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I'm not a biblical scholar, like at all, but isn't that exactly the sort of thing he'd say/ do?
Extra-canonically he was certainly talking a lot about dank images:
(This was more relating to Plato's concept of eikon and what was effectively a version of the simulation hypothesis in antiquity, but if we throw out the context it could potentially be talking about making memes.)
potentially?
It was definitely about memes. It's why the Gospel of Thomas is heresy.
The Tank? That was a canon event.
See I like your work. I don't get why you buy into Bible Literalism. Go ahead and publish already something already on the Gospel of Thomas. I will buy it if you do.
I don't, and I'm not sure where you get the sense that I do.
There's a very wide gulf between thinking that a historical person named Jesus existed and that the New Testament depiction of that person is accurate.
There's a ton of things in there that are pretty clearly BS, but the way in which they are BS seems much more like an attempt to spin historical events than to invent them from scratch.
For example, Peter's denials.
Dude is nicknamed after a "hollow rock" which is actually a terrible thing to try to use as a foundation, but it's an incredible nickname for someone regularly missing the point and arguing with you.
Then around the time Jesus is being tried approximately three times Cephas is also denying Jesus three times, even seen going back into a guarded area where a trial is taking place to do so.
But it's all okay because a rooster crowed?
That sounds a lot more like there had been earlier eyewitness testimony or rumors about "hollow rock" having had a more prominent role in testifying against a historical figure which needed to be spun to be a lesser offense which was explained away as acceptable than it sounds like a fabrication originated by a religious organization owing itself to "hollow rock."
There's many places where the earliest layers of the NT are sort of engaged with a phantom tradition we can no longer see directly, and only in reflection of its opposition. Things like Mark pointing out that the women saw the empty tomb but didn't tell anyone or that Thomas doubted the resurrection but then changed his mind. Given Paul was combating the disbelief in physical resurrection in Corinth in 1 Cor 15 among what was a community following some version of Jesus, maybe traditions later on that owed themselves to female teachers, prominently had females receiving sayings from Jesus separate from the other disciples, and had an over-realized eschatology such that it rejected physical resurrection like the proto-Thomasine group were a bigger deal earlier on than the church would like to let on?
My point is that this kind of undermining and spin - "yes Cephas denied him but it was prophesied" or "no, the women actually saw the empty tomb they just didn't tell anyone, we pinky swear" - is the kind of thing we should expect from a very early split around a cultush origin and not something like Mithraism where a mythologized narrative is adapted and embellished from purely fictional origins.
As for publishing - I'd like to and plan to one day probably at least do a video series on the topic. But this is a hobby and people take religion very seriously to an irrational degree so I'm probably not going to be comfortable linking my real world self to a counter-cannonical Christian public stance until I'm retired. On the upside that gives me many more years to continue to find out more nuances.
Come on man. We have been over this. You can't dump all this at once.
Peter denying Jesus comes from Mark and Mark was advocating against the apostles pushing for Paul being the leader of the church. The central message of the story is the apostles didn't get it. Heck Jesus is basically a stand in for Mark. All the interesting stuff happens on the non-jewish side of the Sea of Gallie. Which isn't even a sea. He was trying to make Jesus in the image of Paul.
As for the earlier layers we know what they were. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Elijiah mostly. Almost everything Mark says is right from there or the letters. For the very few things that aren't I have no problem with an oral tradition but that doesn't mean the oral tradition was accurate.
As for why Mark ended the way it did (originally) I admit I am not sure. I can speculate that he was trying to diminish Mary but again this doesn't matter. We know Paul was in Jerusalem and makes no mention of the tomb additionally he does say buried.
I am sorry but the evidence just isn't there, which is why all 4 quests have failed.
Also yeah I get your hesitation. Do what you got to do. I am just saying I do respect your work on the Gospel of Thomas and would love if you put something out there. Help you as well, you can deal with actual scholars not amateurs like me who suck at Greek.
(1) You'd have a difficult time showing the dependence of John on Mark, and John also has Peter's denials. That work claims to be based on an earlier work by the beloved disciple who is depicted as separate from the later apostle tradition within the work, so there may have been an earlier narrative work both John and Mark share, absent the sayings work Mark would have been relying on which is one of the places it differs noticably from John. I agree that Mark is largely written to set up Paul (if you haven't, check out Dykstra's Mark, Canonizer of Paul), but given Paul's claims are that Peter directed him to the areas he was active in and that he had studied under Peter (but no one saw him except James) in Gal, the work still needs to prop up Peter as the successor who then passed things on to Paul.
