• frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Right. I think we’re in agreement. There was a historical Diarmait. There was a historical Jesus. We know this from textual sources dated a little later than the historical figures.

        His life was written about while it happened in the Irish Annals…

        We have no Irish texts as old as Diarmait’s reign. CELT date the Orgguin trí mac Diarmata Mic Cerbaill “Created: Possibly in the Old Irish period. Date range: 700–900?” So we rely on things written 100+ years after the historical figure. And that’s referring to when it was originally written; it’s know from later transcriptions; the oldest physical Irish manuscript we have (Lebor na hUidre) is around 1100. So how do we know there was a historical Diarmait?

        In the case of Yeshu the Nazarene, it’s similar, though some texts are a little nearer his historical period than in Diarmait’s case.