5 ms·

there are untold numbers of fictional heroes, this hardly needed proof though there is no debate among scholars about whether Jesus existed, so you chose a poo

• permo-w 3y ago
  I think it’s worth questioning that consensus outside of inherently untrustworthy Christian sources, Jesus is mentioned by Tacitus, Josephus and possibly Suetonius. but who maintained and copied those books over the years? would you trust the records kept by a cult about their hero-figure over 50 years? how about 1500? how about if that cult monopolised literacy over most of that period? what if there were known examples of interpolation and forgery in the cult’s records of that figure? Tacitus’s potential reference—which is regarded as the most trustworthy—survived in a single manuscript copied a thousand years later by a Christian scholar. Josephus’s reference is regarded to have been fraudulently embellished at least, and Suetonius’s reference to a Jew “Chrestus” is fairly tenuous I think there’s a tendency to assume that earlier people were not as smart or capable as we are and couldn’t possibly have pulled off such a massive forgery. I would question that, especially when the means, motive and opportunity are so clear this isn’t to say that Jesus wasn’t a historical figure; he probably was in some form, but I’m extremely loath to trust records kept on Jesus by his followers, and that’s almost all we have