[Amezarak]

There’s no evidence it was done “all the time”; the most logical explanation is that all these figures were based on real people, even if their exploits and histories were exaggerated and mythologized over time, just as we see with figures like George Washington.

The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time after time AND everyone else bought into it - is clearly absurd. Just pointless cynicism with no basis in actual human psychology.

[michaelmrose]

Moses and exodus are completely counterfactual and at once central to Jewish and Christian mythology and identity. Our foundational stories are mostly lies because reality is depressing.

Egypt exists even though the Exodus never happened. The mere existence of factual elements doesn't mean a foundational myth is real. Myths are normally interwoven with real elements.

Moses is almost entirely distinguished as a personage by elements we know are nonsense. If you found a Jewish leader named Moses who lived in a different year who experienced an entirely different history you wouldn't have found the real Moses so much insofar as the symbol Moses is a reference to the myth not the hypothetical actuality. Likewise finding an early leader wouldn't mean Remus was real

[Amezarak]

> Moses and exodus are completely counterfactual

I don't see anything particularly counterfactual or unlikely about a group of Egyptian or Caananite-descended Egyptians leaving Egypt and returning to Caanaan, where they fused with an existing population. Can you explain this?

[michaelmrose]

Egypt left for its era more than ample records. None of them record a mass population of Canaanite slaves escaping or existing, much less the direct interaction between any Pharaoh and a figure like Moses. If it wasn't dear to religion there would be no question about Moses being as imaginary as Noah.

[cogman10]

> The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time after time AND everyone else bought into it - is clearly absurd.

It's really not. It's exactly how Romans changed from their Roman worship to christianity. It's how they converted the pagans. It's how Muslims were able to rewrite Christianity into their own religion. It's how Mormons did the same.

This is such a fundamental part of humanity, it happens all over the place.

Having a charismatic and/or politically powerful person say "This is how things are, believe it or die" does wonders to spread belief.

[Amezarak]

> It's exactly how Romans changed from their Roman worship to christianity.

The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events, even if elements of the stories became mythologized. Or are you saying there was never any man named Jesus who was crucified? I guess you may as well argue that - both him and Paul could have been invented.

> It's how Muslims were able to rewrite Christianity into their own religion.

I think Mohammed was almost certain real, although I guess according to your standards of corroborating evidence, maybe he wasn't. The core of his story is not "rewriting Christianity", it's that he claimed to receive direct revelation and he used incorporated what he knew of what he believed to be true history.

> It's how Mormons did the same.

I think Joseph Smith is rather too well attested to claim he did not exist.

[cogman10]

> The conversion of the Romans to Christianity happened because of real events

Yeah, and in the process of converting to Christianity, Romans began rewriting their history and erasing their past. Which is exactly what we are talking about right now. You claimed "The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story was true and central to their identity - and it worked time after time AND everyone else bought into it - is clearly absurd." And I'm giving you clear historic examples where exactly that happened. But now you want to make it about whether or not the people that did that existed or not.

> Or are you saying there was never any man named Jesus who was crucified?

Likely a man named Jesus existed because we have non-biblical documents from the time period (Josephus and the Sanhedrin) recording that he existed. Further, there are parts of the biblical narrative that are indicative that he was a real person. The census story in Luke, for example, is a convoluted story that you'd only tell if there was a real problem with Jesus, that he was well known to be from Nazareth and not Bethlehem. Were Jesus a complete myth there's no reason the gospel author wouldn't just say "And he was born in Bethlehem as prophesied"

> I guess you may as well argue that - both him and Paul could have been invented.

Again, nope, because we actually have a fair bit of contemporary documents about the existence of both. Something we don't have for Romulus.

> used incorporated what he knew of what he believed to be true history.

Right, I'm not arguing about Mohamed existing, I'm arguing that he made up history which people believed. Or more precisely, his followers did. Mohammad was illiterate and the Quran was written some 50 years after he died.

> I think Joseph Smith is rather too well attested to claim he did not exist.

Joseph claimed to be a historian who documented the events of the ancient americas. He claimed to have found records of those events and "transcribed" a book.

Quite similar to Romulus. And as it turns out, yeah, an entire religion of people believe him that Mormon and Moroni, Nephi and Lehi are all real people that really existed.

I mean, almost uncannily, the events he wrote about were 1000 years in the past from him.

[Amezarak]

> Quite similar to Romulus.

Yes, Joseph Smith played a similar role to Romulus in the founding of Rome: the leader and lawgiver. It's the Joseph Smith of Rome you are wishing away, not Moroni. It also seems highly unlikely that Smith simply "made up" everything as some cynical ploy for power, as you describe the motivation of the ancient Romans and Jews. It seems much more likely he was a true-believing wacko.

