What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Stone]

Never mind that has been recorded that as late as the 16 century there was a copy of Josephus that contained not one reference to Jesus! (ie NO Testimonium Flavianum or James passage)

-- or James passage? Show me where you get that.

Stone

 

[pakeha]

...Comparing the more moderate Christ mythers to the nonsense Creationist's do is dishonest. Creationism requires ignoring DOZENS of actual physical science theories and understanding of how the world it thought to work. Christ Mythers can point to real world example that shows credence to the more moderate version of their ideas: John Frum Cargo cult.

I've yet to see HC proponents address the John Frum cargo cult, AFAIK.

 

[Stone]

Planet good to excellent knowledge about the study of ancient history, it seems...

B - I - N - G - O !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stone

 

[JaysonR]

Ians;
Neither of those citations that I provided are from Christian theists claiming to know Jesus; nor are they evidence of anyone being a personal witness to Jesus.
They are citations that show two separate individuals and their perspective on the existence of their referenced figures, and I have prested the standing that the references are regarding Jesus.
I'm an atheist, so I'm not a Christian theist either, nor am I claiming any indiviual shown so far has veifiable personal witness to Jesus.

 

[Acleron]

...


It was my impression that you were equating the behavior of homeopathy academics to those academics who support the HJ position. Was this incorrect?

How is it relevant whether or not we have the names of individuals involved in research? It is certainly easy enough to get equivalent documentation for HJ studies. Presumably those involved in HJ studies also follow rigorous accepted academic practices….or are you suggesting that they don’t? As for alternate views on the data (and the ability to see it)…views on the data are only as good as the abilities of those studying it. 99% of the people on this planet wouldn’t know a piece of LHC data from a cereal box! That is the point. The fact that you believe the evidence to be poor is not shared by those who study the matter. Personally…my vote goes with those who have the qualifications to actually understand the evidence. I wouldn’t waste my time asking my plumber to give me the lowdown on a couple hundred terabytes of LHC data…and as JaysonR has pointed out…the evidence supporting the HJ position is of an equivalent degree of complexity and sophistication.

I was demonstrating that consensus and argument from authority within a discipline is not sufficient.

As for the standards of historical researchers, they may adhere to their own standards but is that the generally accepted academic standard? So far it appears not to be the case. But that impression is gained from the posters here.

Your analogy of the plumber is better if he/she asked you to show them the evidence for the Higgs particle and explain what it means. The data in graphical form is easy to find. An explanation to the level or even beyond their education isn't much harder. Again, what you wouldn't do is insult them for asking.

The last part I've quoted is central to the issue. Your definition of evidence is at variance with mine. Hypotheses based on poor hard evidence remain just poor hypotheses, regardless of the consensus. If the statement 'HJ probably existed' was made then we would have no argument. But if that statement has been made it appears to have migrated into certainty by the agreement of others. To take the analogy of the LHC, there is general agreement that Higgs exists but that agreement is qualified by a confidence limit.

 

[Belz...]

Jayson and Piggy and I have all given you plenty of evidence.

Where ? I see evidence in the form of "here's what we know about people in those times", but not in the form of "here's how we know Jesus existed."

As I said before we've been told what the conclusions are, what some of the reasoning is, and... and that's it.

 

[Belz...]

And this is another telling nugget that proves as awkward for the Gospelers as Jesus's being a native Galilean (quick, drag in Bethlehem), or the "perfect" Jesus being baptized (must do it to be "proper", you know [or some such feeble excuse]).

Although I find this line of reasoning convincing, saying that the embarrassing details show that Jesus was probably real is a bit misleading. Despite that being quite likely, all it really shows is that there was this detail floating around that needed to be explained. It doesn't imply that the detail was true; only that the author thought it was true.

Plus, are they really that embarassing ? People today don't seem to have a problem with Jesus being baptised.

