Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[TheMessiah]

Oh, you could be a -little- more generous.  Supposing hard facts (or compelling evidence) does exist, but we can't agree on which those facts are or where to best source them, then, again.....no "jesus".   The situation we find ourselves in renders the "historical jesus" claim fundamentally silly, even after considering that there -may have been, and that it is possible -for there to have been, a kernel, a core to the character that survives in the narrative.  There's simply no separating the two (the man/the myth).

Again - this is what non-historians don't seem to understand. ''Compelling'' evidence isn't needed to prove that an obscure, poor preacher from 1st century Judea existed --- you do not use the same standard as evidence for a significant conqueror-like figure as you do for figures like Jesus; who in historical context, was not that important.

This is a snippet from another paper; which puts into context that what you consider ''compelling'' evidence isn't what the standard is for the ancient world.

1. "There are no contemporary accounts or mentions of Jesus.  There should be, so clearly no Jesus existed."

This seems a good argument to many, since modern people tend to leave behind them a lot of evidence they existed (birth certificates, financial documents, school records, etc.) and prominent modern people have their lives documented by the media almost daily.  So it sounds suspicious to people that there are no contemporary records at all detailing or even mentioning Jesus.

But our sources for anyone in the ancient world are scarce and rarely are they contemporaneous—they are usually written decades or even centuries after the fact.  Worse still, the more obscure and humble in origin the person is, the less likely that there will be any documentation about them or even a fleeting reference to them at all.

For example, few people in the ancient world were as prominent, influential, significant and famous as the Carthaginian general Hannibal.  He came close to crushing the Roman Republic, was one of the greatest generals of all time and was famed throughout the ancient world for centuries after his death down to today.  Yet how many contemporary mentions of Hannibal do we have?  Zero.  We have none.  So if someone as famous and significant as Hannibal has no surviving contemporary references to him in our sources, does it really make sense to base an argument about the existence or non-existence of a Galilean peasant preacher on the lack of contemporary references to him?  Clearly it does not.

So while this seems like a good argument, a better knowledge of the ancient world and the nature of our evidence and sources shows that it's actually extremely weak.