(2) Where is Mark 4:3-9 in Elijah? Or Mark 13:1-2? Both public statements that are expanded upon in private instructions in the text. These were very likely known to the audience Mark was being written for and proceeded the work in saying form, which is why it characterized them as being said in public while trying to spin them with the private parts (which it should be noted may well be a later reactive layer to Mark anyways). You might find it interesting to reread Mark closely paying attention to when it breaks off for private instructions or secret disclosures (such as the secrecy around Messianic claims - claims completely absent in something like Thomas).
(3) Correct, the empty tomb was likely a later embellishment, which would make sense given Paul himself likely developed a lot of the eschatology around resurrection and a sin sacrifice. The Corinthian Creed did possibly predate him, but even then it would have only been a core part of it, and Paul expanded on the mythos quite extensively. It's not that Mark is introducing the empty tomb that's remarkable, it's that he's having his only witnesses not tell anyone about it. You see something similar in John where Peter and the unnamed beloved disciple race to the tomb, Peter loses the race, but then the other disciple doesn't go in. There was clearly an effort to try to fit figures like the women or the unnamed beloved disciple (who takes the women into his household at the end of John) into an empty tomb narrative as silent or reluctant witnesses, which would make sense if a competing tradition connected to such 'superapostles' wasn't saying anything about the tomb or resurrection.
Quests? Like Arthur and the holy grail?
It was pretty awesome spending nearly every day for years participating in /r/AcademicBiblical alongside PhDs and very knowledgeable fellow contributors. I definitely learned a lot, and was honored to be labeled as one of the sub's Quality Contributors (their label for a handful of participants without a Master's or PhD who had high quality comments or posts). But unfortunately Reddit administration killed a good thing with their greed, and now I'm on Lemmy and probably won't be back to Reddit again.
If I do get around to a video series one day, the network of some of the people I befriended in that sub who produce the same kinds of material will be a good sounding board though - it's one of the things motivating the eventual effort.
No difficulty at all. John borrowed from Mark and altered the text. All of them did things like that. None of them were historians and all of them lied
I didn't say all of it. The public denials were a Mark invention to downplay Cephus.
Glad you agree that the tomb narrative never happened. You are nearly there btw. Only 1% more and Jesus is gone completely.
Quests for the historical Jesus. There have been 4.
He is a fictional. The question is if the writer needs him to do it or not.
He was almost certainly not fictional.
Fictional constructs don't end up having bitterly opposed factions splintering off within decades of their supposed death, but that's an extremely common feature of nearly every cult organized around a historical central figure.
The specific depiction of Jesus canonized likely has many fictional elements, but the idea that there was no historical figure in the first place is pretty ludicrous.
Source? /s
He is almost certainly is fictional. I don't see at all why you think it matters what people did after his supposed existence. Also not sure where you are getting bitterly opposed. Paul was sending money to the Church of Jerusalem. He argued but you don't give free money to people you bitterly oppose. You also don't write a letter saying how the leaders were good people. The fighting really started as Christianity moved into power and little spats made a difference. Plus you know we have no evidence that Buddhism had that fighting after Siddharth death and the Mormons didn't break out into civil war after Smith died. Scientologists are also doing fine.
Every detail of his supposed life was pulled from literature available and was to generate a specific result. We can also see where they were taking "known" facts at the time and misrepresenting them to try to get what they want.
Jebus never condemned Hummus. Look it up in the Bibble. It’s not there.
Corinth then later on full on deposed Rome's appointees which led to the letter from the bishop of Rome, 1 Clement that's almost entirely devoted to trying to damage control the schism.
You can even see some of the specific concepts that there was a schism about, such as whether there was an over-realized eschatology:
So I'm not sure where you get the notion there was one big happy family of Christian thought in Paul's time and the later 1st century CE when literally the earliest records of Christianity we have are so concerned with competing traditions and ideas. You may be mistaking the survivorship bias of cannonical Christianity eradicating most competing thought later on for a picture of unity (as that's what they try to project) which is why a closer read is warranted.
It had that fighting even before Siddhartha's death when his brother in law Devadatta broke away to form his own group.
You might want to read up on the succession crisis
You might want to look into the Free Zone schisms from Scientology near and after L Ron's death.
Again. Having small disagreements a generation after the fake death of Jesus doesn't prove that Jesus existed. You are goalpost moving now. You went from bitterly opposed to having literal anything but perfect harmony.
