Related:
https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/bible-contradictions-explained
https://www.letstalkscriptures.com/harmonising-the-resurrectionintroduction/
Your skepticism seems to be akin the atheistic parroted argument "no extant contemporary accounts" = meaning within the brief lifetime of the character at issue, which is a spurious basis for ascertaining authenticity, and which is not what historians subscribe to, and which anachronistic reasoning means nuking far more than Biblical characters.
- How do you reconcile the contradictory accounts of Peter’s denial of Jesus? What about other unresolvable contradictions?
- How do you reconcile the accounts in Matthew and Luke regarding the events immediately following the birth of Jesus?
- How does one reconcile the accounts in Matthew and Mark of the demoniac, as one mentions two and the other only one man being possessed?
- How do you account for the contradictions in the three accounts of the healing of the demoniac in Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8, especially the difference in the location?
For while atheists usually parrot the argument that the absence of contemporary (meaning within His brief approx. 33 year life!) non-biblical evidence that Jesus was a real person means he could not have existed, yet by that measure, neither did Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Spartacus, Pythagoras, Sun Tzu, Leonidas the Spartan, Boudica the Celtic warrior queen, Sargon Of Akkad, Socrates, Archimedes, and maybe even Alexander The Great, and Attila The Hun, and Homer, whom historians overall affirm existed, as they do Jesus of Nazareth,Likewise, requiring writings from the figures themselves negates many.
Here, a rare objective atheist answer:
For which historical people do we have less evidence that they existed than for the historical Jesus?Tim O'Neill
An atheist who has studied the scholarship on the historical Jesus..
We have less evidence for about 90% of all figures from the ancient world. To begin with, we have less evidence for every single other early first century Jewish prophet, preacher or Messianic claimant. Theudas, the Egyptian, Onias, the Samaritan Prophet, Hillel, Shammai, Athronges - all of these are mentioned in one or, at best, two sources, all decades or even centuries after the fact.
And this is normal in ancient history for any figure that was not a leader, ruler or general and even for many who were. You can open a copy of Tacitus, Pliny, Plutarch, Cassius Dio or any other ancient historian and the vast majority of people mentioned will be (i) mentioned just once or twice and (ii) mentioned decades or centuries after the fact. And this is the case for many people who were senators, important priests or renowned generals.
This is why the arguments that because there are only a few mentions of Jesus or because they are not contemporary mentions he didn't exist are so totally absurd to anyone with a grasp of the nature of ancient source material. - https://www.quora.com/For-which-historical-people-do-we-have-less-evidence-that-they-existed-than-for-the-historical-Jesus/answer/Tim-ONeill-1
Then there is this answer from,
David Lake Senior Analyst, BA MathematicsAuthor has 4.1K answers and 26.2M answer views4y
Is there a historical character we assume that was real, that has similar or less evidence supporting than as Jesus? (after a historical not biblical answer)
....More documents from the first century mention Jesus than not. We have a reference within twenty years of the crucifixion, a biography within 40 years, and four biographies within 60 years. We have contemporary references to his brother James, other unnamed brothers, three of the Apostles, and hundreds of unnamed disciples. He is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historians Suetonius, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio. The death of his brother is recorded in detail by Josephus, who was alive and an adult when the event occurred. Tacitus is particularly important, because he was a rare example of an ancient historian who was militant about the accuracy of his sources, and he had direct access to the Imperial records at Rome. When he tells you that the Christian movement was started by a guy called “Christus” who was crucified in Judea 75 years earlier under orders of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, you can take that to the bank. Tacitus would have undoubtedly known Pilate’s family personally.
Is that more evidence than we have for the details of the life of Caligula? Absolutely, and by a wide margin. There is better evidence that Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan river than there is that Caligula made his horse a Roman senator. But that’s not the question, is it? The question is whether the pile of evidence for the raw existence of Caligula is heavier than the pile of evidence for the existence of Jesus. And when it comes to that comparison, Caligula wins, hands down. Mostly because the idea that the Romans faked an Emperor is a Flat Earth-level conspiracy, while the idea that the Galileans faked a carpenter is a Moon Landing Hoax-level conspiracy. I mean, sure - both are convoluted and ridiculously implausible theories, but one of them requires ignorance, while the other requires insanity....
In the case of Jesus, we have no contemporary references, mostly because he went from mildly noteworthy to dead within roughly a year. That doesn’t leave much time for contemporary references. The earliest references to Jesus were written by contemporaries, but both were written within twenty years of the crucifixion...at the end of the day, there is better evidence that Caligula existed, but Jesus left a much deeper mark on history, and he did it in a shorter amount of time. Denying the existence of either one of them puts you squarely in conspiracy theory territory. - https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-historical-character-we-assume-that-was-real-that-has-similar-or-less-evidence-supporting-than-as-Jesus-after-a-historical-not-biblical-answerKevin Yue Studied at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUpvoted by Laura Rose , M.A. History & English Literature, University of Glasgow (2017)Let me put it into perspective: Jesus has more contemporary accounts than the Roman Emperors of the same time period.* There are more scientists who doubt climate change than historians who disbelieve in Jesus. (As a historical figure, not as god. Just to be clear) There is more manuscript evidence for Jesus’ biographies than there are for all other ancient Greek documents… combined.There is a stupidly, staggeringly large amount of evidence to suggest that Jesus existed. If you still aren’t convinced, I advise you to skip to the bottom section, the one beginning with “EDIT: A CRASH COURSE IN HISTORICITY”, where I discuss historical methods of establishing personhood....keep in mind that a biography in Roman days was no small feat. These would be quill-written* on handmade pages by a professional scribe, with even a single blot ruining the entire page. In point of fact a written biography probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to make. Per copy. (*technically, the Romans used reeds instead of quills, but that’s quibbling)...I must add an aside here to deal with a particularly malicious misunderstanding deliberately propagated by bad-faith historians and repeated endlessly by armchair warriors with more skepticism than sense. And that argument is this: that these accounts are all in “the bible” and therefore “don’t count.” The problem with this argument is that it shows a complete and categorical misunderstanding of what “the bible” actually is. They are treating it as if it was a single composed work - it is not. The bible is a collection of pre-existing works.Why does this matter? Well, for three reasons. First, because it is nonsensical to imply that a document is unreliable solely on the grounds that it was added (decades) later to a collection. Secondly, because while a document cannot corroborate itself, multiple documents within the same collection can corroborate one another. Finally, a single work cannot be necessarily considered comprehensive, but a collection can be, by definition, comprehensive..... Jesus has better documentation than Tiberius by most metrics, and yes, it is astonishing for a random preacher in the middle of nowhere to generate as much of a paper trail as the God-King of Rome did in 23 years as Emperor of the known world!Which brings me to a very, very important point: Historians studying ancient history use the word “contemporary” as a technical term, and NEVER to mean “during the lifetime of the subject.”For example, Contemporary history - Wikipedia is the period from WWII to present, and includes many figures who are obviously no longer alive such as Mao, MLK, and Bin Laden.https://www.quora.com/How-likely-is-it-that-the-Historical-Jesus-actually-existed-And-if-he-did-exist-how-likely-is-it-that-the-N-T-accounts-of-him-are-accurate/answer/Kevin-Yue-1?no_redirect=1
