> even for people like hannibal of carthage, the best evidence is from second hand sources from several decades after the events. that's an urban myth, mate. the accounts we have might well have been written a few decades after the events they describe, but the authors were usually able to read actual contemporary manuscripts (now lost) and frequently quote from them. it's about 99% as good as having the actual contemporary manuscripts. > of course we don't coins with his face on them or archaelogical evidence of his palaces because they didn't exist. yes but, knowing that, you should understand that "we have more evidence for jesus than for any other historical figure!" is fucking retarded > the gospels are based on eyewitness testimonies, bullshit, none of the gospels claim to be eyewitness testimonies, and in any case the historians have understood for two centuries that they're just rewrites of earlier jewish literature with all the names changed > and the quotations of jesus within the gospels are almost certainly taken from a collection of jesus's words that were written down during his lifetime. lmao > because paul didn't meet the historical jesus and wasn't a direct witness to any of that stuff, and was focused more on religious doctrine than the biographical details of jesus.  nonsense, paul knew all of the early church fathers personally. so he should have known a lot of about the life and teachings of jesus, and his letters should be full of that stuff. instead they contain exactly zero references to a historical jesus. > paul does mention meeting with james, the brother of jesus that's what it says in the original greek, mate. > tacitus describes the persecutions of early christians  no he doesn't, he describes the persecutions of early chrestians (also mentioned by suetonius). similar name, different people. even if it's a misspelling for christians (and that's a big if), then tacitus is just repeating what christians told him, so it doesn't count
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