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by countrymile 974 days ago
A first edition of the Gospel of John countering the modern version would be great but not sure that a Roman pagan library would bother storing such a thing, then you're left with someone's historical/pagan take on the first century AD. Some histories of Palestine or Christians causing trouble in Rome seem possible, or notes on a Herod's time in power that don't match the Christian narrative. but none of this seems too threatening, large swathes of Christian thought now treats the birth narrative as ahistorical. It might be another blow for the bible literalists, but they're a small group overall and those battles have been going on since the 2nd century. Another Josephus or Tacitus would be great. The big opportunity here is to dismiss the Jesus myth-ers by finding more evidence that a person called Jesus existed. The impact of this on questions around the divinity of Jesus seem rather moot, Tacitus and Josephus talk history from non-Christian perspectives, not theology.