 

[Acleron]

Jayson and Piggy and I have all given you plenty of evidence. You just have no understanding of historiography, and so instead you grasp at straws that just show your own ignorance by choosing to LIE about our posts and say over and over "THERE'S NO EVIDENCE HERE". That's exactly the LIES that I've seen creationists do with my own eyes when confronted by posters who describe the science. The creationists grasp at straws in their ignorance and LIE about not being presented with any real evidence at all. The creationists repeat that as an incantation because they are no better at understanding real science than you flakes are at understanding real historiography.

Stone

Please show me where I've said there is no evidence. I have tried to maintain the stance that the evidence is poor and scanty and that should be reflected in the conclusion.

 

[JaysonR]

Where ? I see evidence in the form of "here's what we know about people in those times", but not in the form of "here's how we know Jesus existed."

As I said before we've been told what the conclusions are, what some of the reasoning is, and... and that's it.

For the citation that I provided; they are not given as representations of social culture; they are presented as representations of peoples disposition on the matter at those times regarding the acceptance that Jesus existed.
They are not perfectly errantless, nor are they physical proof.
I cannot offer you that for ancient history.

I give these as simple examples of how I see it likely for Jesus to have existed.

 

[IanS]

Ians;
Neither of those citations that I provided are from Christian theists claiming to know Jesus; nor are they evidence of anyone being a personal witness to Jesus.They are citations that show two separate individuals and their perspective on the existence of their referenced figures, and I have prested the standing that the references are regarding Jesus.
I'm an atheist, so I'm not a Christian theist either, nor am I claiming any indiviual shown so far has veifiable personal witness to Jesus.

What evidence are you referring to? Which "evidence" did you cite for Jesus?

 

[IanS]

Planet good to excellent knowledge about the study of ancient history, it seems...

Fine. So then, please just tell us what actual evidence of Jesus those people of such "excellent knowledge about the study of ancient history" have given here.

What is this "evidence" of Jesus?

 

[Aepervius]

I wouldn't say we should set them aside. But we should be very skeptical of any claims they make. They are valuable information on whoever wrote them and the context of their creation, but they are not reliable sources of evidence for the claims they make.



What war ?

It is a reference to the threater piece "the war of troy will not happen" (La guerre de troie n'aura pas lieu) a word game on the troie example I had and the thread.


Neverwind .

 

[Aepervius]

By that argument, nothing written by Hitler or the Nazis has anything to tell us about who they were and who Hitler was... nothing can be gleaned from their propaganda posters or Nazi defense testimony at war trials.

Which is grossly incorrect.

And if you disagree with the overwhelming academic consensus on this matter, perhaps you could provide some actual support for your contrarian views, based on something other than a misunderstanding of historical methods.

Wrong.

Because we have not only what they wrote, but what they did, and independent report on what they did.

That is why YOU are grossly incorrect in using the nazi example.

But hey, I see you skipped Troy and went for Godwin'ing the thread.

ETA: In fact we know about krystall nacht, oder Auschwitz because of those independent report. If it was the Nazi only we would be reading/hearing , those stuff did not exists.

 

[JaysonR]

What evidence are you referring to? Which "evidence" did you cite?

Post #2772.

 

[Aepervius]

You can't show particle evidence, literally, to someone over a forum medium.
You have to actually sit in a lab and show them if they want actual undeniable evidence.
If you just cite tests in a lab, they will challenge the lab conditions (I've seen this plenty of times).

As to here:
I showed evidence.

If you want hard evidence; there isn't any.
There isn't any hard evidence for most any ancient individual or event; case in point: Hippocrates.

Hu. Actually you are wrong. You can demonstrate quantum mechanic in a "dirty" lab (home) or even in no lab at all. You can cite them the experiment to do , and they can then do it and read it. It might not be spectacular, and difficult but it is doable.

But so far as I can see you (the "certainty" clan) are not even bothering with that, you jsut say "thrust us it is too complicated".

 

[Aepervius]

For me, I lean to the direction that Jesus existed.

I think you have either bought hook sinker and line into piggy's "mythicist" diatrib, or you did not bother reading the thread's poster.

