Quote: In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.
Wiki
Which leads quickly to Lataster's discussion of primary sources for the godboy. It is short and sweet.
Quote:The primary sources
This is easy; there are none. I know I have mentioned this a few times now, but this is crucial, and we clearly should not forget it. Primary sources are contemporary, eyewitness sources of evidence. Primary sources could be artefacts (there are no confirmed physical pieces of evidence for a Historical Jesus, let alone the Biblical Jesus) or documents from the hand of the person in question, or from an eyewitness, and which is contemporary to the event in question. There are no primary sources when it comes to Jesus. All the evidence used to establish Jesus’ existence is at best from secondary sources, which will become evident as the sources are individually examined. These pieces of evidence are documents, from non-eyewitnesses, written long after the events of Jesus’ life, and which only exist in copies dating even further from Jesus’ life. We simply do not have access to any primary sources when it comes to Jesus of Nazareth; this fact alone serves to eliminate any certainty about Jesus, whether we are considering the supernatural aspects, or even the more mundane aspects such as his historical existence.
Chapter 2
