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The annual reminder, reminded me of a question I've never been able to answer.
Did Jesus exist? Is there any independent information that he did?
Is there any historical support that any of the original apostles ever existed or were there any groups like them? There had to be something, but what?
Given Shlomo Sand's Invention of the Jewish People and his rant on the second temple, which was the nearest contemporary event rests on dubious ground, and given that most `people' are inventions of some sort, well you get the idea.
This is coming from my own ruminations on Strauss and his concept of classical Greece, which he seemed to think had a very specific worldview, which I think is a laugh ... beause ... He seemed to have forgotten that his idea of antiquity was an invention of the Renaissance with the late recovery of Plato in Florence, and more particularly the Enlightenment (his bete noir)...
Strauss had a real axe to grind on the concept of history, which is ridiculous since without enligthenment history, he would have no idea how to construct a worldview from the texts and fragments of ancient thought---which were endlessly mediated by a couple of thousand years of translations. The texts that were used in Florence to recover Plato came from Constantinople. Not sure of the dates, but probably about the time that Justinian abolished pagan texts. ...
Anyway happy birthday Newton, you old bastard.
CG