Now do you have anything better than Paul sounded a bit peeved in a letter and your claim with no evidence whatsoever that religious shishms are required for unknown reasons? Got to give you credit this is by far the worst argument I have heard for your Messiah existing. Because people argued he couldn't be real. I am glad no one ever argues about fiction and toxic fanbases don't exist.
Oh and for the record he didn't write Timothy. I am sure a biblical scholar such as yourself knew that already.
"Everything is permissible for me" is a small disagreement with canonical Christianity?
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
It's largely based on outdated tautology dating anything with a whiff of Gnosticism to the 2nd century which only changed up around the turn of the 21st century.
I'd happily wager with you that attitudes around 2 Timothy's grouping with 1 Timothy and Titus (which are forgeries) won't last another 15 years.
P.S. How many of those scholars think there was no historical Jesus?
He was still sending them money and I am not going into the Duetropaul argument since it proves nothing.
P.S. do you know what an argument from authority logical fallacy is? Especially since you are going against the grain with your dating of the Gospel of Thomas. Did you know that around 60% of polled Bible scholars believe the resurrection is a true literal historical event?
How do you know? Because he says so in the letters?
It's worth looking a bit closer at the fine details...
Interesting. Paul is getting fancy fragrances sent to him?
Should we be upset about this?
Well wait a second, what do those later cannonical gospels say?
Pretty weird how Paul accepting an expensive fragrance is paralleled in the gospels with Jesus being gifted an expensive fragrance as being a good thing.
I'd be very skeptical of just how much of the money Paul was collecting was being used for its stated purposes.
How much would be enough money to no longer be bitterly opposed? Be exact. The exact coinage needed.
Or you know you can drop this indefensible position that if there is a schism it means there was founder. Since again you have zero evidence of this theorem. I promise to let it die.
Thanks you for admitting the Mark was not writing the history of Jesus, he was writing the history of Paul. I am glad we agree that Mark said nothing about the historical Jesus.
That's not what I said and you know it.
You seem in this reply and your others to be much more interested in debating a strawman than actual nuance around textual criticism.
That's arguably even easier to do without me replying at all where you would need to twist what I was saying to do so.
If you are ever interested in actually discussing the material seriously, I'll be around.
Pretty sure you did say that. The best source we got for the guy you have admitted wasn't even talking about him.
In one small, nuanced part.
Fine answer me this. Given what we know about the book. That the author lied when it suited narrative flow, that he copied off the OT, that he was trying to tell Jesus in the image of Paul, and that he was trying to downplay the 12+Cephus+James...given all this tell me how you objectively determine which parts are from the oral tradition (that we can't prove existed at all or that it was accurate) and which are not?
There's a number of ways to sort out what predated Mark or was in an earlier redactional layer and what's in the latest layer of Mark.
One way would be looking at the fringe details that are at odds with canonical church theology and organization at the time it is written.
For example, "carry no purse" in Mark 6:8 would inhibit the ability to make monetary collections. It is very problematic for Paul, and you can even see in 1 Cor 9 that the Christian community in Corinth who he later accused of accepting a different version of Jesus and later depose Rome's appointees have attitudes against Paul's doing so which he's arguing against.
This makes its way via copying into both Matthew and Luke, but then in a post-Marcion version of Luke a line is added at the last supper explicitly reversing not carrying a purse.
Another is Mark 11:16, where he doesn't allow anyone to carry sacrifices through the temple. This isn't found in Luke or John, and Matthew who is copying it verbatim explicitly left out this part. It's a problem because what was carried through the temple were sin sacrifices, and Jesus hasn't died yet. Cannonical theology is that it was his death that wiped the record clean. So while the other gospels have no issue with his criticism of selling the sacrifices in front of the temple, prohibiting any sacrifices at all from being carried through the temple is a big problem.
Here too this seems more in line with the attitude in Corinth Paul was arguing against that "everything is permissible for me" - which it's worth noting he doesn't outright reject but instead tried to make a relativist argument around in interpretation.
Another way we can evaluate Mark is looking at competing textual traditions.
So in the first case above we see a similar but different statement in the middle of Thomas 14 which only endorses accepting food and shelter, and a number of unique sayings in agreement with the concept of not paying for religious service such as sayings 88, 21, and 109.
And again, we can see the similar attitudes pre-existing Paul's first letter in 1 Cor 9.
For this to be originating in Mark sometime after 70 CE seems highly unusual as it opposes Paul's fundraising efforts, mirrors earlier attitudes in Corinth, and reflects positions in sayings unique and similar to it in an extra-canonical text.
