Your claim is illogical and cannot even be proven to be true.
Ancient history is not reconstructed ONLY with manuscripts.
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus never existed
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Your claim is illogical and cannot even be proven to be true.
Ancient history is not reconstructed ONLY with manuscripts.
David Mo
Come on, fella, Herodotus is known as the father of lies - for example, he said that ants dig up gold nuggets. You wish!
Be damned with all your jiggledy piggledy ancient history, based on forged manuscripts, and third hand hearsay Give me some coins and photographs for God's sake, oops, I mean for Cthulhu's sake.
Come on, fella, Herodotus is known as the father of lies - for example, he said that ants dig up gold nuggets. You wish!
Be damned with all your jiggledy piggledy ancient history, based on forged manuscripts, and third hand hearsay Give me some coins and photographs for God's sake, oops, I mean for Cthulhu's sake.
Belz...
Fiend God
Gee, Ian. Could you get a wee bit more repetitive ?
Christianity is not evidence, the texts aren't evidence, nothing is evidence. It's amazing we can do history at all. No, this is special pleading on your part. You would never apply this standard to any other historical figure.
The reason I am not going to go through hundreds pages of endless argument about what historians may, or may not, claim to be the evidence of the battle of Thermopylae is -
- firstly it is an obvious diversion to keep discussing an infinite number of other claimed events and individuals, such as Thermopylae, Crossing the Rubicon, Exile into Babylon, Pythagoras, Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Alexander the Great …. etc.
- secondly, we are not talking about any of those events/people. We are talking about Jesus. And the fact that there may be many other figures and events in ancient history which are very poorly supported, if supported at all, by any reliable evidence, does nothing at all to aid the case of Jesus. The fact that Thermopylae may be a fictional event with no reliable or credible evidence, is not any kind of evidence for Jesus!
So let’s stick to the point here, which is the existence of Jesus.
However - as far as the legal test is concerned, in respect of Thermopylae - if the evidence of that event is really as non-existent as that for Jesus, then as I said before, neither any historian or anyone else should believe that the probability is positive to say that it ever took place (or as Ehrman says, and as he says for “every properly trained scholar on the planet”, the evidence makes it “certain”).
You appear to be claiming that historians are right to continue to believe in Thermopylae, even though you say it is known only from such non-existent evidence as Jesus, i.e. where the evidence is -
1. Anonymous unavailable writers who were not witnesses to any of it.
2. Writing to say that other anonymous persons who were not witnesses, believed that other earlier people knew of earlier legend of other people who believed that there had once been people who had witnessed the events
3. But where what was believed to be witnessed was described on every page as continuously claiming physically impossible supernatural events that could not have happened.
4. Where the stories of the events could actually often be found to have been taken from a book of religious prophetic beliefs written many centuries earlier.
5. Where there is zero physical evidence of any such event ever happening at all.
If that is all you have for Thermopylae, and if you are saying that nevertheless historians insist that IS evidence good enough to conclude that the battle really happened, then they are simply wrong - because that most certainly would NOT be evidence good enough to conclude that the event ever took place.
I think what you are actually saying about an event like Thermopylae, is (assuming you are right to say it is known only as matter of anonymous hearsay with nothing else at all support it’s quite fantastic and physically untrue claims), is that historians do no more than to merely say they believe it MIGHT have really happened.
Fine - so nobody here is saying Jesus could never have existed as some sort of person. We have all said that a preacher like that MIGHT have existed. Though not with the characteristics claimed in the biblical writing. He MIGHT have existed. That was never the sceptic argument to say no preacher could ever have possibly existed.
The sceptic argument is only that the claimed evidence for a human Jesus is not good enough to believe that he probably did exist, i.e. more likely than not. NOT that he merely might have existed …. But evidence good enough conclude, as people here have suggested e.g. “60-40”, i.e. more likely than not, that he really did exist.
And that even includes dejudge's position by the way. Even he is only insisting that the biblical figure of Jesus is impossible and could never have existed. He has never said that no 1st century preacher named “Jesus” could ever have existed at all. Though he is adding, and quite rightly imho (and obviously so in fact), that the biblical Jesus is actually the only known “Jesus”.
OK, to summarise that - the point is that there is actually no evidence for any such positive “more likely than not" belief in Jesus. In fact there is no reliable credible evidence of his existence at all. On which basis, as I have said many times in these threads, the best you should conclude is that he might have existed, but that there is actually no evidence for that existence, and on the contrary there is in fact absolutely loads of very definite and unarguable evidence to show why religious beliefs like this are very likely indeed to be only mythical.
And as far as the example of Thermopylae is concerned and that question legal precedent for what would be admissible evidence, and how that would make all of ancient history collapse - your claim is wrong, because historians are presumably NOT claiming that evidence as poor as that, in fact entirely non-existent evidence, is sufficient to conclude that Thermopylae was more likely than not …. All they could conclude in the absence of any credible reliable evidence at all, and in the face of clear “proof” that the once claimed “evidence” has turned out to be repeatedly and manifestly untrue to the point of physical impossible absurdity, is that Thermopylae MIGHT have happened … well, we have all said that Jesus MIGHT have existed, so ….
