Physical proof? No. But if that’s the criterion for proof that someone existed, then that mean 90% of historical figures can’t be proven to have existed. We don’t have the remains of Alexander the Great or any artefacts we can be sure are his. We have no remnants of Plato, none of his original writings remain.
Did a person name Jesus live sometime during the first century AD? Scholars are fairly certain of that. We do have textual evidence other than the bible that points to his existence.
It is highly unlikely that he was anything like the person written about in the bible. He was likely one of many radical apocalyptic prophets of the time.
We don’t have too many details about his life but because of something called the criterion of embarrassment we have good reason to believe he was baptized by a man named John the Baptist and was later crucified. (i.e. most burgeoning religions seeking legitimacy don’t typically invent stories that are embarrassing to their deity)
frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
No. But physical proof is not the standard we use for determining someone’s historical existence.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Literary proof is, but also doesn’t exist for Jesus Christ.
There’s a few mentions of just a “Jesus” but its not like no one else was named Jesus, and those don’t really make any mention of him being remarkable in any way.
There’s just no evidence
SorteKanin@feddit.dk 5 days ago
AFAIK most historians/scholars agree that Jesus was a real person (even if a lot of the Bible’s claims about what he did is not true). What are you basing your opinion on?
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
There exists documented proof in many bits of literature from around 200 BCE to around 100 CE of numerous different figures in what is called ‘Jewish Apocalypticism’, ie Jews in and around what was for most of that time the Roman province of Palestine, preaching that the end would come, that God or a Messiah would return or arise and basically liberate the region and install a Godly Kingdom, usually after or as part of other fantastical events.
Jesus was one of many of these Jewish Apocalypticists. Much like the rest of the movement’s key figures, they were wrong, and their lives were greatly exaggerated in either their writings or writings about them or inspired by them.
This seems to be the (extremely condensed) opinion of most Biblical Scholars.
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
I have a pet peeve about this phrase. A) yes there is. B) that’s not the standard, e.g. it would be incorrect to say there’s no evidence aliens abduct and probe people: there are eyewitness accounts
frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
I agree with you that Jesus wasn’t God, who doesn’t exist, and that there were no miracles, which are impossible. However, this is not the same thing as saying that there’s no evidence for the existence of Jesus, the Jewish apocalyptic preacher.
The earliest documents about Jesus, such as the Pauline Epistles, were written by people who knew people who knew him. In a mostly illiterate society 2,000 years ago, this is about as good as evidence gets. It’s also the exact same kind of evidence as a journalist or researcher writing an account based on interviews with people. This was how, e.g, Herodotus wrote his histories. When Herodotus says ‘A guy rode a dolphin once’ we dismiss that. But we don’t say ‘The people in the Histories didn’t exist’. We do much the same with Jesus and the miracles.
If the Apostles had wanted, for some reason, to invent a guy, that would have been risky. Other people would have just said, ‘That guy didn’t exist’. If they had anyway decided to invent a guy, they’d have invented someone who actually fulfilled the Jewish propehcies of the Messiah, instead of inventing Jesus, who obviously didn’t. This suggests they didn’t invent him, which strengthens the plausibility of the evidence we do have.
A third way of looking at this is to ask if there are any comparable figures, religious founders from the historic era, who we now think were wholly made up in the way you’re suggesting. But there aren’t. The Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Zoroaster - they all certainly existed. Indeed, I can’t think of any figures form the time period who were actually imaginary.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 days ago
… The four Gospels?
BlowMe@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I’m pretty sure without the fossilised bones we would think dinosaurs weren’t a thing
Eczpurt@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Its easy to put bones together and say that it existed but there’s no way to guarantee “these are certified bones of Jim the stegosaurus, religious figure”
Tramort@programming.dev 5 days ago
Bones prove you existed.
But the absence of bones does not mean that you didn’t.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
That’s because there weren’t multiple people around to write down what they saw. You’re confusing paleontology and history. They have very different standards for proof.
There are tons of historical figures for whom we have no physical evidence. But we have tons of written evidence from people who all experienced those people.
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
History is known by:
Archæological evidence
Texts
Archæogenetics
Historical linguistics
Myth (euhemerism)
Maybe some others I’m forgetting
Dino-history isn’t comparable to tthe literate Roman period.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 5 days ago
That’s prehistory. Everything we know about history comes from written accounts. Historians study written documents and argue whether or not the available evidence makes it more likely that something (or someone) was real or fiction. Most historians agree that
nooneescapesthelaw@mander.xyz 5 days ago
We don’t have the bones of gengis khan either
frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
Dinosaurs aren’t people.
Rekorse@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
The point is that you are asking the wrong question sort of. If we only accepted physical remnants of someone or their life to prove they exist, Jesus wouldn’t be the only one we would have to throw out.
Not to say I know how to prove stuff historically, it does sort of seem like magic sometimes. If we found out today that carbon dating was off by a magnitude I would not be shocked, so that’s all the faith I have in it due to my bad understanding of it.
kokesh@lemmy.world 5 days ago
You won’t find fossilized Jesus, he apparently got resurrected and became wine & cookies, so some people started eating him on Sundays. And he doesn’t want us to say fuck, or shit, or do it in the butt. But that’s not really related to the question.
olafurp@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Archaeology in good at giving us clues about the living thing. References to people existing is almost purely based on text people wrote. The proof would be someone writing down “Chrestos, popular among the poor was crucified for his crimes for spreading heresy” as a contemporary. But since the earliest reference we have is a century after his death it’s not necessarily accurate or true.