FOSS enthusiast, Linux user, Android enthusiast, Transformers fan (he/him)

  • 3 Posts
  • 108 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
cake
Cake day: December 29th, 2023

help-circle











  • Why would the assumption be that acknowledging the existence of Jesus makes you Christian? And how is not being Christian weakening my claim?

    Non-Christian sources used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus include the c. first century Jewish historian Josephus and Roman historian Tacitus. These sources are compared to Christian sources, such as the Pauline letters and synoptic gospels, and are usually independent of each other; that is, the Jewish sources do not draw upon the Roman sources. Similarities and differences between these sources are used in the authentication process.[82][83][84][85] From these two independent sources alone, certain facts about Jesus can be adduced: that he existed, his personal name was Jesus, he was called a messiah, he had a brother named James, he won over Jews and gentiles, Jewish leaders had unfavorable opinions of him, Pontius Pilate decided his execution, he was executed by crucifixion, and he was executed during Pilate’s governorship.[33] Josephus and Tacitus agree on four sequential points: a movement was started by Jesus, he was executed by Pontius Pilate, his movement continued after his death, and that a group of “Christians” still existed; analogous to common knowledge of founders and their followers like Plato and Platonists.[86]

    Serious historians of the early Christian movement—all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure."

    The idea that Jesus was a purely mythical figure has been and still is considered an untenable fringe theory in academic scholarship for more than two centuries,[note 4] but has gained popular attention in recent decades due to the growth of the internet.[8]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus