From: ronkean@juno.com
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 00:55:13 MST
On Mon, 3 Jan 2000 00:18:56 EST EvMick@aol.com writes:
> Is there any actual historical evidence that JC even existed?
>
> EvMick
> Holbrook Az....(in a snowstorm)
The most obvious, or famous, evidence is the New Testament, totally apart
from whether one considers the New Testament to have any religious
validity. Some (most?) of the books of the New Testament were allegedly
written by Apostles of Christ who knew him personally during his life,
and were written down in contemporary Greek within a couple of hundred
years of the lifetime of Jesus, with, I think, a fairly good 'chain of
custody' of copies and translations down to our time, including some
extant manuscripts which can be dated to very early times.
Christianity's two 'sister' religions, Judaism and Islam, both recognize
Jesus as a religiously significant figure, and therefore presumably also
as historical fact. The Jews consider Jesus to have been a Rabbi
(religious teacher), and Islam lists Jesus as a prophet, one of many
prophets who came before Mohammed, the Seal of the Prophets (the last
prophet).
Dozens, if not hundreds, of towns and other sites mentioned in the New
Testament are identifiable today, some with a high degree of confidence,
with ruins and physical features which can be directly verified in person
by a modern visitor. Numerous artifacts of various types, including
pottery and hundreds of thousands if not millions of coins from the
general era of Jesus still exist and provide abundant evidence of the
historical context in which rulers or governors held power in particular
regions at particular times surrounding the places and times associated
with Jesus.
A much more recent figure, William Shakespeare, is the subject of
controversy as to whether he actually wrote the famous plays of the
1500s, despite the fact that he allegedly lived in a time when literacy
was not uncommon, and he allegedly wrote and produced plays which were
performed very publicly in London, the world's leading metropolis at the
time, and everyone there spoke English, not much different from the
English of today. The plays were, I think, advertised with mass-produced
printed handbills. Like Jesus, Shakespeare became more famous after his
time than during his time, and like Jesus, it seems that there will
always be some who cannot be convinced of the historical validity of
Shakespeare, just as there will always be some who doubt that men walked
on the Moon in 1969.
Which of the following legendary figures actually existed: Davey
Crockett, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed?
Ron Kean
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