I think Lemmy has a problem with history in general, since most people on here have degrees/training in STEM. I see a lot of inaccurate “pop history” shared on here, and a lack of understanding of historiography/how historians analyze primary sources.

The rejection of Jesus’s historicity seems to be accepting C S Lewis’s argument - that if he existed, he was a “lunatic, liar, or lord,” instead of realizing that there was nothing unusual about a messianic Jewish troublemaker in Judea during the early Roman Empire.

  • andros_rex@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    131·
    16 days ago

    The one in my head, that I cherry picked from a contradictory fictional source

    Have you ever read a document from before 1400? Just curious, because you seem to be under the illusion that reading primary sources means that you either take everything they say literally, or dismiss them as entirely made up. This is exactly what I mentioned with regard to ignorance of historiography and method earlier.

    Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes all say contradictory things about Socrates. Will you argue that Socrates was fictional?

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      46·
      16 days ago

      The letter J wasn’t even invented until the year 1524, so formally speaking, Jesus, Jews, Judges, January, June, July, and every other word including the letter J did not exist in the 1400s or before.

      Therefore, Jesus never existed.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
        51·
        16 days ago

        That’s just orthography; the letters and words didn’t exist, which is unrelated to whether the things they represent did. There was in fact a judge, a January, and a Julius Caesar in Rome.