Reddit mentions of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources

> History in general does have standards. Specifically, it requires contemporary written sources.

No, it doesn't. We don't have contemporary written sources for Confucius. We don't have them for most of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Nor for most of early Roman history. Our knowledge of ancient history in general is built on a framework of much later historical writings, the sources of which were lost centuries ago and cannot be verified.

> But the point of the Christ Myth argument is that the assumption of Christ's historical existence permeates our Wester discourse without enough consciousness that it is a belief rather than a well-documented fact.

And what would be the point of emphasizing that? Imagine a scenario in which a Christ Myth proponent confronts a devoted Christian with those arguments. The Christian responds, "I suppose you're right: it is a belief rather than a well-documented fact. But I'm okay with believing it, even in full view of its lack of historical bona fides." Do you think the Christ Myth proponent would be okay with that?

My experience in reading Christ Myth proponent arguments is that they're rarely written with a tone that suggests the disinterested pursuit of historical accuracy. They're intensely concerned with what people believe, and spend as much time building a case for imposing certain standards of belief as they do considering the historical evidence. That much is clear even in the introduction to Zindler's book.

As someone who reads a great deal of history, it's clear to me that this particular genre adheres to its own standards. Which might explain why Zindler's book was published by American Atheists Press, rather than a publisher with a broader range of historical titles in their catalog.

Here's
a book that argues he definitely did not exist.