Did Jesus exist?

[Aegon]

@Rhythm

I think you/they are having trouble. You can't accept the idea that fact can come from an ancient fictitious account. But when given examples of other people generally accepted as existing by the exact same standard of evidence, it's met with "It doesn't matter, we're talking about Jesus." But it does matter, because it proves that we have the same standard of evidence as them yet they're accepted as existing. So what's different about Jesus? Absolutely nothing. Why are mythicists willing to agree other ancient historical figures existed but not Jesus? It's because he's supposed to be special, right? Ignore that. That's not important at all. Looking at it from a purely historical, objective standpoint, treating him like any other ancient historical figure, there's no reason to doubt his existence in general. That is all I'm saying.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is laughably fictional, but it's agreed Gilgamesh was an actual king. There are no contemporary sources about the Second Punic War, but we know most of what happened from later accounts and it's those later accounts that talk about Hannibal, but it's agreed Hannibal was the Carthage military leader. So...there are no true contemporary sources about Jesus, and the Gospels contain a large amount of fiction, but guess what? Just like Gilgamesh and just like Hannibal, it is agreed: Jesus was a real person.

I think you have more of a problem with the way historians analyze things. Fine. Be mad at historians. But don't shoot the messenger. I've said it time and time again, history is not a hard science. It seems I haven't said it enough.