debate-points, jesus, historyI know this post exists, but I believe this question to be separate:
What historically inaccurate elements are present regarding the figure of Jesus?
E.g.:
I am asking these elements to strengthen my position in a debate: showing that there is no proof that Jesus existed is a weaker position than proving that some elements are historically false as well.
Other examples:
There are no references to Jesus outside Christian sources. There are two passages often cited by Christians as non-Christian references to Jesus, but neither support their claims. The first, the Testamentum of Josephus, is an obvious insertion of a Christian fragment after the fact, a clear forgery. The second is a reference to Christians in the first century, not to Jesus himself (from Pliny the Younger). So there are no known non-Christian sources referring to Jesus the man.
There was no census, at least no census on the order described in the NT, in the period referred to in the NT. And when a census was held, there was never any rule stating that people had to go and get registered in the city of their ancestors. That is a pure literary device used by the NT authors to place Jesus in the right city at the right time.
Herod the Great did exist, but he died in 4 BC, which causes issues with the traditional view of the Nativity. The historicity of Pontius Pilate is in active dispute. He seems to have existed, but may not have been in the position described in the NT at the time of the events described there.
There is simply no external evidence for the existence of Jesus. There are quite a few internal contradictions within the texts themselves, as well as between them, which throw the historicity of Jesus into question, without resolving it altogether. The historical existence of Jesus is on as unsure a footing (if not more so) as that of a figure like King Arthur: the Jesus of the NT may very well have been based originally on a real person, who may or may not have lived in the period described in the texts, but the text itself cannot be used to provide an accurate picture of who that person might have been.
At the very least, Matthew and Luke, in their respective gospels, offer two completely different lineages for his ancestry.
I think the question is completely appropriate for this forum and as the OP points out, it is not easy to research. As for extra-Biblical corobarating evidence, I have found the same as what Denis posted. That leaves us with the evidence of writers from within a small group of people, some of those writings were canonized. If you are looking for inaccuracies within the BIble, it is not that hard to just read the first few pages of Matthew then Luke and see the differences in the birth narrative. Other stories take a little more work, and plenty of people have gone to great lengths to make up ways to justify the differences, so that isn’t always the best route to take in a discussion.
More interesting are the claims that come straight from the Bible, like there being thousands of witnesses to the cruxificion. Some people take that as, well, gospel, and others simply dismiss it. How do you decide who is right? Saying that it was written 30 to 70 years after the fact sounds pretty damning, but comparitively that is not too bad for documents that come from that time period. Theists often site Socrates or Augustus Ceasar as historical figures with similar types of evidence. Some point out that we have no original copies of the gospels, again not unusual for documents from that period.
I’m not arguing for a historically accurate Jesus, I’m just pointing out that it is more interesting than simply believing it or not and it is debatable by historians. I don’t think there is some place you can go and simply look up what the consensus is among historians. The most troubling aspect to me is that the documents we have came from a small group of people, all of them claiming the stories were true. There is no document from someone saying they went to the Sermon on the Mount, heard basically the same words as other accounts, but then decided it wasn’t really that great of a speech and went on worshippig Zeus.
I am not sure whether this is useful, but the contradictions and rival claims about the holy prepuce (no kidding) pose some questions about whether Jesus was one person or a collection of several individuals that are collectively portrayed as one.
Denis is exactly right. But there are additional elements to this. Even if -someone- named Jesus existed at that time, the events and actions attributed to him are repeated throughout many other faiths.
Siddartha, for example, leads a strikingly similar life to Jesus. As does Zoroaster. And there is beginning to be some interest in evidence that suggests all 3 faiths come from the same source. (if you remember your Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster walked from what would be central India to the Middle East spreading an evolving concept of monotheism.)
Buddhism in the east, a kind of composite called Zoroastrianism in the middle (Iran) and if he kept walking and evolving, he could have easily been Abraham (Or some other early prophet) as well.
One source mentions Nazareth (Marcus, Johannes) as the place of birth, the other Bethlehem (Lukas).
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