People lived on the whole almost as long as today. When they say average life expectancy they are averaging the population that died in infancy [often women would have 5 children, only 2 surviving infancy] with people that died as children, teens, adults and geriatrics. It only takes 10 people dying between birth and 5 years old to suck that person living to 60 down…I am sure that someone with a knowlege about statistics will come along shortly.
fair use doctrine invoked -
Similar studies have been conducted on burials in Carmelite Abbeys in Aberdeen and Linlithgow between the 13thand 16th centuries [Stones, 1989]. In Aberdeen, the median age of death of 105 subjects was 24 years, with 34% being dead before the age of 12 years, and only 5% surviving into old age (over 45 years). The mean age of death could not be calculated because individuals over the age of 25 years had been merely categorised as being young, middle-aged or old. In Linlithgow, with the exception of 18 fetal or perinatal deaths, the median age of death for the group was 16 years, with 42% being dead before the age of 12 years and only 4% surviving into old age.
From the Palaeolithic to the late Mediaeval period the mean life expecancy of humans increased from between 20 and 30 years to 30 to 40 years. Exceptions are that kings, aristocrats and other wealthy individuals lived almost as long as current political, professional, and commercial leaders. Between the 17th century and the late 18th and early 19th century the mean life expectancy had increased to between 40 and 50 years. Thereafter, it has increased rapidly to between 55 and 60 in the 1950s, 60 to 70 in the 1960s, and 70 to 80 years in 1995. There seems little doubt that a general improvement in the health of individuals will further increase the mean life expectancy of most countries. If there is a breakthrough in the extension of maximum life span, the questions may be whether anyone will want to live to be 200 years old, and whether we should concentrate on prolonging the lives of the few in a world where many people continue to suffer from poverty, hunger, plague and warfare.
I might also point out that open warfare can bugger the aging statistics all to hell and gone…targeting the 20 year decaders and yanking them right out of the age pool…and ingeneral we humans are a combatative species.
As to Texts : There are 4 extant works from Jewish sources about Israel/Galilee of the time that undeniably date from the 1st Century:
Philo-Judas (5BCE-50 AD) A Jew writing about Jews and Jewish history for a Jewish audience from Alexandria Egypt. He Makes no mention of Jesus
Some of the Dead Sea scrolls, which were written over 200 years BTW, were written in the time and place. Nothing can be unshakably shown to refer to Jesus.
Paul’s letters
Josephus (37-103 AD) : mentions Jesus in every early extant version of his works.
Many scholarly works, and I mean many, have dealt with Josephus’ “Jesus Shout out” : was it really there or is it inserted later. I would not say : “It is undisputed.” I *would * say: “The weight of scholarly opinion is that there was some mention by Joe of Jesus“. There are probably 250,000 posts in SDGD history disputing this point. It is at the heart of the OP for this thread - if it is a legit mention well then – I mean there we have 2 out of 4 of the texts.
If it is not, well then the only rock solid 1st century Jewish source is Paul - but keep in mind how scanty and I men scanty - the texts are of the time – the **proof ** really isn’t tehre either way
AFAIK that is it Anybody have any others? Everything else, and for GQ purposes I am including the Gospels, is Second Century. You will see mentions of other writers who later folks will say “I read X’s book and he did or did not mention Jesus” – but as to the first century Jewish sources, I think that is it.
While one can choose to exclude the gospels on the point that they are more hagiography than biography, even granting an early second century recension for the final Gospl of John, they were all initially written in the first century.
And maybe they did (assuming that they even heard about the gospels that probably weren’t widespread). How would you know?
But here also, we don’t have any access to these critics. we only have some of the “refutatios” written by christians against some of these critics. There’s no evidence that the “did Jesus actually existed?” argument wasn’t used. And anyway, these documents are late, and the existence or lack thereof of Jesus was probably already impossible to verify.
Don’t forget that everything we know about early christianism has been thoroughly filtered by christians.
It was significantly lower, but mostly because many people would die in early childhood, lowering the overall life expectancy. A significant part of the population reaching adulthood would reach old age too.
Because it probably would have nipped Christianity in the bud if no one in Galilee, not to mention his alleged hometown of Nazareth, had personally known such person, upon the inquiries of curious pilgrims from Jerusalem and elsewhere.
The generally accepted dates for the writing of the Gospels are in the following ranges:
Mark 65 - 70 or 70 - 75
Matthew 70- 85
Luke 80 - 90
John 90 - 100 (with a final recension occurring later).
This is consistent with the consensus verdict found in the Introduction to the New Testament edited (most recently) by Paul Kümmel and can be found on several sites such as The Development of the Canon of the New Testament.
I am aware that there are various people who would like to push all of the gospels back well into the 2d century, but they have not yet persuaded the majority of scholars of their positions. I know of no legitimate scholar who would date the synoptics in the second century.
As seen on this table of citations, Ignatius (died around 110) quoted Matthew and Luke. We also have a fragment of the Gospel of John (B[sup]48[/sup]) that dates to around 125, making a much later writing of that Gospel unlikely.
There have been quite a few books written claiming that Jesus did not, in fact, exist. The only nes I’ve read, though, are by G.A. Wells – The Jesus of the Early Christians, Did Jesus Exist?, The Historical Evience for Jesus. He’s written others, but they basically rehash his arguments in these three books. As yuou migh expect from the titles, Wells’ answer is “No.” He makes some interesting points, pushing the argument beyond the simple silence of contemporaries or the late dating of the Gospekls (Wells is one of those who pushes for later dating of the Gospels than the dates given above. He also puts more emphasis onthe letters of Paul, which are generally agreed to predate the Gospels). Wells is worth reading even if you don’t buy everything he says (like all biblical critics, you should read him with a gran of salt. Anyone who goes to the trouble to write and publish a book about the Bible has som axe to grind.)
Paul keeps getting mentioned in passing, but here is someone who was a contemporary of the people who met Jesus. This isn’t writings forty years after Jesus’ death written after all the supposed eye-witnesses were dead. The most telling passage from Paul is:
Ordinarily, historians would stand on their heads and spit nickels to find a historical document like this where the author not only relates what eye-witnesses have told him, but is so confident of his account, that he practically dares his audience to go to the sources themselves and fact check him.
The problem is that the account in question is a supernatural event (the resurrection) which, understandably, gives historians pause.