I’m not trying to prove anything, i even explained that it would be useless. It would be an exercise in futility, even if we had stronger and more compelling evidence than what we already possess.
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I am also a first-time poster. Apologies if this is not the best place for this question. Also, apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.
My question is for the purpose of giving a dear family member reason to consider that it is reasonable to believe in the historical Jesus of the NT. His complaint is that the miraculous actions would have resulted in far more extrabiblical written evidence. I pointed him to Josephus already. I have not previously considered this objection, so I have not done much study on it. It seems one point to be made is that most of the local population of the time was illiterate and so a written record is less likely than our contemporary minds might imagine. Indeed I found an analysis that even documentation by the Roman government of itself at the time of Christ is mostly absent. I also mentioned that a Jewish friend (not Christian) once pointed me to a book about another messiah claim (Bar Kokhba). Thus I acknowledged that at the time and perhaps for a period afterword there might have been competing claims. But those have been lost to history and that is itself perhaps evidence of a historical Jesus. What lines of study am I missing? I don’t think I want to dive into the study of the writing styles used as supporting the claim. I have the impression that my friend is looking for ways to dismiss Jesus and so this will not be fruitful. But I feel obligated to at least give a go at it. Ideally someone could refer me to a Language of God episode that addresses this topic.
Thanks
Ron