> Likely a man named Jesus existed because we have non-biblical documents from the time period (Josephus and the Sanhedrin) recording that he existed. F

You continually imagine historical sources that do not exist. Josephus is real, of course (although the extent to which the alleged reference to Jesus is an interpolation is debated; I personally side with no), but there are no "Sanhedrin" documents about Jesus. You should probably ask yourself why you keep committing gross errors of historical fact (like your argument that there were plenty of records contemporary with the traditional date for the founding of Rome) while making this argument.

[cogman10]

> Yes, Joseph Smith played a similar role to Romulus in the founding of Rome: the leader and lawgiver

No he didn't. You obviously know nothing about what his role was.

> It also seems highly unlikely that Smith simply "made up" everything as some cynical ploy for power

Literally exactly what he did, and it's well documented that's exactly the sort of person he was.

You are very uninformed on this topic.

> but there are no "Sanhedrin" documents about Jesus

> You should probably ask yourself why you keep committing gross errors of historical fact

Please just google before insulting someone that knows more about a topic than yourself.

Here's what I'm referencing [1] [2]. "In Sanhedrin 43a, the Talmud records that Jesus was "hung" because no one came to his defense for charges of practicing sorcery and apostacy."

Now that you are simply insulting me and not engaging, I'm done. Good luck with yourself.

[1] https://mainstreamapologetics.org/evidences/HIS-EV63.html

[2] https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.43a.20?lang=bi&with=all&la...

[Amezarak]

The Talmud is not contemporary.

Not only that the identification with that figure as the Jesus is highly contested.

[pqtyw]

> Romans began rewriting their history and erasing their past. Which is exactly what we are talking about right now.

I'm not sure that's true. Of course some some details might have been purposefully (or not) ignored or twisted. While obviously Christian scholars were quite picky on which pagan texts to preserve or not (due to various reasons) there is not a lot reason to believe that generally they did their best to copy them faithfully. Of course we are talking about a highly literate society with a strong tradition of analytical history (which was very unique by pre-medieval standards at least).

> Quite similar to Romulus

The claim that some specific historian might have invented him out of thin air is far fetched and not really substantiated. Much more likely that the legend evolved over many generations and became a mishmash of fact and fiction over hundreds of years before someone actually wrote it down. Based on other similar cases it's highly likely that there were many competing traditions by Livy's time. So yes, he did very likely tried to reconcile them and picked how to synthesize the narrative but it's hard to imagine he could have actually invented it because there were plenty of people and other historians who could have called him out on it.

[cogman10]

> Much more likely that the legend evolved over many generations and became a mishmash of fact and fiction over hundreds of years before someone actually wrote it down.

I don't really dispute that this is the likely case. I more dispute that there was actually a person named Romulus who was in almost any way related to the stories told about him or the founding of Rome.

The name and the stories come a very long time after Romulus supposedly existed.

> but it's hard to imagine he could have actually invented it because there were plenty of people and other historians who could have called him out on it.

I disagree that they'd be called out, especially if this was something commissioned by the political powers of the time. These sorts of fanciful stories about the great founding of a powerful nation were commonplace. The Greeks and the Romans also enjoyed telling stories and integrating them in with their mythology. There wasn't the modern notion of history or historical accuracy at play. If someone wanted to say, for example, the founder of Rome was raised by a she wolf, then it makes for an interesting story and imagination so it gets passed off.

Similar to how Athens was supposedly named because Athena gave them an olive tree beating Poseidon in a competition.

You won't find a greek historian calling that story out as a fake or dubious.

[pqtyw]

> . I more dispute that there was actually a person named Romulus who was in almost any way related to the stories told about him or the founding of Rome.

You and many Romans. I mean we have Cicero's letters where he's saying that all the legends about Rome's founding are probably nonsense because nobody has any real records.

> There wasn't the modern notion of history or historical accuracy at play

Polybius and Thucydides might feel sad about you saying that.

They happen to have created the whole concept of analytical history. It's like saying that engineers in ~1800 didn't have a notion of how steam engines worked. I mean the invented the whole concept in the first place (however primitive their early methods were.

Even Herodotus often goes to great effort trying to separate fact from fiction even if understandably now always succeeding) although that would indicate what sort of poor sources historians had to work with when researching the earlier periods. It's a bit like if modern 19th century historians had to work without having any access to books and newspapers or other extended written material with their main source being the great-grandchildren of the people who actually lived then and the memories they passed down in addition to maybe some legal contracts, obscure religious texts and chronological lists (and if they wanted to go 5-10 generations further its even much worse). That doesn't mean they (largely) weren't doing their best.