In terms of the second, an identical pattern emerges.
In Corinth Paul is arguing against the position that "everything is permissible," then later on in Mark is a line effectively prohibiting sin sacrifices, and in Thomas we see a similar attitude rejecting propiation and instead furthering a relative picture of morality in sayings 6 and 14.
As a bonus, saying 14 doesn't just cover no propiation and not carrying a purse, both mirroring ideas Paul is arguing against in Corinth, it also covers absolutely eradicating eating restrictions which Paul also argued against with Corinth without directly opposing it and instead appealing to a counter-interpretation based on relative mortality.
So you end up with this picture where Paul is arguing against something, Mark contains some offhand mention supporting the thing Paul was arguing against, later cannonical texts attempt to reverse that, and Thomas contains sayings similar but not identical to canonical sayings supporting those things in entirely different contexts as well as unique sayings that support the same positions.
This is exactly the pattern we should expect if Paul and the canonical tradition was actively working to undermine an earlier and separate tradition of teachings attributed to Jesus.
And here too, the concepts Paul and the later texts are arguing against happen to be in line with the Greek philosophy of Epicurus as recorded in Lucretius who complained that people were too caught up in worrying about what gods thought and there was no point in sacrificing, giving money to religion, or other religious obligations. A philosophy that has its other elements heavily engaged with across multiple sayings in Thomas and attributed with the opposition to the physical resurrection Paul is arguing against in 1 Cor 15.
Which then brings us back to things like Mark 4 where a saying about randomly scattered seeds where only what survives multiplied which even uses the specific phrase of "seed falling by the wayside of a path" - just like Leucretius used decades earlier to describe failed reproduction - is being depicted as being said in public. Followed by a private explanation which is one of only two explanations in antiquity about this parable, with the other being provided by the Thomasine tradition interpreting it in line with Lucretius's depictions of seeds as atomos and also using language identical to Lucretius's in doing so. A parable which appears in Thomas without the secret explanation of Mark and the other Synoptics.
I very much doubt Mark was inventing a parable paraphrasing Lucretius, then having it said in public but secretly explained with an interpretation at odds with Lucretius in private, and then a later tradition well after Lucretius was no longer popular reinterpreted it back to Lucretius using his language again in doing so, and that tradition just so happened to also have variations of several sayings in Mark which were problems for the earlier church and in agreement with opposing views in Corinth but in line with Lucretius's perspectives, as well as multiple unique sayings with similar attitudes. (Along with multiple sayings and ideas Paul seems to be quoting in his letter to Corinth.)
This is all much more easily explained by a pre-Pauline tradition that was influenced by and engaged with Epicurean philosophy and Lucretius specifically which was problematic for Paul's associations in Jerusalem which he and what later becomes the canonical church attempt to spin back towards conservative Judaism with increasing success over the next century, with Mark as one of the earliest attempts to do so in narrative form. But as the first attempt, it did so sloppily enough small parts of the opposed positions peek through before being better corrected by later efforts.
Wells argued except none of this tells me about what I asked. How do you know you are right? These are balance of probability arguments and I don't disagree that Mark had some element of an oral tradition he was bringing up, if nothing else the king of sabbath phrase proves that.
First we need a way to figure out what was part of the oral tradition and what was part of other books. Then we need to prove the oral tradition comes from an accurate source. We are not only dealing with generational hearsay we are dealing with it filtered through the mind of a liar.
To address your points more specifically. I don't have an explanation about the carrying purse and contradiction between that and the fundraising of Paul. I will look into it. It is an interesting point.
You mention Mark borrowing from Greek thinkers and while probably true does nothing to prove a historical Jesus. All it proves is that Mark was widely read which we know because empty tomb novels were floating around prior to his work.
Most of history ends up boiling down to probability arguments when you dig into it. It's one of the more surprising things as you actually read papers, where far too often you'll see scholars speak with an attitude of certainty around rather spurious evidence. The best tend to make more effort to be conservative with surety.
But between several options of varying probability I don't find it that difficult to identify what I consider very unlikely and what I consider likely.
For example, I rank the idea of people seeing Jesus alive three days after his execution and then watch him float up into the sky extremely unlikely. As many Christians like to point out, we can't be certain it didn't happen, but there's enough reasons why it probably didn't happen that I don't think it did.
You're talking to someone whose personal mantra in life has been Socrates' "All that I know is that I know nothing." Most of existence as far as I'm concerned is probabilities and not certainty, and I value the Epicurean view of entertaining multiple possibilities when it isn't 100% clear which is correct - I think it's a large contributing factor to how they were right about so much.
