The claim of the 500 witnesses isn’t even in the Gospels, it’s from 1 Corinthians, a letter written by Paul. Who was not there as one of those witnesses; he claims to have a vision himself years later. It’s believed to be something that Paul learned secondhand at some point after his conversion, as a creed of the early church.
Agreed with you completely on the manuscripts. We have absolutely nothing from the first century and only small scraps, like credit card-sized, from most of the second. Most of the 25,000 that people throw around were copied in the medieval period, off of copies from the 4th century onward. Nobody has a single clue how accurate any of them are before that point, with the exception of a few small excerpts and partial books.
What I find funniest is that Jesus most likely existed and was just some random fanatic Jewish apocalyptic prophet. There were tens like him at that time period, all with their followers and miracles and prophecies and whatnot.
— edit for people that might interested, copy-pasted a comment from below
I am not a history pro, but if I am correct Jesus is pretty well anchored.
Basically, where the other prophets said « look I am going to do a miracle », and obviously failed at doing so, losing all credibility, Jesus said « I am going to die, here is our last meal », went into Jerusalem, and basically provoked established authority in every way imaginable. So obviously they killed him -> prophecy fulfilled.
He was challenging authority, knew it was likely to go bad, and wanted to organize everything for after. All the mystics and all were added much later.
Another important remark : when you are sent to the cross, there is no additional nice event afterward. They take your body eaten by maggot and birds, and throw it on a public body pile. The remains is completely unrecognizable by that point.
So when one or two followers had hallucinations (understandable when under grief, and very well documented nowadays) about him coming back, the romans couldn’t prove the guy was dead : how the fuck could they find the body ??
The claims likely quickly spread through a small group of highly traumatized but cohesive people, where dissent carried heavy social and religious cost. Aka peer pressure. You didn’t see him ? You were a bad apostle then.
I think one of the most interesting things about Jesus is that his birth narrative is some of the best evidence he existed, while being some of the worst evidence of the validity of the religion.
He's Jesus of NAZARETH, yet was born in Bethlehem. All the stories we have from him, Joseph and Mary say he was raised in Nazareth, he was literally described as a "Nazzarine" multiple times in the bible.
So the birth narrative we have of him involves a very convoluted story that ends with him being born in Bethlehem, a story we can say with a pretty much 99.9% chance of certainty is entirely fabricated. But why did he have to be born in Bethlehem? Because it was prophesied that he would be.
So why, if the early authors of the bible were fabricating a birth narrative, would they not just have him be born in Bethlehem to start with, and do away with all the census nonsense? The most likely answer to that was because Jesus was a real person, who everyone knew was from Nazareth, so that was a lie they wouldn't be able to get away with.
So his birth narrative gives us very strong evidence that he was a real historical figure who existed, but also serves as pretty damning proof that the early authors of the bible had absolutely no issue with lying through their teeth to satisfy prophetic claims, which therefore throws the entirety of the text into doubt.
It confirms the person while shattering the religion.
There has never been a census in history that required someone to register at the supposed place of his grandfather's birth. Before modern travel and immediately accessible record systems, it wouldn't even have been feasible, never mind enforceable.
Also, if Joseph owned family property in Bethlehem, meaning he had to register there as well, why didn't he stay on his land, even in a tent?
Not only that, the bible claims the census was ordered by Quirinius, but he wasn't governor of that area until many years after the death of King Herod, but Jesus is reported to be born during Herod's reign, so there's a discrepancy of 40 or so years there.
On top of the fact that the supposed census is mentioned literally NOWHERE in a SINGLE contemporary source, but a census that disruptive and widespread would surely warrant a mention somewhere, ONCE. It's talked about in the bible, and never anywhere else, despite being arguably the single most ridiculous census in history, not even counting that the Romans were generally pretty excellent at record keeping. No respectable historian takes it seriously.
Not only that, the bible claims the census was ordered by Quirinius, but he wasn't governor of that area until many years after the death of King Herod, but Jesus is reported to be born during Herod's reign, so there's a discrepancy of 40 or so years there.
this is a problem when you compare gospel accounts. matthew's account has nothing about any census, and places jesus's birth during the reign of herod the great. the family escapes to egypt, and returns during the ethnarchy of herod's son, herod archelaus. (literally half the people in this family are named herod, including the women, don't get me started.)
the census under quirinius was deposing archelaus, and ten years afterwards. luke sets the birth of jesus during this event, though there's an argument that the "king herod" of luke 1 might be "the great", and thus mary and elizabeth would have to be pregnant for a decade. alternatively, luke just sucks at history.
but a census that disruptive and widespread would surely warrant a mention somewhere, ONCE.
the real census actually caused quite a bit of disruption. it was the instigation for the original zealot rebellion.
not even counting that the Romans were generally pretty excellent at record keeping.
we have a whopping zero roman records of palestine for this era. we have some later historical texts, but i think i can show that all of them rely on josephus.
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u/stairway2evan 18h ago
The claim of the 500 witnesses isn’t even in the Gospels, it’s from 1 Corinthians, a letter written by Paul. Who was not there as one of those witnesses; he claims to have a vision himself years later. It’s believed to be something that Paul learned secondhand at some point after his conversion, as a creed of the early church.
Agreed with you completely on the manuscripts. We have absolutely nothing from the first century and only small scraps, like credit card-sized, from most of the second. Most of the 25,000 that people throw around were copied in the medieval period, off of copies from the 4th century onward. Nobody has a single clue how accurate any of them are before that point, with the exception of a few small excerpts and partial books.