you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The first two chapters of Matthew and Luke are later additions. We don't have any real information about Jesus's birth and childhood.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The first two chapters of Matthew and Luke are later additions.

Nonetheless that is the best evidence of Jesus' historicity: If you were going to make it up out of whole cloth you would do it in a way that doesn't insult the intelligence (if any) of your devotees.

It's evidence, but it's not strong evidence.

We don't have any real information about Jesus's birth and childhood.

Neither do we about his adulthood and death.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

His adulthood and death is widely agreed upon, even by his contemporary enemies. On the other hand there were multiple sects who called out the infancy stuff as fraudulent.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's nothing that can be identified as events that occurred, if you're an unbaised historian.

There's no primary and no secondary sources. There's no sources independent of the early Christian's sources. So there's no evidence it's not just myth.

A lot of people think he was crucified. Again the evidence for that is weak. Weaker than the from Nazareth thing, and along the same lines. If you were going to make him up out of whole cloth you wouldn't have such a humiliating death. I find the humiliation central to the story of the passion, and have no difficulty believing it could be made up.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13812

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you were going to make him up out of whole cloth you wouldn't have such a humiliating death.

Isn't that evidence for its authenticity?

Almost everyone agreed on the basic storyline. Proto-Matthew was accpted by nearly all sects. Mark by almost as many, and most of the ones that didn't did adapt the parts of it they did accept, which was most of it. Those do not contain any information about Jesus's family tree, birth, or childhood. The virgin birth was clearly added because in pagan Roman culture, a god's son had to have a virgin birth.

It is no surprise that there's no official record of him existing. Why would there be? We don't have those records! There's no record of almost anyone who lived back then, and he was not particularly popular. But the Talmud even acknowledges his existence. You'd think if he didn't exist, it wouldn't work together with Christianity to say he did.