Within that though, I can look at the two scenarios I presented above and see that one poorly fits the available evidence described and other evidence not described, and the other matches much better, as represented by around five years of a deep dive into the subject matter including discussion and debates with scholars of various perspectives.
Likely liars. Paul has a number of characteristics of a narcissist and a habit of swearing he's not lying, and even straight up talks about how he changes what he says depending on the audience. I wouldn't trust him more than you could throw him, and maybe not even that much (he was allegedly smallish).
The gospel of Mark is also likely propagating lies, whether of original invention or secondhand inheritance.
Then Luke and potentially Mark have possible redactional layers which are further lying about things (like a 180° on not taking people's money).
Matthew is probably worst of all with the outright lying, and evidentially had extra-cannonical resources in front of him that he was copying from and then making up secret explanations for while in general promoting a tradition of secret teachings (I think it may have come from an ex-Essene community).
John takes what I do think was some rudimentary earlier resource and then actively works to subvert and conceal the origin of that resource with what are likely additional lies, that span at least two redactional layers.
Later on people forge letters from Paul and Peter.
There's quite a lot of liars involved in forming what we have.
But the thing with liars is that while you can't trust their positive statements, they tend to reflect more trustworthy things in what they oppose or accidentally acknowledge. You kind of have to treat them like a hostile witness in a court case.
So for example with Mark, one of the most basic ways this manifests is the aforementioned public/private pattern. While I wouldn't believe what Mark talks about occurring in public that supports his agenda or theology like a faith healing or Jesus telling people marriage is between a man and a woman (anachronistic relevance before Nero married two men in the 60s making same sex marriage an institution in the Roman empire), I tend to think the things it sets up as taking place in public before it immediately tries to contextualize them in a different direction with private explanations are one way to detect things that were part of an earlier commonly known record.
It's tough work necessitating different approaches and maybe at best there's about 3-4% of the material in there that I'd confidently label as preceding Mark's earliest redactional layer.
Not Mark. Mark is oblivious to Greek thought, which is why it's interesting. The Greek/Roman philosophical influence is very pronounced in Thomas, it is present in things discussed with the Christian community in Corinth, but it isn't in Mark other than in a vestigial way.
And the specific ways it's phrased in places in Thomas combines Greek/Roman philosophy with the phrasing and metaphors of prophets in the Old Testament. I'd be very surprised if that core work was from someone who wasn't familiar with both.
So while no, I can't be for sure that a historical Jesus existed, I am pretty confident that someone familiar with both Lucretius, Plato, and Hebrew texts composed a number of sayings which ended up attributed to a Jesus in the first century when he was a relative nobody, at least one of which was likely composed during Pilate's reign, several of which predated Paul, several more of which predated Mark, more of which predated Luke, and more of which predated Matthew. All of which ended up inside the 3rd-4th century only surviving copy of the Gospel of Thomas alongside additional sayings that were composed or taken from canonical texts later on.
To elegantly tie together Plato and Lucretius occasionally using language and metaphors from the OT in the first century seems like a pretty difficult task. It strikes me as bizarre that the person undertaking this Herculean accomplishment would then turn around and attribute it all to a relative nobody from a small cultic tradition who was allegedly executed by the Roman empire at its peak and whose adherents were actively being persecuted by the religious theocracy in Judea before being subverted by a growing splinter tradition largely owing itself to one of the people known to be persecuting them.
Maybe a better fitting version of events is that there really was a historical nobody who combined these things, pissed off the religious theocracy he was under with the conclusions he came to which undermined their authority such that he was killed by the state as soon as it was possible to justify it, then his followers and teachings were actively persecuted in areas the religious theocracy had authority while being actively subverted with a different version of fictionalized events and interpretations in the areas they didn't have authority so they could bring it all back closer to conservative Judaism and funnel money and resources back to themselves - and then that subversion attempt was so unexpectedly successful that now a third of the world population believes it today.
You are actually conceding points I am not arguing. I am willing to accept that Paul always told the truth as far as he knew it to be. Because it really doesn't matter to my argument. He knew nothing, had a dream of a celestial being, and told people. He doesn't have to be a liar. I agree he probably did have NPD.
You are also conceding that the Gospel of Thomas has Greek thought in it. Again it could or could not and my argument isn't impacted.
