this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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[–] protist@mander.xyz 157 points 9 months ago (12 children)

I'm about as atheist as they come, but it seems pretty settled history that the man existed and was politically impactful

[–] nbailey@lemmy.ca 86 points 9 months ago (2 children)

He was most likely a real guy. But a guy Christian’s would absolutely hate: a brown Communist Palestinian who hung out with prostitutes, lepers, pariahs, refuted the legitimacy of the state, and organized massive mutual aid events to feed the poor. Probably a good dude. It’s a shame his followers are dicks though.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm starting to think he wasn't all that great. He would have been someone who started a little apocalyptic religious following around himself, and those kind of people don't tend to have the best interests of their followers at heart.

He probably did see himself as starting something that would kick the Romans out of Judea and install himself as king. Judas got cold feet about it and warned the authorities. The Romans crucified him for exactly what the gospel accounts say, except they had a lot more evidence than the writers were letting on.

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[–] CyanideShotInjection@lemmy.world 38 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The bible Jesus probably never existed, but there were clearly a guy a lot of people followed called Jesus that the romains crucified.

[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Except his name was probably some version of Joshua. The Jesus spelling comes from the Greek, where a lot of masculine names end in -s.

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeshua is one I've heard used for his historical name.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeshua = god will save us. Interesting how the guy who would be a saviour would be named that. Like the rebellion leader being named Rebel, the evil villain who gets eight limbs named Dr. Octavious, or the evil guy being named Darkside.

Must be a pure coincidence

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't it the icebergs that crucified him?

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No you're thinking of the other thing people worship... that passenger ship they made a movie about.

It was definitely the arugala that kaled him.

[–] Rolando@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

that passenger ship they made a movie about.

PILATE: "Are you the King of the Jews?"

JESUS: "No." (strikes t-pose) "I'm the King of the World!!!"

[–] grue@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, disbelieving in the existence of Jesus the Jewish carpenter is about as silly as disbelieving in the existence of Pontius Pilate.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I have physical evidence that Pilate existed as well as the testimony of people alive at the time and the claim isn't even that big.

[–] Zozano@lemy.lol 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm an anti-theist, and I used to be on this page, but a while ago I read about how even this might not be true. We don't have any real proof he existed at all.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 29 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Where'd you read that? Here are at least the known sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus

There's way less evidence of a ton of historical figures and events that are taken for granted as established history. Just my two cents

[–] frezik@midwest.social 38 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Right. It's applying the same standard of evidence that we use for everything else on history. Truth is, we don't have great evidence for pretty much anyone who wasn't a regional ruler. If you rose the standard much higher, you'd end up with history being a big blank, and that's not useful.

In other words, if you reject a historical Jesus outright, you also have to reject Socrates and Spartacus and a whole lot of others.

[–] VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world 33 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Spartacus was real. I know because I'm Spartacus.

[–] Shard@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

I'm Spartacus!

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[–] III@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (33 children)

Real talk, he hasn't been proven to exist. Not even a little.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

And as you read through you will notice a heavy bias towards the assumption he did exist...but again, without proof. It's kind of silly the lie he was real is so prevalent.

Each attempt to prove his existence relied on very loose reasoning. The closest they have ever come breaks down to one actual historical figure who wasn't a Christian mentioning some thieves who believed in Jesus numerous decades after Jesus supposedly died - which for a long time was proof enough...somehow.

At this point scholars have admitted they will never have actual proof that he existed - that proof is "ultimately unattainable". And much like you noted with "political impact" they have moved the goal posts to the impact on society the concept of Jesus had as their proof. So... yeah, definitely not proven.

[–] elDalvini@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 9 months ago (13 children)

What did you expect? We're talking about one guy who might have lived over 2000 years ago. You're not going to find his birth certificate and social security number.

The best anyone can do is assign a probability to his existence. And reading the article you yourself linked to, that probability seems to be pretty high.

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[–] frezik@midwest.social 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We have two sources for Spartacus: Plutarch of Chaeronea and Appian of Alexandria. Both were written a century after he died. The two accounts mostly agree, but in the middle of the story they go completely different directions and then meet up again for the ending.

Spartacus is generally regarded as existing. We don't know which account had it right, and it's possible neither of them are. We will probably never know.

Point is, if you're not a ruler, then historical evidence of your existence tends to be thin. Jesus likely existed, and we have better evidence for him than Spartacus.

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[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Might not be intentional lie. Take for example how we today call government "Uncle Sam". It's not hard to imagine made up person back in the day used for similar purposes so records survived but there's no physical evidence. We do it all the time, witches, santa claus, boogeyman, etc.

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