correctly say “There is zero evidence Frightful Hobgoblin is prescient about stock movements”.
There often exists evidence of two mutually incompatible propositions. This is basics.
If you want to research the historicity of Jesus it’s easily done. If you want to argue on the internet… you know what they say about that.
Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
I will say that while evidence existing isn’t definitive proof, the total lack of evidence would be convincing. That said, evidence does exist in this case, so
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 days ago
That’s the opposite of how it should work
Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
Well, no. Perhaps I’ve been misunderstood.
If no evidence whatsoever for a claim exists, then there is no reason to favor that claim. This is an effectively rare situation, and basically only applies to things someone has made up whole cloth just now.
Likewise, the existence of some evidence is not necessarily definitive “proof” of a claim, merely enough of a reason to consider it further (such as considering alternative explanations or how well said evidence matches what we might expect)
In this case, there is evidence that somebody named Jesus may have existed, and however ideal that evidence may or may not be, it is about the amount of evidence we would expect to find of any given figure from his time.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Hard evidence has never been the standard for proof that a historical figure existed. Corroborating records are. It’s great if you can find some hard evidence, but if that was the standard then most people in history wouldn’t have any historical proof of their existence. And even when there is a corpse, we still rely on burial records to be certain that the corpse is who we think it is.
Like a third of the bible as well as several contemporary documents all point to the existence of a guy named something like Joshua (which we now translate as Jesus) who traveled around Palestine preaching and was crucified in around 33AD. There are plenty of historical figures who we mostly agree existed despite having approximately the same amount of proof as for Jesus.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
And there’s not enough to prove that Jesus Christ existed…
There’s a Jesus that got crucified, but no mention about him being able to perform miracles
I don’t think any of it was written till decades after he supposedly died tho…
Like, there’s lots of information about Bilbo Baggins in Lotr, that doesn’t mean it was written in the third age of Middle Earth homie.
Name one and I’ll disporve it.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Obviously miracles aren’t real. I wasn’t claiming otherwise. We’re talking about whether or not the person Jesus existed, not if magic is real.
It sounds like we agree
Okay but it was written by people who claim they were there and met him personally.
To borrow your asinine LOTR analogy, it is more like you are claiming Thorinn Oakenshield never existed simply because Bilbo only wrote “There and Back Again” after he got home from memory.
Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com 1 week ago
If your only requirement is that a man once existed by the name of Jesus and was crucified, then the bar is on the floor. Jesus was not a rare name, and the Romans crucified many, many people. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these two common data points would overlap and give us a crucified Jesus.
Is there proof that it was THE Jesus though? Do we have corroborating evidence of a man travelling the countryside with his posse, changing the minds and hearts of the masses?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Not really, and definitely not the 1/3 you were claiming…
Like, where are you getting any of this?
It sounds like what they teach at one of those “bible colleges”
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
You just 100% conceded. /thread
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
There was a Paul that lived in Midwest America
Is that proof he had a big blue ox?
Like, you know the Romans were pretty big fans of crucifying people for pretty much anything?
Like, we have that elusive physical evidence that 6,000 of Sparticus’ followers were crucified…
There’s a pretty good chance at least one of those guys was named Jesus too mate, it was a pretty common name
mkwt@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The conceit of the LOTR appendices is that Lord of the Rings, as published in English, is really just the Red Book that Bilbo writes at the end. Dr. Tolkien merely found the manuscript somewhere and has graciously translated it from Third Age common language into English for the benefit of us modern people.
SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 week ago
Says who?
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Diarmait mac Cerbaill
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Yes.
His life was written about while it happened in the Irish Annals…
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_annals
That is contemporary literary evidence of his existence.
Not just some dude named Diarmait existed in Ireland at some point.
Jericho_One@lemmy.world 1 week ago
IIRC, there’s really only a single mention of a possible link to someone of this name that was crucified at the supposed time, and that single mention happened at least 50 (maybe 100?) years later, and there’s evidence that this passage was added even later.
So I didn’t think it’s true that there are “several contemporary documents” like you claimed…