What Do Napoleon And Jesus Christ Have In Common?
A couple of months ago, I was browsing Medium when I found an article, published on 8/26/2021, titled “The Evidence For Napoleon Is Worse Than You Think.” At first, I thought it was some kind of genuine attempt at historical inquiry — albeit a bit of an insane one — but then I found out who wrote it.
The article was published by a man named Erik Manning, who is a chapter director for “Reasonable Faith,” the institution run by Christian apologist William Lane Craig. The article is actually a parody of atheist claims about Jesus Christ, and, even as an atheist, I have to admit it’s not a particularly bad one. However, in picking Napoleon, it seems that the author did not make the point he intended to.
One of my favorite pages on Tv Tropes — Tv Tropes already being one of my favorite websites — is “Dated History,” which lists examples of things in history that were once considered fact which have since been debunked by actual historians. To give you an idea of just how expansive this list is, the most recent example at time of writing is from 2002:
