Here is something that I consider a very similar case:
Historicity of King Arthur It seems to me that without big religious interests, the debate on the historicity of Jesus Christ would play out much like the debate on the historicity of Arthur Pendragon.
WRONG. Not similar AT ALL.
In this thread we discuss the Minimal Jesus of Nazareth, about whom much fact AND fiction was written in the decades immediately after his death. Details are "fleshed in" by writings from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but those details
must be read with a large "grain of salt." By 4th century writing, we are talking about something else entirely. There ARE some historic persons about whom no writing survives except from several centuries after their deaths, but fortunately that is NOT the case with Jesus.
We KNOW that there were writings and oral traditions about Jesus from the mid 1st-century even though the earliest physical writing fragments date to the 2nd century. (Papyrus is fragile. Duuh!)
Professional historians -- (Remember them?) -- will be especially interested in the EARLIEST documents: The New Testament, Josephus, Clement of Rome, Tacitus and Suetonius provide a large trove of early documents
*.
Thus I was astounded when the 4th-century Constantine was mentioned as of possible relevance.
Sure, he was important to the DEVELOPMENT of Christianity centuries after the time of Jesus, and might be the focus of ANOTHER thread.
Here I've taken care not to deprecate interest in that Emperor and his role in the development of a major religion.
BUT he has NOTHING to do with THIS thread. (Does anyone seriously suggest that there are major differences in the Gospels between the 2nd and 4th centuries? Or that such MINOR differences that do exist have not been thoroughly studied by professional historians?)
I keep mentioning "professional historians" because it almost seems like some of you REJECT anything actual experts have to say. Almost like climate change deniers, who would rather listen to uninformed rants than to read science.
THIS thread is to determine what may and may not be gleaned about the Historic Jesus -- the man who walked the earth and died about 30 AD. Nothing from the 4th century is of conceivable relevance to this task.
Here is something that I consider a very similar case:
Historicity of King Arthur It seems to me that without big religious interests, the debate on the historicity of Jesus Christ would play out much like the debate on the historicity of Arthur Pendragon.
This is all almost completely backwards. Professional historians have concluded that Monmouth's stories about Arthur are almost certainly fiction. The "Galfridian Arthur" may have become an exciting set of myths, loosely connected to Christianity, but AFAIK this "Arthur" was never endorsed by any formal church, none of his "Knights" were venerated by the church, and so on. Tales of the "Holy Grail" are not part of a religion; they are a fantasy which, like the Chronicles of Narnia, may parallel a religion in impressionable minds.
Professional historians -- remember them? -- who explore the "Historic Arthur", if any, rely on documents much older than Monmouth's writing.
Around 500 CE, he supposedly conquered the British Isles, nearby islands, and nearby continental Europe, though his empire did not survive his mysterious disappearance.
No professional historian believes that anything like that happened. Not one.
But the first surviving references to him start some three centuries later and very fragmentary. In an early source, "Historia Brittonum" (History of the Britons), he appears as a war leader (dux bellorum) and a soldier (miles) but not as a king (rex).
St. Bede goes further in rejecting Arthur as royal, as shown in the portion of an excerpt I've reddened.
The Venerable Bede's Historia Brittonum said:
Then the militant Arthur, with the people and kings of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many nobler than he, it was he that was twelve times the leader and victor of battle. The first battle he entered into against the Saxons was near the mouth of the river that is called Gleni. The second, third, fourth, and fifth were on another river which is called Duglas by the Britons, in the region of Linius. The sixth battle was on the river called Bassas. The seventh battle against the Saxons that Arthur engaged in was in the forest of Celidon, which is called Cat Coit Celidon by the Britons. The eighth battle against the foreigners was near the castle Guinion, and there Arthur carried the likeness of holy Mary, the mother of God and eternal virgin, on his shoulders. And that day all the Saxons, by the virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy mother Mary, were routed and during the retreat many of their number perished.
There are a few very brief mentions of Arthur that may predate Gildas and Bede. For example the 6th-century Brythonic war poet
Aneirin (probably based in Gododdin, near present-day Edinburgh) may have written about the military hero Gwawrddur:
He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress
Though he was no Arthur
Among the powerful ones in battle
In the front rank, Gwawrddur was a palisade
This very early reference to "Arthur" tells us nothing about Arthur, except that the name was a "meme"! Just as "Chad" is used in today's slang for a certain type of young single male, so "Arthur" might have developed as a generic meme word for a great warrior. Perhaps centuries from now, historians will try to track down the original trouble-making Karen, much as we try to track down the original Arthur!
One interestig clue to gnaw on -- though please start a new thread if you do -- is that
Arthur is a legendary hero in
Scotland. A mythical genealogy of Clan Campbell traces that lineage back to Arthur! This despite that the Gaels and Britons have seldom been on friendly terms over the centuries.
