Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: How to Break the Republican Lock on God [View all]LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)college that I discovered that there are no contemporaneous accounts the existence Jesus as portrayed in the gospels; none at all.
The closest we get is a passage in Josephus that mentions a "brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James", which, given how common both messiah claimants and executions were under Roman rule, is hardly extraordinary; and, in any case, it is a tertiary source at best. The Testimonium Flavianum cannot be verfiied and is not considered reliable.
Tacitus states that Christians "derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate" While this confirms the existence of Christians, it does not reference Jesus directly, and may simply have been relayed from the Christians themselves. At best, it corroborates the existence of the crucifixion story, but does not support any other aspect of the Jesus legend.
Suetonius mentions a "Chrestus", but during the reign of Claudius, which is after the alleged death of Jesus. Even if it refers to an earlier individual, there is nothing tying the title to Jesus, and, again, does not support any other aspect of the Jesus legend.
Pliny mentions early Christians, but nothing of Jesus.
That's it; no contemporaneous accounts of miracles or any of the other extraordinary events of the legend.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden