Hate to break it to you, but that’s not historically honest.
“The Bible” is actually just a library of records gathered by various people which testify God. If there was another record/first-hand account about Jesus, it would be in the Bible. So not really. It’s more like trying to use records of Rome to prove that events happened in Rome, like the assassination of Julius Caesar. Or observations about other historical events to prove that event.
So essentially, these are all separate records, the Bible is just a compilation (except for Luke and Acts, they were originally one record, which I have amended my original comment to show)
The circular reasoning argument you are thinking about is about using the Bible to prove the Bible (eg, saying the Bible says it’s true, therefore it is). I’m not using the Bible to try and prove itself, I’m using the Bible to try and prove Jesus. You claimed there are no written records, yet that’s exactly what the Bible is. You can’t just dismiss it because a few hundred years later, Christians decided to canonise it as one text.
And even then, you can in a way, through textual criticism and supplementary historical evidence, prove things about a text (such as criterion of embarrassment, preservation, other details from the authors) relating to it’s legitimacy.
The texts of the New Testament have been one of the most spread and reproduced documents from the Roman empire period, nevermind the first century
Most historical events don’t have the documentation made about Jesus. They all popped up at the same time saying the same thing yet from different perspectives. Then there’s archaeological evidence carrying on about Christianity and a church existing, all from the first century. Something big must have happened, typically things like that don’t happen.
Lastly, not all of the texts I mentioned were biblical. The others were from other historians which didn’t have enough detail to be included in the Bible. The thing is, if they were more detailed, they would have most likely been included in the Bible, making your standard quite the tautology
It’s kind of like someone saying “use studies from academics showing the legitimacy and arguing in favour of the Bible- by the way, you cannot cite Christian Apologists” when by definition, a Christian apologist is someone who argues in favour of Christianity. If they were to argue in favour of Christianity, they’ll be a Christian apologist. It’ll be a tautology. Like how any detailed contemporary account of Jesus by someone close to Him would have most likely been included in the Bible.
cman6@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m not advocating for @Flax at all here, but I think it’s generally accepted that someone called Jesus (there were a LOT of people named Jesus back in the day) did exist and was something of a teacher.
Son of god though?.. no