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No, although typically the opposite claim is made. That people named “Joshua son of Joseph” lived at that time, that various revolts and religious upheavals occ

No, although typically the opposite claim is made. That people named “Joshua son of Joseph” lived at that time, that various revolts and religious upheavals occurred is pretty certain. That one guy fitting the rough description of Jesus was behind it is not. The history of Christianity doesn’t really start in earnest for hundreds of years after the supposed death of Christ in any case. People today can’t even agree on the details of Elvis’ life... now imagine if Elvis had lived a few hundred years ago, and we’re all working from quaternary+ sources. Then fast-forward a thousand or so years of very intentional document editing and re-editing, translations and re-translations, and all of the incredible wealth and power hinging on it for centuries. How accurate would accounts from those times be expected to be?

vibrolax 8y ago
Loved your comparison to the historical Elvis. Whenever I saw news articles reporting on artifacts purportedly related to the historical Jesus, I always thought how little we know about the historical Shakespeare.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  Or indeed, some people don’t even believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays! As passionate as people can be about Shakespeare, it’s nothing compared to religion, and record keeping and sources of information on Shakespeare are a lot easier to come by than anything from a couple of millennia ago.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    All we can say is that Shakespeare was credited for his plays. It's functionally impossible to know who wrote them, at best we can hypothesise based on an analysis of his writing—and such analysis doesn't bode well for Shakespeare as the author...
    - djur 8y ago
      Your initial point is true about just about anyone who wrote more than a certain amount of time ago. It's true of Jonson and Spenser and Marlowe, too. The latter point is just false -- textual analysis is entirely consistent with the historical evidence (such as the writings of his contemporaries) that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare.
      - sjwright 8y ago
        Interesting; I was led to the impression that Shakespeare's writings showed a level and stratum of life experience that would have been beyond his reach or means.
vivekd 8y ago
>although typically the opposite claim is made. That people named “Joshua son of Joseph” lived at that time, that various revolts and religious upheavals occurred is pretty certain. That one guy fitting the rough description of Jesus was behind it is not That doesn't seem quite fair because it's almost certain that the guy named Jesus was not behind the upheavals of that time. That was about the Jewish revolt against the Romans which Jesus was not involved in at all. Also, while Christianity didn't start in earnest until about two hundred years after Jesus' death, stories of his life were written down as early as 60 years after his death. It's very difficult in a society like ancient Israel to fake the existence of a person, people had clan allegiances, they kept track of genealogies and would be able to tell right away if the writings concerned someone who didn't exist. There were translations but that's irrelevant because we have the original dead sea scrolls with the earliest ones dating to a few decades after his death. A time when wealth and power did not hinge on this. We're not solely working with edits and re-translations. I think there's a bias against religious figures that inform people's arguments when they say it's all uncertain - when in reality the evidence is pretty good that he did exist.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  Details of his life may have been written down then, but the sources we have aren’t those sources, just edited and translated retellings of those supposed stories with about 1800 years of politically and religiously motivated games of telephone between us and them. I have to ask, the Dead Sea Scrolls date from between about a century before Jesus’ purported life, to about a century after his death and as far as I know make no mention of him. I wasn’t claiming that the language is somehow untranslatable, but that we don’t have anything like contemporary sources, only people who hundreds of years later claim to have access to those sources.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
grumpydba 8y ago
> The history of Christianity doesn’t really start in earnest for hundreds of years after the supposed death of Christ in any case There are several Christian writings dated from the first century after his death. Paul's letters, the didache, Flavius Joseph, some talmudic writings, John's disciples writings to name a few.

vibrolax 8y ago

Loved your comparison to the historical Elvis. Whenever I saw news articles reporting on artifacts purportedly related to the historical Jesus, I always thought how little we know about the historical Shakespeare.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
Or indeed, some people don’t even believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays! As passionate as people can be about Shakespeare, it’s nothing compared to religion, and record keeping and sources of information on Shakespeare are a lot easier to come by than anything from a couple of millennia ago.
- sjwright 8y ago
  All we can say is that Shakespeare was credited for his plays. It's functionally impossible to know who wrote them, at best we can hypothesise based on an analysis of his writing—and such analysis doesn't bode well for Shakespeare as the author...
  - djur 8y ago
    Your initial point is true about just about anyone who wrote more than a certain amount of time ago. It's true of Jonson and Spenser and Marlowe, too. The latter point is just false -- textual analysis is entirely consistent with the historical evidence (such as the writings of his contemporaries) that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      Interesting; I was led to the impression that Shakespeare's writings showed a level and stratum of life experience that would have been beyond his reach or means.

vivekd 8y ago

>although typically the opposite claim is made. That people named “Joshua son of Joseph” lived at that time, that various revolts and religious upheavals occurred is pretty certain. That one guy fitting the rough description of Jesus was behind it is not That doesn't seem quite fair because it's almost certain that the guy named Jesus was not behind the upheavals of that time. That was about the Jewish revolt against the Romans which Jesus was not involved in at all. Also, while Christianity didn't start in earnest until about two hundred years after Jesus' death, stories of his life were written down as early as 60 years after his death. It's very difficult in a society like ancient Israel to fake the existence of a person, people had clan allegiances, they kept track of genealogies and would be able to tell right away if the writings concerned someone who didn't exist. There were translations but that's irrelevant because we have the original dead sea scrolls with the earliest ones dating to a few decades after his death. A time when wealth and power did not hinge on this. We're not solely working with edits and re-translations. I think there's a bias against religious figures that inform people's arguments when they say it's all uncertain - when in reality the evidence is pretty good that he did exist.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
Details of his life may have been written down then, but the sources we have aren’t those sources, just edited and translated retellings of those supposed stories with about 1800 years of politically and religiously motivated games of telephone between us and them. I have to ask, the Dead Sea Scrolls date from between about a century before Jesus’ purported life, to about a century after his death and as far as I know make no mention of him. I wasn’t claiming that the language is somehow untranslatable, but that we don’t have anything like contemporary sources, only people who hundreds of years later claim to have access to those sources.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

grumpydba 8y ago

> The history of Christianity doesn’t really start in earnest for hundreds of years after the supposed death of Christ in any case There are several Christian writings dated from the first century after his death. Paul's letters, the didache, Flavius Joseph, some talmudic writings, John's disciples writings to name a few.