cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/49389144
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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Tacitus and Josephus aren’t particularly reliable in the question of Jesus’s historicity.
Their only sources seem to be Christians, or recorded testimony of Christian’s. Tacitus in particular was writing decades after the cruxifoction supposedly happened.
Josephus has similar problems, but also, his works may have been altered to include descriptions of Jesus as “a good man who did great works leading to his execution.”
We don’t actually have any surviving first hand accounts- not even the gospels were first had.
Edit to clarify: we wouldn’t really expect there to be any evidence; so the lack of it is quite unsurprising. The only right answer here, as far as I’m concerned is “we don’t know.” But that’s less fun. In any case, even if Jesus were historical; he’d likely be quite surprised by the things he supposedly said and did.
LOL good point. 👍
Whether the Testimonium Flavianumin (Josephus' description of Jesus in Antiquities) was entirely a Christian insert or the section was just edited by Christians is debated, however there's consensus that Josephus' reference to "he brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" in Antiquities is authentic.
And you think that a guy basing his stories on third or fourth hand accounts of believers decades after the fact is… credible evidence a guy existed?
Particularly given that his source was probably the gospels of mark and Mathew, and maybe Luke- and none of those are particularly credible- for one thing they’re not eyewitness accounts, and for another, anonymous.