MixedNuts comments on A Parable On Obsolete Ideologies - Less Wrong

113 Post author: Yvain 13 May 2009 10:51PM

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Comment author: PhilosophyTutor 18 December 2011 12:29:47PM *  10 points [-]

No, just as there is no evidence for Russell's teapot.

There is only one historical document from the time of Jesus' supposed life which even resembles evidence of a teacher called Jesus (or Yeshua or whatever), and that is just a reference to a rabbi with the right name who had one brother with the right name. Given that Jesus supposedly had four named brothers and multiple sisters, at least one of whom is also named, there's plenty of scope for that to be a false positive. Taking it as strong evidence would be like taking the discovery of a journalist named Clark who worked with a journalist named James in the 1920s as strong evidence that those two were the historical basis for the story of Superman.

There could have been a historical Yeshua so boring that none of his contemporaries, including the Romans, wrote anything about him during his life or for decades after he died. Or the character could have been entirely made up. Evidence to differentiate these two possible universes does not currently exist.

Comment author: MixedNuts 18 December 2011 12:55:57PM 4 points [-]

There are passages in Flavius Josephus that talk about him but are clear fakes. The untampered versions might have been about a real guy named Jesus, but more likely they were reports of Christians beliefs, or just nonexistent. I don't know of any other evidence for the existence of a carpenter turned rabbi who disliked Romans.