Originally Posted by irateplatypus

hopefully this isn't straying too far from SF's thread purpose... my apologies if it is.

if Jesus were to be born today... i would fully expect some contemporary record of his life to endure two thousand years from now. we're talking about another culture two millenia ago. a time and place where oral transmission of knowledge was the order of the day. a jew from that time reading your last post might respond "why would i need to write it down? i saw it with my own eyes!" literacy was rare, implements for writing were expensive... we're talking about a completely different paradigm for the spread of knowledge.

additionally, those that wrote about Christ probably just didn't have a frickin clue what he was all about during his ministry. there were many people claiming to be the messiah at his time. jesus didn't even fit the mold the theologians of the day thought the messiah would arrive in. they thought he would be an ass-kicking conquerer to free them from roman oppression, not a humble carpenter. it's entirely probable that they just didn't grasp the gravity of the situation till it was over. if a man can appear to do wondrous miracles and charismatically deliver a challenging message, he'll draw crowds... but everything starts hitting the fan when he beats death. if the narrative of Jesus is true, there is a decent chance that his followers wouldn't have considered writing it down for the ages (given their oral culture) till the full impact of his ministry resonated through the region.

one more thing, accounts of Jesus aren't hearsay. many of them are firsthand accounts... but only written years after the actual experience.