You are also not allowing Mark to be smart but demanding Jesus be smart. We know Mark was a Greek and an educated one. For him to sit down and study the OT wouldn't have been all that hard. It would have been a lot easier than for an Aramaic illiterate in a society that punished studying Greek thought to have pulled it off. Which is easier an educated man in a free society to read a book in his native language or a non-educated person to learn how to read in a language he doesnt speak in a back water of the empire surrounded by people who would want to kill him for attempting it?
Jesus never existed that is why everyone builds him in their own image. You just did it. You want him to be a powerful mind who can synthesis multiple different thoughts of different cultures and come up with stuff against the grain. I have seen your work on the Gospel of Thomas and well...look in the mirror. Everyone is looking at this Rorschach image declaring something else and a small group of people are pointing out that there is nothing there except a mess of ink.
Isn't it amazing that James who needed authority just happened to have a brother who granted it? Isn't it amazing that James surrounded by Jews and Rabbis was told by Jesus that they had to follow Jewish law? Isn't it amazing that Paul just happened to have the same injuries that Jesus suffered? Isn't it amazing that Paul surrounded by non-jewish was told that Jesus is ok with pork and non-circumcision? Every single person in the first century had a Jesus who just happened to agree with them on every single thing and whose history was as malleable as needed.
The simplest explaination is that James and Cephus were running a grift, Paul took it seriously and literally, at some point they recruited a talented writer, other writers thought they could outdo what Mark had done, and the rest is history. William Tell, Moses, John Frumm, Ned Lud, and of course Jesus of Nazareth.
If you think that was what I was saying when I was saying pretty much the exact opposite, I get the sense you aren't actually reading my comments.
Again, it seems you are more interested in arguing with a strawman.
Check your information. Mark was absolutely not both Greek and well educated. His Greek is like a five year old talks. Go look at one of the more literal translations. He starts every other sentence with "And" or "And then". It's very rudimentary Greek.
Huh? What are you talking about? When was Jesus struck blind?
I'd be wary of being so sure about the role of James in all this. He's likely a later addition to the Corinthian Creed and Paul does his little "I swear I'm not lying" after saying he was in Jerusalem a decade earlier but only seen by Cephas and James and no one else.
Well, actually...
Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about
Like yeah I don't, but didn't he curse a fig tree for not having fruit, while it wasn't fig season?
Didn't he get himself executed for like being offended that people were doing business at the temple?
How is that not taking shit personally and arguing with strangers?
You don't think he'd be like coming in hot on a comment chain?
The cursing of the fig tree has echos in other Jewish literature best example is Moses hitting a rock to get it to send out water.
The temple had to do business. It wasn't practical for everyone to bring their own animals and the coinage issue wasn't considered a big deal. If there has been a historical Jesus (again there wasn't) he most likely started the assault on the temple because he was trying to fulfill the OT prophecy of its destruction. Kinda like when you want sex so you give your partner a back rub.
You got to understand all the accounts of man were written multiple decades later by liars.
I'm not sure what to do with this information.
I imagine they want you to be convinced and become a Christian.
Please don't spread misinformation .
Please don't spread cognitive biases
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_cascade
Please don't commit link dump articles you didn't read advocating for a viewpoint that is not supported by evidence.
Jesus didn't exist. No one can keep their story straight about events in his life. Everyone who spoke about his life was lying and we can identify the lines via basic textual criticism. Evidence of his existence that should be here is missing.
I am sorry your Messiah was just a grift by James and Cephus but it is better to hear it late than never. Happy Saturnalia maybe spend this evening trying to find the nativity scene in the Bible, and not building a hybrid one off Matthew and Luke.
Bruh I'm not even Christian. All of the events in his life don't have to be corroborated for him to be a real person. You for example probably haven't had everything you've done recorded but you are certainly a person because there are contemporary accounts of your existence. Jesus from Nazareth didn't have to be proven to have risen from the dead to be a real man who existed.
Having a combative attitude isn't gonna make your point dude.
I am an ordinary person so any claims about my existence are ordinary. Even a minimum historical Jesus (I am sure you know that term without looking it up ;)) would be extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. The very first writer of the man described a celestial being, not a human, the second writer of the man recycled Elijiah.
Why don't you tell me which part of the claim you have evidence for? So far you have listed his name and village of birth. There were other Messiah figures named Jesus both from birth and as a title. Since it means saviour. As for Nazareth, historians can't find it. Josphius names ten towns right around it and doesn't mention it. After hundreds of archeological digs they found a barn, a barn that they can't even prove was standing 0 AD, only around that time period. Could easily have been built in 50AD.