…. he MIGHT have existed, but -
1. There is actually no reliable credible evidence at all for his existence.
2. He could not possibly have existed as the figure described in the bible.
3. On that basis there is zero reliable evidence on which to conclude that he probably did exist (let alone as a matter of the "certainty" expressed by bible scholars).
Thermopylae is interesting since the main source seems to be Herodotus, and it demonstrates how historians deal with such ancient sources. It is of course possible or likely, that Herodotus made stuff up - in fact, he was known as the father of lies, since he did seem to repeat legends and other fanciful stuff. He also seems to have been influenced by various literary bodies of work, e.g. Athenian tragedy and Homer, and oral poetry and folk-tales.
In fact, he is probably not unusual in this, as ancient writers liked to make things dramatic, if not melodramatic, and they might ignore factual accuracy in the modern sense, for the sake of a good mash-up.
However, some of his stories have been backed up by modern discoveries, e.g. the sunken city of Heracleion.
So modern historians might approach Herodotus cautiously, but not with hyper-skepticism. The old dog might well be embroidering stuff, but at the same time, some of his stuff is plausible if not probable.
It shows how the study of ancient history is not a black and white issue. Myth is often mixed with fact. But one thing that historians can do is to place the accounts against the cultural/historical background - thus the battle of Thermopylae fits quite well with that, as a response to the battle of Marathon, and the desire of Xerxes to conquer the whole of Greece. Incidentally, the Persian army is given by some sources as 1 million, but today that has been reduced to maybe 100, 000!
In fact, he is probably not unusual in this, as ancient writers liked to make things dramatic, if not melodramatic, and they might ignore factual accuracy in the modern sense, for the sake of a good mash-up.
However, some of his stories have been backed up by modern discoveries, e.g. the sunken city of Heracleion.
So modern historians might approach Herodotus cautiously, but not with hyper-skepticism. The old dog might well be embroidering stuff, but at the same time, some of his stuff is plausible if not probable.
It shows how the study of ancient history is not a black and white issue. Myth is often mixed with fact. But one thing that historians can do is to place the accounts against the cultural/historical background - thus the battle of Thermopylae fits quite well with that, as a response to the battle of Marathon, and the desire of Xerxes to conquer the whole of Greece. Incidentally, the Persian army is given by some sources as 1 million, but today that has been reduced to maybe 100, 000!
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There were hundreds of Myth characters of the Jews, Greek, Romans, Egyptians and various regions of the ancient world.
You are conveniently ignoring that in the very same time of supposed son of God called Jesus that there were hundreds of Myth characters and many that were worshiped as Gods.
It is wholly illogical that those who worshiped Myth Gods would worship a KNOWN crucified dead man who did nothing like the mythological Gods.
If the Jesus cult was a New Religion then to suggest that it was started by actual known lies about a CRIMINAL is absurd.
I Ratant
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That "argument" was "hopelessly dead" pages back, and you, and only you, can't drop it, fighting phantasms in your mind endlessly.
Monomania is not pleasant to see.
It wasn't a new religion initially, but a messianic Jewish cult. Its adherents didn't regard Jesus as a criminal, but as a martyr, in all probability.
Where did you get that piece of information?? From your imaginary source!!
Again, show us the EVIDENCE for what you say.
Was that Jewish messianic cult in originated in the 2nd century in Egypt?
Where is it stated that YOUR Itinerant little known preacher was a Martyr of a Jewish Messianic cult.
It is NOT in the NT.
It is NOT in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It is NOT in Philo.
It is NOT in Josephus.
It is NOT in Tacitus.
It is NOT in Suetonius.
It is NOT in Pliny the elder.
It is NOT in Pliny the younger.
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No.
I am presently "CREMATING" the HJ argument. Nothing of the HJ argument will be left after the process is completed.
It was wholly illogical from the very start for HJers to have used sources which they knew were forgeries and NOT eyewitness accounts for THEIR HJ who they DENY was the Christ and Deny that he was born in Bethlehem.
HJers have destroyed their sources for THEIR HJ.
There is nothing left but the "CREMATION" process.
I ASKED you for the EVIDENCE for what you say.
You have NOTHING but worthless unproductive imaginative assertions.
Sorry about that. I'll try to do better next time.
It is too late. The "cremation" process has already started. There is no next time.
The HJ argument has been dead to too long-- it is better if we "cremate" it.
The HJ argument is without "life support" [evidence]
The "life support" of an argument is evidence or data.
The HJ argument died instantly from the start when they attempted to use the "carbon dioxide" of the NT, Josephus and Tacitus.
The itinerant experiment was a total failure.
Your HJ was a PHANTOM--HE ONLY appeared to be human but he was really NOTHING.
dafydd
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Why all the shouting?
dafydd
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In your mind. Whether the world will take any notice is another matter.
tsig
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Roosters always crow loud.
tsig
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I don't know about cremating the HJ but someone has a bonfire in their bonnet.
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