By “other”, I obviously mean other than you-know-who. Not that I’m necessarily opposed to having that debate, it’s just that we need more threads on that like we need a hole in the head. So, this is strictly about anyone who is not Jesus. Got that? Good.
The first one that comes to mind for me is Homer. He’s of course credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but he may well not have existed at all. It’s entirely plausible that the name “Homer” is a stand-in for any number of anonymous poets, who wrote down tales that came out of a long oral tradition.
I’m sure there must be other examples, though. I’m not entirely sure what to do about figures who no one really thinks of as historical in the first place, like Moses or King Arthur. Leave those out, I suppose, unless there’s some really good reason not to. Maybe we’ll just see what happens. Yes, I know: I plan my OP’s really well.
(If this has been done already, feel free to close the thread and slap me with a trout. But I did search without finding anything. Also, not sure what forum to put this in. IMHO is my usual go-to in those cases, so here we are.)
You don’t have to go way back in time. In another thread we talked about John Henry, the steel driving man who may have won a contest with a steam drill (hammer). There may have been such a man, even with that name, and there may have been such a contest, but there’s no solid evidence to back it up.
I’m curious what distinction you are making here. Is it that you believe one more likely existed than the other? The difference in the amount of historical evidence?
Same answer I gave in the first thread: Emperor Jimmu of Japan, the (legendary?) founder of the Yamato dynasty and purported direct lineal ancestor of the current emperor.
The dynasty is generally acknowledged as the oldest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world. Its historically reliable beginning is 100 rulers and 1,500 years ago (Emperor Keitai, 507 CE), but the 25 monarchs before him stretch back to 660 BCE.
In plain fact, Jimmu and his next 24 successors are only documented in stories most consider mythical rather than historical, but that entire succession is critical to the Shinto religion and the cultural institution of the Japanese state – the kokutai, the essence of the Japanese people and nation, as embodied in the Emperor. In the minds of many (more conservative) Japanese, the Emperor is Japan like the Queen is England in the mind of more monarchic Brits, regardless of their lack of actual sovereignty and political power.
Moses is central to the Exodus story, which is almost universally thought to be untrue. But there is nothing* in the overall King Author narrative that would make the entire story a fabrication.
*I’m not talking about any of the supernatural stuff
The B-17 Belly Gunner that Ronald Reagan spoke so eloquently of in one of his better speeches. Oopsie, just a role in a movie. (Although, to be sure, a number of Belly Gunners came to horrible ends when bombers made pancake landings.)
An interesting question here is what are the minimum requirements for “existence” for a mythical figure.
Let’s suppose my myth claims the existence of a guy call Steve, who lived in Basingstoke in the 1950s, had blond hair, was partial to pints of IPA and played on the pub darts team, was the son of God, and once levitated an entire football stadium 3 feet off the ground.
If I can produce historical documents that show that someone called Steve indeed lived in Basingstoke at that time, that he had blond hair and liked IPA and playing darts; but of course the “real” Steve did not have supernatural powers and was not the son of God. Have I proved the historicity of Steve?
Does anyone think Romulus or Remus are historical?
The Roman church has decanonized or otherwise deemphasized a lot of saints, who’d probably qualify as famous at some level.
I assume the historical Moses was the baby of a Canaanite slave, adopted by an Egyptian woman, and then later exiled when an adult. Not otherwise associated with the Exodus story, except being from the same time period. None of that is unreasonable.
Of course, I think the Exodus story is based on the historical escape of some groups of slaves from Egypt, who eventually were integrated into a Canaanite culture.
I get John’s point. Any actual Moses at best might have been some leader at some time, doing nothing significantly related to the Exodus story. And there’s plenty of reason to believe the whole thing was made up. I assume it probably has elements of other legends in it, and possibly going back through enough generations of the legends there may have been some leader of some people who in some way helped them establish a nation. King Arthur may have been a composite, or totally fictional, but could realistically have been a king who could have united the Brits to fend off the Saxons.
A good question, though, is whether the Romans thought of them as historical. One the one hand, it seems like they did. On the other hand, you have to wonder, considering how much the story looks like a fairy tale. With much the early stuff, it’s a question to what extent the Romans even made the distinction between myth and history. I think it’s safe to say that they certainly weren’t as finicky about it as we tend to be.
Somewhat weirdly, the Romans apparently maintained a wooden hut on the Palatine Hill for a long time, that was purported to be the house of Romulus. It was also something of ship of ship of Theseus, as it were, as it kept burning down or otherwise getting destroyed, and the Romans kept restoring it.
For the record I do not think that Alexander the great is actually made up. I was mainly using it as an example of why there could be doubt about someone existence when you don’t have a body.
Shakespeare I know has some doubters but I have no idea if there is any basis.