MadHairDay
Yes, of course - I find them fascinating! I have a ton of books of early Christian writings as well as Josephus' works etx. Why do you ask?
Because you never mention or reference them - as a theologian I would have thought this would be an obvious thing to do. Every theologian I know is only too keen to provide primary evidence. You only ever give links to secondary sources.
I apologise for saying you made the claim about Caesar. However, you do say that the evidence for Christ (OTTOMH) 'stands tall'. So please point me towards it.
You seem to discount Tacitus. He wasn't contemporary but he lived in the same century, which in terms of writings of antiquity was close to the time of the events. He was also a careful historian, known to be incredibly picky about his sources, so would have checked them with care. He was close enough to the events to have traced back the line of evidence to the actual person. He said this earlier in his work, about hearsay:
I’m not discounting Tacitus – I’m a historian, I would never be so arrogant. But, as you admit, he was contemporaneous, and he would be the first to admit his account was only secondary. I’d also add there are suggestions some of his work has been edited, probably by later Roman administrators, but I’m on the fence about that.
Josephus is the other historian operating at a similar time - near contemporary, and makes explicit mention of Jesus as a man who preached, performed signs and died by crucifixion - even taking out the later interpolation (the lines are obvious.)
Josephus was also not contemporary.
To ask for contemporary writings is problematic because Jesus was not a well known figure like Caesar who would afford any such writings. He was one of any numbers of preachers in the area claiming to be the Messiah, and the evidence we have about him tends to exceed what we'd expect for such. Yet the gospel writings are within just 3 decades and much Pauline material and the book of James for example far earlier than this (the fifties in some cases), which takes it back even closer to the events.
It's true there will be little evidence about an ordinary person, but you say there is a huge amount of evidence for the existence of Christ. For it to be considered real evidence it would have to be first-hand, or at least contemporary accounts, not later works.
I include the early Christian writings simply as more examples of historical evidence of there being this person who started this remarkable movement - again,.them being close to the time in terms of writings of antiquity. I know I keep banging on about that, sorry about that! - but it's so important to establish the general rules of what we are looking at here, rather than apply the lens of 21st century historicity.
The early Christian accounts are very interesting evidence of the emergence of a religion, they do not give us any primary evidence about the founder of that religion. It’s a shame, because it would be fascinating is it could be found but unfortunately all we have to go is the later testimony.
*I included the link because it is quite a comprehensive review of the evidence you ask for from a skeptical scholar, as is Ehrman's book.&
I didn’t ask for a review – I’m a historian, I’m aware of the arguments around the subject. I’m asking for the evidence of Christ’s life and existence.
I’ll repeat, I’m not actually doubting he did exist. I just think you do your cause no favours by making claims for evidence which has never been found. Using secondary sources and modern analysis does not constitute compelling evidence.
Also, faith is supposed to be just that, faith. Not something you need evidence to justify or reinforce. If a person needs evidence, then that suggests that their faith will disappear the moment someone produces evidence to the contrary