Gamera

It doesn't. It gives an excerpt of a text that does, which is strong evidence that the papyrus in its complete form did.

Where is the Alexandrian Paul? You tell me. How do you know the narrative of Alexander? You didn't get it from coins, I assure you.

Gamera

And who was this King Alexander?

Fill in the details of his life for us WITHOUT the mss that provide the narrative 1000 years later.

For all we know, he could have been an overacheiveing Greek who got bogged down in Egypt, founded a seaside resort and called it a day, only to have later writers mythologize his exploits.

Gamera

This certainly suggests a difference between how conquerors get historicized versus religious figures.

However, I don't think this makes your point.

Alexander, a world conqueror, is so little attested to that we wouldn't even know what he did were it not for narratives, the only examples of which were drafted 1000 years after the fact.

In contrast, a religious leader that was born in a Roman backwater to poor parents affected history so profoundly that he gets historicized within 100 years.

The fact that Jesus didn't get put on coins is hardly surprising and hardly changes the fact that the ms tradition supporting his historicity is a quantum leap better than the ms tradition supporting Alexander's narrative.

Toto

Drafted? or copied?

Slow down. I'm arguing that the myth was historicized. You are arguing that the historical figure was embellished with myth.

In what way did Jesus affect the history of the first century after his birth?

spin

Confused as ever, Gamera is mixed up about history and narrative.

Nobody's discounting texts. They are being put into historical perspective. Something Gamera seems in capable of doing.

Crapping on about narratives still. He's spearing his own straw man.

We know that there was a king called Alexander. We know he succeeded Philip (II) and was succeeded by Philip Arridaeus. We know about his relations with Greek states. We know that he caused the downfall of the Persian empire. We know he reached Egypt. These are all facts that come from contemporary evidence. For the historian, the historical works of the ancients put it all together, once there is a reliable basis on which to hang it.

But Gamera doesn't know the evidence. He isn't interested. He is trying to make false analogies apparently for the sake of his beliefs.


spin

spin

You know for a fact he was a king just as the others who produced similar coins. You know that at one stage he changed his coin weights to the Athenian standard. That was before his coins were spread around the Persian empire, being minted even in Persia, Phoenicia and Egypt. The evidence stares one in the face.

When is Gamera going to look at the evidence. He plainly knows bugger all about it.


spin

spin

Oh, ignorance is bliss. This guy plainly does not know about what's available and doesn't want to know. He has his conclusions and is going to stick with them no matter what.

Even if he were partly correct, we would still know Alexander existed.


spin

Toto

I think Gamera decided that the evidence for Jesus has to adequate, and if it's not, he can attack the evidence for Alexander on the same basis (possible forgeries or documents from long after the fact.) He's just not going to give up on it, even though he doesn't believe that the evidence for Alexander is that lacking.

Am I right, Mr. G?

spin

He simply doesn't know the evidence available. I have advocated to him that he choose a more obscure figure which would be more conducive to his gambit. But he is intent on confusing narrative with history, because he has narrative.


spin

Tangent

Yet this is still evidence that a particular person existed. This is worlds better than the spotty "evidence" that someone could exist behind the religion that we might as well call Jesus.