Runa216 said:
JWeinCom said:
That's actually not true.
The general consensus among historians is that he did exist, but there's far from scientific proof. The only way historians can really "prove" someone existed is based on contemporary historical documents written about them. There is some writing about Jesus from sort of contemporary sources, but really not much. The earliest non-biblical source is Josephus and even that's 30 years after his death. The earliest gospels are from around the same time and were not written by eyewitnesses. Paul's letters mention Jesus, but Paul never claimed to have met Jesus (physically anyway). At best his information is second hand.
If you compare Jesus to say, Socrates, the amount of the evidence for the latter dwarfs the amount of evidence for the former. And even that would fall short of scientific proof. Most historians agree that Jesus existed, and not being a historian myself, I'm inclined to take their word for it. But I don't think any serious historians would claim that there is "scientific proof" for Jesus' existence.
Of course, as you say, the far more important thing is whether or not the claims he allegedly made can be verified. And those can't be even verified by the looser standards of historical evidence, and definitely not by the standards of science.
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Fair enough, but I'm still not gonna argue with the historians who's job it is to know this stuff.
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I'm not saying to argue with the historians, unless you actually have evidence in which case go for it, but your confidence should be proportionate to theirs. I've seen debates between mythicists and those who advocate for a historical Jesus, and I'd describe the confidence confidence level of historical proponents as "pretty sure". So, I'd say that is the appropriate level of confidence that anyone without specific expertise should have.