Many of us are simply saying they *ALSO* tend toward thinking the probability that Jesus existed is higher, but the presented evidence do not warrant the certainty piggy and some other in this thread seems to hold there is.

See that is the diffference between "Jesus existed" and "Jesus most probably existed" (thus people like you "leaning" , like somebody saying 60/40, me 55/45).

I do not think anybody in this thread ever said they are sure 100% that Jesus never existed.

The problem , and is shown again with your quote, is that again , the existence of the cult and the story are known, as reported to be believed by the folk, but not the existence of the person. There are no direct independent witness reporting. People are always reporting what they heard from secondary or even tertiary source, half a century to many century later.

Oh and by the way the letter : "Mara's letter to his son begins with: "Mara, son of Serapion, to Serapion, my son: peace." The letter was composed sometime between 73 AD and the 3rd century." That is a wide wide wide gap. Through I will give you that most say it is probably first century , it is not a certainty either ().

 

[eight bits]

Jayson

Accepted means it's considered a reference to Jesus by title, by most individuals in the field.

What field would that be? The question in the first instance is the meaning of a text describing a routine secular event. The relevant qualification is reading knowledge of the source language. As it happens, I'm in (which you may believe or not, just as you please - this is an explanation of my beliefs, not advocacy that you should agree). I understand Suetonius to be using the name "Chrestus." On information and belief, I am not the only reader of Suetonius who reads it thus, or acknowledges this reading as at least a serious possibility.

It's all very interesting that the title can be spelled differently. Unfortunately, the string is also a well formed name as it comes to us in black letters, and there is no affirmative reason to discard that Suetonius meant the name.

If we take it as a name of a Jew...

We might, but the party line is that Jewish and Gentile Christians had some issues with each other, right from the start. Chrestus instigated Jews, there's nothing about him being a Jew, and plenty about Gentiles, Christian and otherwise, that might provoke a response from Jews, with whose reaction Claudius might fail to sympathize.

The dispersion of Jews from their land was far later...

No, it was a particular dispersion that came later. However, the Jews had, for both voluntary and coerced reasons, established themselves throughout the ecumen. Suetonius is telling us that there were Jews in Rome for Claudius to deal with. Rome was never part of the Jewish homeland. Jews living in Rome, then, are fairly described as dispersed Jews.

There was only one such individual sarcastically labeled as a wise king who also introduced new laws around this time period. We have no record of any other individual's fitting this description; certainly no actual Kings fit this description.

Fascinating. However, the letter doesn't say anything about "this time period." The other two figures mentioned were Pythagoras and Socrates. Both are situated centuries before our Jesus, and Pythagoras is not securely a historical person. He is securely a figure venerated by a school, about whom stories were told. Just like Jesus.

The letter moves my estimate about the reality of a historical Pythagoras not at all. And I know that Pythagoras is being mentioned. You will be unsurprised, then, to learn how much the letter moves my estimate about a historical Jesus who counts.

 

[Belz...]

Post #2772.

"Wise King" and "Chrestus", respectively, you mean ?

 

[Belz...]

Hu. Actually you are wrong. You can demonstrate quantum mechanic in a "dirty" lab (home) or even in no lab at all. You can cite them the experiment to do , and they can then do it and read it. It might not be spectacular, and difficult but it is doable.

But so far as I can see you (the "certainty" clan) are not even bothering with that, you jsut say "thrust us it is too complicated".

And even so, we're not asking people to re-do the entire scholarship, so the parallel with doing the QM experiments home is wrong.

 

[JaysonR]

I'll get to propper responses tomorrow, but for the moment I just wanted to ask everyone to please read my adresses as only me.
I am no member of any group; I am not in any clan or the like.
I have not given an absolute certainty stance, nor will I; in either direction.

I am Jayson; not piggy or stone or any other person.
I am not a party or group and I will not assume anyone else to be anything other than themselves.
I will not belittle you nor think poorly of you for not agreeing with me.
I understand the tediousness of this topic well and will always extend my fullest patience and will always attempt to explain myself as best as I can.

I'll get to propper responses tomorrow; tonight...sleep.