(July 3, 2018 at 4:30 pm)Minimalist Wrote: First off, you need to understand what the word "contemporary" means. It means living at the same time. Josephus was born in 37 so at least one year after the terminus ad quem for any of your jesus stories since they demand that Pontius Pilate be prefect of Judaea which ended in 36. Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius were second century writers as was Justin Martyr. Which Clement? Clement of Alexandria was a 2d-3d century writer. Clement of Rome is probably legendary. Paul is the fly in the ointment since no one in the first century ever heard of him and his writings were put into circulation in the second century. First, it seems, by Marcion and later by the proto-orthodox after they sanitized whatever the hell Marcion had published. We do not have the originals and so we will probably never know.
Actual contemporaries of your godboy, Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, and Philo of Alexandria never heard of any such person.
Of course news traveled a great deal more slowly then.
But I tend to agree with Captain Awesome here. Historical or not, supernatural does not follow. As to the stories that are attributed to him, they do seem like the sort of legends attributed to Paul Bunyon .. especially in pre-literate times when story telling just begged for juicier elaboration.
If I were you Jair C., I'd content myself with choosing to believe what you like secure in the knowledge that no one will ever establish once and for all the absence of any deity beyond the curtain. But you're probably better off being vague about it. I wouldn't pin all your hopes on a historical Jesus.