[pqtyw]

I think the point is that Muslim accounts of the same events are sometimes very different to those of (Nicaean)Christians.

Also we do know there were many competing narratives describing the life of Christ just a few hundred years after he died. After the Church become more established scholars spent a lot of time and effort trying to determine which ones were "accurate" or not and suppressing the other narratives. It's not like anyone can verify it they got it right or not, though.

Usually the arguments are not about whether a major historical figure like Christ or Mohamed etc. existed but the exact context and accounts of their lives, beliefs and actions. Also both of these men live in literate societies yet just a few hundred years after the deaths the facts already were very blurry and uncertain. Hypothetical Moses on the other hand lived in an illiterate society and history wasn't written down for 500+ (if not quite a bit more) years, even if there is a grain of truth in them (i.e. some sort of migration or interaction between Canaan and Egypt - which is not at all far fetched) the actual details might have become 99% fictional after being passed down orally through dozens of generations.

[Amezarak]

> Also we do know there were many competing narratives describing the life of Christ just a few hundred years after he died.

There were meaningful competing theologies, there were not meaningfully different competing narratives of the historical events.

[simiones]

Of course there are, even among the canonical gospels. The length of Jesus' ministry is uncertain (1 year in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but 3 years in the later John). What Mary and Joseph did after his birth also conflicts among the gospels - according to Matthew, they fled to Egypt, and only returned after Herrod had died (4 BC) while according to Luke, they went to the Temple in Jerusalem to cleanse Mary, which would have happened 40 days after the birth. Some of the identities of the disciples differ between the Synoptic gospels and John (particularly, there is no Bartholomew, no Matthew, no James son of Alphaeus, and no Simon except Simon Peter). The various miracles and acts of Jesus, the exact contents of the sermon on the mount, the parables that he shared - there are many other differences between all the canonical gospels.

Of course, they all agree on a broad narrative - Jesus was born of a virgin Mother in Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth for some time, wandered for 40 days in the wild where he was tempted, then returned and was baptized by John the Baptist, collected a number of disciples while preaching in Galilee and performing various miracles, then during Passover entered Jerusalem, came into conflict with the Jewish religious authorities and/or the Roman authorities, had a last supper with his disciples, and was crucified, died, was buried in a tomb, and was resurrected.

This is about it in terms of the major plot points that are common. Major acts, such as expelling the money lenders from the Temple or the resurrection of Lazarus, are not part of the shared narrative - they either occur at different times (in John, expelling the money lenders is one of the first acts of Jesus, at the start of his ministry, not one of his last public acts at the end), or not at all (the story of Lazarus is only present in John).

I would say that there are indeed major narrative differences between the Gospels.

[pqtyw]

Well in Islam the story is different and they consider the canonical New Testament gospels not very accurate.

Then you have all the ancient texts here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Non-canonical_(apocryph... which were likely written very early and often conflict quite strongly with then New Testament narratives. We can assume that this is just an only very small sample of all the stories floating around.

Even the official gospels don't all match on all the details despite retelling the same story (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source) since they are all included that would indicate a few hundred years later nobody really knew which story was true or not.

[Amezarak]

> which were likely written very early and often conflict quite strongly with then New Testament narratives.

They were not likely written very early in almost all of those cases (your own link dates every single one to well after the canonical gospels), and almost none of them have meaningful narrative differences (once again, as opposed to theological differences.)

> Even the official gospels don't all match on all the details despite retelling the same story (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source) since they are all included that would indicate a few hundred years later nobody really knew which story was true or not.

The canonical gospels were all likely written within decades, not "hundreds of years"; and while you can argue canonization did not officially happen until much later, de facto canonization occurred very, very early. The others floated around, yes, but they were never mainstream in any sense.

[pqtyw]

> The idea that some random historian or politician simply convinced everyone his fiction story

Not on purpose, it's just that without written history it's very easy for stories to drift very far from the historical facts. There might haven been a Roman king Romulus who did something important (then again he might have been created over time by merging several figures - i.e. it's more likely that he was named after the city and not the other way around).

We actually have real documented historical cases of this process occurring, the whole genre of Germanic heroic legends. They include various historical figures like Theodoric, Attila the Hun and others but the actual facts were mostly corrupted beyond recognition. Also this process took 500-800 years and developed in environment in which existing historical written sources on the same events did exist (even if they weren't directly accessible to most).