I’ve been thinking about the Jesus myth theory that keeps being thrown around on here. I thought of something which doesn’t make sense to me.

Fictional works typically don’t have two characters with the same name unless one os the child of another or their same name has something to do with the plot.

Historical accounts, on the other hand, have no choice but to use the real names of the people even if they share the same name.

I want to test if this theory has some weight to testing if an ancient text would have been seen as fiction or a historical account.

Do you guys have any fictional books where two characters simply share the same name coincidentally? Meaning not because they were named after someone or it being a plot device?

The Gospel accounts, for example, have multiple Marys, multiple Judases, multiple Johns and Jameses. Jesus isn’t even the only Jesus in the NT. I cannot perceive of a reason why the author would do this if his purpose was to write a work of fiction.

Anyway, go have at it.

[Added 2/22/2018]

Note: This post does not assert that what is in the gospels are historically accurate. All this post is trying to say is that the gospel writers were intending their works to be read as historical documents and not as works of fiction. This is, actually looking only as internal evidence so asserting historical accuracy is something outside the scope of this post.