if it’s good enough for the majority of historians
It isn’t. Historians would love to have independent evidence of the existence and crucifixion of Jesus, but there isn’t… so most historians refrain from taking a position one way or the other. The ones that do have to make do with what little objective information they have, and the best they can come up with is: well because of this embarassing thing, it’s more likely that he did exist and was crucified than that he didn’t, because why would they make that up?
That’s rather weak evidence, and far from “proof”.
Not sure why you’d need more
Well for one because the more prominent people who have studied this have a vested interest in wanting it to be true. For example, John P. Meier, who posited this criterion of embarassment that I outlined in my previous comment, isn’t really a historian but a catholic priest, professor of theology (not history) and a writer of books on the subject.
So instead of taking the glory for themselves like pretty much all other humans they decide to preach about an imaginary friend? Meh… Between “guy who got lost in history” and “bunch of guys that raved about that one gf that went to a different school”, I’ll go with the former as the more plausible one.
I’ll concede the fact that it’s not the same level of proof as other figures, but all these people writing about him is more than we have about others.
Yeah, I guess that’s fair. Religion and history are so intertwined when it comes to this subject that it’s easy to dismiss sources as biased, which is what’s happening here. Still not convinced they should be dismissed in this case
It isn’t. Historians would love to have independent evidence of the existence and crucifixion of Jesus, but there isn’t… so most historians refrain from taking a position one way or the other. The ones that do have to make do with what little objective information they have, and the best they can come up with is: well because of this embarassing thing, it’s more likely that he did exist and was crucified than that he didn’t, because why would they make that up?
That’s rather weak evidence, and far from “proof”.
Well for one because the more prominent people who have studied this have a vested interest in wanting it to be true. For example, John P. Meier, who posited this criterion of embarassment that I outlined in my previous comment, isn’t really a historian but a catholic priest, professor of theology (not history) and a writer of books on the subject.
So instead of taking the glory for themselves like pretty much all other humans they decide to preach about an imaginary friend? Meh… Between “guy who got lost in history” and “bunch of guys that raved about that one gf that went to a different school”, I’ll go with the former as the more plausible one.
I’ll concede the fact that it’s not the same level of proof as other figures, but all these people writing about him is more than we have about others.
There are basically four positions you can take about this:
I am on (2), as are most historians, and you put yourself on (1).
Yeah, I guess that’s fair. Religion and history are so intertwined when it comes to this subject that it’s easy to dismiss sources as biased, which is what’s happening here. Still not convinced they should be dismissed in this case