How do we know (ordinary) ancient persons existed?

Hello historians,

Hopefully I can find more critical feedback here than I did in the Religion and Philosophy section on my understanding of how it is we can "know" or have "reasonable confidence" that certain ancient figures were in fact historical and not fictional.

My focus is on figures for whom we have no public monuments but for whom we must rely entirely upon what we read in various manuscripts.

The original impetus for my thoughts has been the debate over the historicity of Jesus. I am not interested in the Jesus question per se here but rather in what other lovers of history have to say about the following suggestion setting out how we can have confidence that a person was historical or not.

Critical feedback is sought:

Quote:

Originally Posted by vridar (Post 11565807) We have strong confidence in the historicity of ancient persons if they appear in a literary source that consists of a narrative that in key aspects is confirmed by external material/primary evidence (e.g. Josephus, Livy) whose general reliability is confirmed by independently derived information in other literary works (e.g. we have five ancient historical works about Alexander the Great — Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian) Arrian writes long after Alexander but he identifies earlier sources that he relies upon. He could be making that all up, but the other independent evidence gives us grounds for having some trust in him. With Jesus we have no comparable sources. In fact, many if not most of the stories in the gospels have been identified as adaptations of Old Testament narratives and passages. Normally an ancient historian who wanted to impress readers with the authority of his narrative would identify himself and state his sources and explain why his history was to be believed. The Gospel of Luke appears to do that but falls short -- it speaks in generalities without identifying any so-called "eyewitness".

That is a very brief synopsis of my reasoning. Much more could be fleshed out, but I will leave it at that for starters.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2fq8Wdy