Were the people in the Bible, other than Jesus, real people?

by MyBrosADick

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions; all the questions I searched for that are similar to the questions I ask don't have that much info in the answers and most of the comments are deleted.

talondearg

Leaving aside the question of Jesus' historicity, for which see the faq anyway, I'm going to understand your question to be something like, "Apart from Jesus, which other persons mentioned in Biblical texts also are attested from non-biblical sources."

For the New Testament, Josephus is a source often looked to. He mentions John the Baptist, Jesus, James the brother of Jesus, Ananias the High Priest, Pontius Pilate, Herod, and probably some other less important-for-our purposes figures. In particular, there is no good reason to suspect that significant political and religious figures are invented - they are all 'real' and accounted for.

The Old Testament is more difficult, because (a) it's a much bigger time-span, (b) there is very little literary evidence internal to Israel that is non-biblical. It's widely accepted that David and the House of David existed, but the archaeological debate over the extent of historicity for the Israelite kings is piecemeal.

I'll stop there actually, Old Testament is not my own strong suit.

But, just to be clear, my answer does not necessarily imply that persons unattested outside the biblical canon are for that reason non-historical.

Scipio229

Aside from those already noted, the gospel of Luke specially references Caesar Augustus, whom we can easily verify as being historically present.

hiding_from_my_gf

There are actually a lot of names from the Bible that have been uncovered. As /u/talondearg says, it really depends on how you define "People in the bible". And it defines how you take your evidence. There are mentions of names in the Old testament of various Kings and rulers of countries that are in historical records that aren't a part of Jewish recordings.

Herod from the New testament actually existed, as far as we can tell. Hundreds of names can be listed.

If you ask more specific questions and you may get better answers.

Seventh7Sun

Other than Jesus?

I was under the impression that there really wasn't a lot (any?) of historical evidence that he even existed.