I recently had my attention drawn to a rather bizarre web page, connected with the “Jesus Birther Movement.” They oddly dismiss sources like Josephus because they were written somewhat later than Jesus’ time, as though that is uncommon, or normally means that an author writing slightly after a person’s own time is unlikely to be able to figure out whether a person existed. More telling, however, is that they also skip over Paul, who had met Jesus’ brother, and was alive at the time of Jesus. Although we have no evidence that Paul had ever met Jesus, there’s no particularly good reason to think he had never caught a glimpse of him. But be that as it may, Paul isn’t even mentioned, even though he was a contemporary source, well poised to know whether or not Jesus existed. Even if he only wrote about Jesus after Jesus had died, we may point out once again that that is not at all uncommon.
Perhaps Paul is ignored because he is a Christian – mythicists regularly dismiss Christian sources, as though people who followed an individual are not typically the best witnesses to that figure’s existence. People connected with a particular religion, region, nation, or anything else are precisely the ones that are most likely to give us first-hand evidence. We definitely should expect Americans to be biased about the character of their own country and its politicians. We do not therefore distrust them about the existence of their country or its politicians.
And so here’s my comment on this, summed up in an image:
Of related interest, a classic study “proving” that Napoleon never existed, as a way of exposing the problems with mythicist methods, is available online for free via Project Gutenberg. HT Jonathan Bernier.
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