Josephus has a single paragraph about Jesus. It had been debated whether this is a later Christian interpolation into the manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts of Josephus' works that survived are from the 9th or 10th century. It might be possible that all our text witnesses go back to a single intermediate "Christian" Josephus. What speaks against such a conclusion is a) that (if I remember it correctly, I didn't cross-check) the passage uses the non-standard spelling "Chrestos" instead of "Christos", a so called iotacism, caused by a shift in the pronounciation of Ancient Greek where the sound of iota and eta morphed into each other, and b) that the paragraph appears in the context of Roman religious scandals, a quite unfavourable location. The counter-argument is that a clever forger has deliberately made a spelling mistake and chosen an unfavourable context to make his interpolation seem all the more credible.
Be that as it may, another aspect from Josephus is much more interesting, because it provides us with some context we would have otherwise missed: He tells us about other pretenders of the Messiah from that time, inluding the Roman suppression of this movements, and about John the Baptist in some detail. These passages are usually considered original.
I'm curious why people are so quick to dismis evidence of Jesus as contained in the gospels.
From POV, we have between 4 and 6 (depending on your cannon) different people that record first hand records of Jesus. And it turns out that these same people were passionate followers of Jesus. What other response would you expect from someone who actually knew someone who actually died and was brought back to life?
First of all: the accounts are not first hand. They were in fact anonymous. Nobody put their names in these Gospel-style compositions, identifying themselves, until very late when the church decided to name them as we now have.
Second of all: these accounts are not independent. There is the gospel of Mark, and them other authors went on copying most of the previous books, but adding sections that frequently contradict others. So, what we have are not 4 to 6 different accounts, we have a single story that has been copied and edited by several anonymous people.
None of the canonical Gospels were written by people who had firsthand knowledge of Jesus. All of them were written over a generation after the crucifixion, and those were only four out of many such Gospels in pre-Biblical Christian history. And none of them (not even the canon) agree on any but the most basic narrative, which you would expect at the very least for eyewitness, firsthand accounts.
Since you seem to be a Christian working from a perspective of faith, I don't expect to convince you of anything, but you should at least study Biblical history a bit[0] before making as naive an argument as this.
>What other response would you expect from someone who actually knew someone who actually died and was brought back to life?
Many people are passionately convinced of things that aren't true. Passion is not a signifier of truth, rather it signifies a willingness to abandon objectivity. You're presenting the common Christian apologetic that the passion of the original Christians and the longevity of the religion is a sign of the validity of the resurrection, as no one would be expected to suffer for a known falsehood. This argument fails to take into account that every religion has its zealots, and people who suffer and die for their faith. That no more validates Christianity than it does the pagan faiths it replaced.
I am a Christian (though, that term has many inaccurate definitions). I'll look through the Wikipedia article.
You mention that the Gospels don't agree on anything except the basic narrative. We actually only need a small number of facts to agree. The Wikipedia article you linked confirms Jesus was real and he was crucified. His crucifixion fulfilled a lot of prophesy in plenty of scripture.
Jesus' resurrection is pretty hard to prove (there is no body!), but we see ancillary evidence: His followers gave up their lives for what Jesus taught. Luke-Acts was written "shortly after" the resurrection, when eye witnesses were still alive. Thomas ran off to India and started a church "before" early Christians had a chance to "fake" evidence
I agree with you that passion alone is weak- every (most?) religion has zealots. The 4 Gospels and Paul's account are first hand accounts. They heard directly from Jesus who claimed to be God. Jesus might be crazy, but the original Apostles watched Jesus ascend into heaven - and then they died pursuing what Jesus taught. Paul was passionate about persecuting Christians (note the misplaced passion!), but then Jesus visited him directly and redirected Paul's passion and faith.
People have definitely died for lesser causes. People have definitely pursued petty fights - but the decision of Jesus isn't petty - it is quite literally a decision that defines what happens after our short life here on earth.
I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you. I wholeheartedly believe that the God of the Universe made you and loves you - and I want to show you that same love.
One theory presented is that Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark. And that Mark was written by people "not with first hand account" (also, not Mark).
My take:
Mark has plenty of references to Jewish law - it was almost certainly written by someone with a strong Jewish background.
The names of the people in the book of Mark are "normal" names for people during the time of Jesus. A study got what amounts to a census during the time and location of Jesus - they documented the most popular names - and these names aligned with the names contained in each of the Gospels. This means that the person who wrote Mark was probably near Jerusalem during Jesus' time
The Gospels reflect personal differences in the authors... I haven't seen this yet in the Wikipedia article, but i expect to see it: Luke was Roman trained. Matthew, Mark, and John were jewish trained. Luke's account of the times when Jesus died are shifted by 6 hours. This is important. Luke believes that the day starts at midnight (like most Americans). Mark believes the day starts at sunset (like most Jews).
