Newly discovered document adds evidence that Shroud of Turin is not Jesus' crucifixion shroud

[u/JackRogers3]

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/08/29/newly-discovered-document-adds-evidence-that-shroud-of-turin-is-not-jesus-crucifixion-shro

[u/sub_WHISTLE]

We're talking about people who lived 2000 years ago. Most people from that time period are generally only known from a few text references. Jesus is referenced by near-first hand accounts, by assumed credible historians. If that isn't enough evidence, then what is? Why would we assume they lied?

[u/gehenna0451 → u/sub_WHISTLE]

Most people from that time period are generally only known from a few text references

Which is why I said that what people consider historical in scholarship of antiquity isn't what people consider historical by today's standards of say, 20th century history. You might very well be much more skeptical of accounts of that period in general, by modern standards of testimony.

Why would we assume they lied?

Are you asking about the gospels or the non-religious sources? For the gospels it's pretty straight forward, because even the people who accept Jesus as a historical figure acknowledge that the mythological elements are fiction. And if those are fiction, for explicit religious purposes, it's pretty generous to read anything in scripture as historical.

For people like Tacitus, you don't need to believe that they lied, but one sentence in the Annals after 120 years at a time when information was conveyed orally is not strong evidence as we think of that term today.

The historical Jesus might well have existed, but it's pretty obvious people are extremely motivated to make that case, and it's much easier to be skeptical of it than most people would want you to believe

[u/sub_WHISTLE → u/gehenna0451]

It may not be strong evidence by today's standards, but you have to work with what you have for times that long ago.

The Romans were also known for their stringent record-keeping, of which Tacitus would have had access to. Also Tacitus himself wasn't christian so it seems unlikely that he would have had bias towards asserting Jesus' existance.

I would argue that for antiquity, that is very strong evidence given the low availability of source material. It's exactly as you said, if we are going by modern standards of proof then a whole host of historical figures could be seen as made up, which kind of defeats the purpose of writing about ancient history at all.

By contrast, I am less likely to believe, say, Abraham or Moses existed because there is no text about them for hundreds of years after their lives, and the texts were written by religious people who had reason to validate these biblical characters. I just don't really think this is the case for Jesus, or at least, not when Tacitus was writing.

[u/gehenna0451 → u/sub_WHISTLE]

I think you can write about ancient history but people ought to acknowledge more how circumstantial it is, in particular if you communicate to modern readers. For example Josephus is seen as an important source, but there's one famous passage where he talks about Jesus using a phrase like "if he was even a man", and most scholars now consider this to be changed by a Christian editor later somewhere in the 3rd century because that'd be a very improbably statement for a Jew.

And if you're already that deep into the sauce of having to take into account edited texts, I think you should be a lot more skeptical. Yet it's very common, and a few of the mainstream scholars are quoted in the wiki article above that not just Jesus but certain events in his life are "impossible to doubt".

Even in the modern sciences most people would be reluctant to make claims that absolute, but in biblical scholarship it's pretty common, which should make you a bit suspicious about impartiality.