Lately I’ve heard people attacking the veracity of the fairy tale book with statements like “Jesus wasn’t real” or it was a psy op operation by the Romans that got out of control. And I hate talking about reddit but it’s basically the atheism mods policy over there that Jesus wasn’t real.

I usually rely on the Wikipedia as my litmus test through life, which shouldn’t work in theory but is great in practicality:

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Virtually all scholars agree that a Jewish man called Jesus of Nazareth did exist in Palestine in the 1st century CE. The contrary perspective, that Jesus was mythical, is regarded as a fringe theory.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.worldEnglish
    66·
    1 year ago

    Why would a scientist have any reason to have a professional opinion on that matter? What scientific method could be applied to this question? How could it be tested? How could you ever scientifically confirm if some random dude existed 100+ generations ago?

    The reason it says scholars is because it is people who read, cross reference and analyze historical texts and eye witness accounts to make inferences and draw conclusions about events of the past. They are historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and yes, theologians. Being a theologian is not the same as being a religious apologist or even religious at all. Many Christian theology experts are not Christian themselves. Many are atheists, Jews, Muslims, etc. It just means that their body of work and focus is on studying theology as a subject. Being an atheist doesn’t mean you need to reject the opinions of theologians or, indeed, religious people, on matters of history. It’s a bad position to reject anyone’s opinion out of hand based on their title or personal beliefs or culture. That goes for everyone.

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        1 year ago

        Well of course that would go a long way as positive proof. But a person being in some sort of contemporary records at that time, and such a record surviving to this day, is not incredibly likely or common. A lack of such a record is not, in itself, a major indicator that someone didn’t exist. A lack of evidence is not evidence against.