I dove into a bit of a rabit hole. I'm not sure I'm at the end, but I'll pause here and write my findings.
There are some arguments that Mark was the "source" of Matthew and Luke. And that Mark was based on "Q source". Nether of these assumptions are "earth shattering" or even disruptive. I maintain that these 3 gospels were written by 3 different people- and they likely referenced "existing documents"(for instance, any records of Jesus' birth, likely were based on interviews with Mary or Joseph). Perhaps "Q source" was the source - perhaps not. Either way, all 3 gospels had 3 different authors. And all 3 were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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I also saw remarks about "Jesus having his divinity a secret until after his death. And Early Christians making up Jesus' claim to be God". This is totally bogus.
All 4 gospels repeat that Jesus claimed to be God. They have stories where Jewish leaders "tried to kill Jesus - because he claimed to be God". He was eventually tried for claiming to be God. There are also lots and lots of old testament prophesy that Jesus quotes pointing to Him being God. Yes, His disciples were surprised when he died, and again when he was resurrected. (Oh, BTW, the first 2 people who discovered his empty tomb were women, counter cultural at the time) - but His plan to die and be resurrected was a complete secret from even Satan himself.
One of the most interesting findings of biblical philology was the reconstruction of a "fifth" gospel, called "Q" (from the German word for "source": "Quelle") in the early 1800s. The reconstruction works as follows: We can observe that Luke and Matthew have a lot of passages in common with Mark, and if we only look at these passages, the order of the stories is (with very little exceptions) in Luke and Matthew the same as in Mark. Luke and Matthew each have stories that are neither included in one of the other two gospels; these passages we can leave aside for our reconstruction. And Luke and Matthew have quite a lot of passages in common that are not included in Mark. When we look only on those latter passages, we can make two very interesting observations: a) These passages are either just sayings of Jesus or short narratives culminating in such a saying. b) The order of these passages is (also with very little exceptions) the same in Luke and Matthew.
This observation allows us to conclude with high confidence that this passages constitute a "hidden" intependant gospel, that Luke and Matthew used together with Mark (and their individal traditions) as a source.[1] And we have also a very early Christian example of this literary genre of a collection of sayings ("Logiensammlung") in the (non-cannonical) Coptic Gospel of Thomas.[2]
Another remark in this context: That the different gospels (including, but not limited to those that become later cannonical) contradict each other one way or the other was noticed very early. There had been an attempt to construct a single sanitized gosple by Marcion of Sinope around 130-150, which was more or less a condensed version of Luke. It is interesting that such an attempt to propagate a single gosple as the only binding one was strongly opposed by many and resulted in a canonization of a multitude of four gospels and the popularity of many others for centuries. This diversity of "witnesses", characteristic for especially early Christianity stands in strong contrast to the historically rather naive biblical literalism (biblicism) of 19th century to contemporary Evangelicals.
[1] This was only a very brief summary, neglecting a lot of the scholarly discussion around it. For a somewhat more detailed introduction you may have a look at the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
> I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you.
Read it because you want to understand what the evidence shows about the authorship of the Gospels and their historicity, even in general terms. But please don't be one of those Christians who sees non-believers as a puzzle-box to be solved, and read it because you want to find the one rhetorical trick or gotcha that will convert me. You can't understand anything about me, much less "people like me" based on a Wikipedia article. I am a whole-ass complex person with a unique personal history, circumstances and outlook, not the straw mass of generalities, biases and stereotypes you have labeled "non-believer" in your head.
If you want to be a witness, live as Jesus said, by example. "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Stop trying to score Jesus points on people.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-19, 21 ESV
For millenia, multitudes have sacrificed their life to follow Christ. The cost is quite literally one’s entire life.
One explanation could be that millions (billions?) have been deceived over the course of millenia.
Or another could be that since Jesus walked this earth, multitudes have come to the conclusion that Jesus is who He said He is. God Himself.
Many come to the conclusion via teaching. But the Christian walk is not one that is primarily about doctrine.
It’s about being lead subjectively by God Himself. It’s the fact that the Christian’s experience of following Jesus matches the character of God as revealed in the scriptures.
They have seen Him, experientially. And this is why multitudes, starting with the apostles, have lay down their lives proclaiming the good news - that though we have been separated because of the sin in our heart, God has made a way for us to be reconciled back to Him. And the way back to God - the only way - is to take Jesus at His word. To
turn from our self will and to believe in Him.
Edit: removed a typo and added the reason why we need to be reconciled.
You are right. It is folly to people who don't have the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth. There are some people ready to believe and I'm hoping to be ready for them.
I see you became a Christian a couple of years ago. Welcome! I will pray that you learn and grow in your faith
Be that as it may, another aspect from Josephus is much more interesting, because it provides us with some context we would have otherwise missed: He tells us about other pretenders of the Messiah from that time, inluding the Roman suppression of this movements, and about John the Baptist in some detail. These passages are usually considered original.