All the historical evidence for Jesus in one room
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Again, there are leftover parts that very likely do remain, it's just their recognition is obstructed by the faithful.
For example, saying 81 in the Gospel of Thomas seems like it's pretty relevant to Tiberius's inheritance and then abandonment of the throne without passing power to another. And given the reinterpretation decades later where it is combined with saying 1 as appears to be referred to by Paul in 1 Cor 4:8, a letter with several overlaps with the work and a number of which are clearly referred to as present in Corinth pre-Paul.
That document wouldn't have survived to today if the church had its way, and modern analysis over the decades since has been mired by the church's influence. But luckily it was buried in a jar for nearly two millennia and publicly accessible.
Socrates didn't write anything. The oldest surviving fragment of Plato dates to the oldest fragment of the Gospel of Thomas and was found in the same place.
And yet I'd imagine you don't doubt that Socrates really existed, do you? In fact, we have a much more ancient full version of Thomas than we do any of Plato's works.
The question of whether content dating to a given person's life survived is a very different question from if actual physical media from that person's life survived.
Nice whataboutism.
I would agree with the statement no contemporary evidence exists for either Socrates or Plato as well. Though it does seem we have fragments of papyrus dating to the time of Plato…. And we have plenty of first hand accounts of Plato’s existence as well as people responding with criticism etc. not to mention, they’re from a time 300+ years before Jesus was purported to have been born.
You will note this conversation isn’t about them, however. I don’t worship them, either. And to be blunt, there are no works attributed directly to Jesus. The gospels all purport to be written by their namesakes, though that’s mostly rejected. The non canonical gospels like Thomas are well after Mark. And mark itself was not written by mark, and was written around or a couple years after Peter probably died. Keep in mind mark was supposed to be a translator for Peter.
Oh and the gospel of Thomas was written sometime between 60 and 250- kind of depends on who you ask. Even at the earliest, it would have been 30 years after the cruxifiction, give or take.
The point being, they’re complete hearsay about what happened. Second- and third- hand accounts at best, all pushed by people who have a reason to lie about it. Jesus himself has no writings that are directly attributed to him (or, “attributed”… early Christian’s have a problem with faking it for “authority”) and the earliest accounts of his life are 30 or so years after he died, and the only things they agree on are that the Roman’s killed him and John the Baptist baptized him.
Well said but small point. The first report of him being baptized by John the Baptist wasn't until 50 years later. Paul never mentions it, the Gospel of Thomas never mentions it, it wasn't until the Mark Gospel.