Did Jesus exist?

[DC]

watched an interesting debate on this topic.
its 2 hours so most will not watch it. but for those willing to take that time, its 4 views , the view of a Jewish historian, a Moslem, a christian and a mythicist. at the univercity michigan dearborn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5xXIm1-D5Y

 

[turingtest]

Aren't you smart?

This statement represents my argument.

I will consider that Jesus is a figure of mythology based on the existing evidence and until new evidence surfaces.

Please, record my statements for future references so that you won't ask me the same question over and over.

I did the same thing for the God of the Jews, Satan the Devil, the angel Gabriel, the Holy Ghost, Adam and Eve--I consider them figures of myth based on the existing evidence and until new evidence surfaces.

Now, you tell me what statement represents your argument?

Well, I'm really only asking you if your mythology construct has room for the possibility that it might have been based on a real person, however much misrepresented; but never mind- please do carry on with your self-righteous self.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Your claim that Chrestians and Christians were used interchangeable does not help the HJ argument because you have no actual dated 1st century writing to demonstrate what you say.

You have an 11th century copy which shows signs of manipulation and want to argue for an little known HJ.

Now, now, now!!! If ChrEstians and ChrIstians were used interchangeable why the need to manipulate the word ChrEstians?

Why attempt to change the "E" to an "I"?

There is an answer.

The ChrEstians were NOT Jesus cult Christians.

Most likely because some scribe decided to change the spelling to the one hat had become more accepted. Tell us, why did no one bother to change the spelling in the Codex Sinaiticus?

 

[The Big Dog]

You are very familiar with scholarly analysis? You are a self declared expert upon it? And you say Tacitus had the documents that showed Jesus was a real person? OK, excellent. So where are these documents then?

How do you know there ever were any such documents?

How do you know that any such documents ever mentioned anything true about anyone named Jesus?

How do you know that Tacitus had the documents?

Where and when did Tacitus get hold of these documents proving Jesus?

Can you show where Tacitus said he had those documents proving Jesus?

Can you provide any evidence of anyone at that time saying Tacitus had documents proving the life of Jesus?

No? Why not?

Don’t tell me that you are merely making all this up?

Gish gallop? Really? Furthermore where I said documents regarding Pilate, you ignored what I wrote and created a complete straw man that I had said he had documents that "showed Jesus was a real person." I did not say that.

It would appear that you are the one who is making this all up.

By the way, actual scholars know that Tacitus had access to substantial volumes of Roman records. You may wish to review the actual historical data.

 

[The Big Dog]

Most likely because some scribe decided to change the spelling to the one hat had become more accepted. Tell us, why did no one bother to change the spelling in the Codex Sinaiticus?

Furthermore, of course, the actual text shows that he was clearly referring to an individual that suffered the ultimate penalty by Pilate, a fact that has been studiously ignored by the Mythticians in focusing on a typo in a section that they claim is a forgery anyway!

 

[pakeha]

Gish gallop? Really? Furthermore where I said documents regarding Pilate, you ignored what I wrote and created a complete straw man that I had said he had documents that "showed Jesus was a real person." I did not say that.

It would appear that you are the one who is making this all up.

By the way, actual scholars know that Tacitus had access to substantial volumes of Roman records. You may wish to review the actual historical data.

Roman Senatorial records, yes, of course.
But not the Imperial records for the Prefecture of Pontius Pilate, correct me if I'm wrong.

About Tacitus' reports of the Great Fire, I posted this in another thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9786555&postcount=2687

Apparently the archeological evidence differs widely from Tacitus' account.

 

[Iamme]

I have spent a great deal of time reading some pages of this thread and regarding historical authors and the authenticity, and the ensuing arguments.
.
I see the trees arguing thru the forest.
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My forest had me google ``did `moses or abraham come first?`...as i had a hunch, but couldnt remember.
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The answer i recieved told me everything i needed to know about the forest...which includes the OF(old forest), and the NF(new forest)...as then i realized the NF was built upon the OF...
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...and that there probably never was an OF because it had suspect soil to grow in.
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The suspect soil represents everything the old law was built around stemmed from a belief a God chose THEIR people over all peoples on Earth...the Hebrew nation...to form a covenant with. And nobody else....like an exclusive club.
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That to me sends up red flags. Bad soil.
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I dont need to figure out which authors from 1900 or so years ago were telling the truth.

 

[Iamme]

I should add, however, that as the old forest started dying off, this helped create some better soil for the new forest. The old forest had giant trees that could fall on people and kill them.
But the new forest was more forgiving with smaller trees and savannahs mixed in.
.
Lol

 

[Foster Zygote]

These absurd demands for "Documents" just demonstrate ignorance.

It certainly shows ignorance of the deliberate destruction of the vast majority of government records during the First Jewish-Roman War.

 

[dejudge]

Gish gallop? Really? Furthermore where I said documents regarding Pilate, you ignored what I wrote and created a complete straw man that I had said he had documents that "showed Jesus was a real person." I did not say that.

Please tell us what you did say. Did you say this?

Furthermore, of course, the actual text shows that he was clearly referring to an individual that suffered the ultimate penalty by Pilate, a fact that has been studiously ignored by the Mythticians in focusing on a typo in a section that they claim is a forgery anyway!

Did you say this?

Actually, there seems to be no possibility whatsoever that Tacitus was repeating what he was told by Christians. There seems to be no dispute that he was repeating common knowledge about what Romans of the time knew about the Christians in their community. Hence the abusive descriptions that were not repeated by later Apologists.

There is no chance that Tacitus based anything he wrote on the bible, therefore, this is an authentic independent source confirming the fact of the extreme penalty of the Christ by Pilate.

Please, tell us what you said because there is a poster with a user name "16.5 who said Tacitus Annals is "an independent source confirming the fact of the extreme penalty of the Christ by Pilate".

Are you now back pedaling and arguing that Christus in Tacitus was not a real person?

 

[The Big Dog]

Please tell us what you did say. Did you say this?



Did you say this?



Please, tell us what you said because there is a poster with a user name "16.5 who said Tacitus Annals is "an independent source confirming the fact of the extreme penalty of the Christ by Pilate".

Are you now back pedaling and arguing that Christus in Tacitus was not a real person?

No.

Are you ever going to acknowledge that your argument about the "missing" text in Tacitus is ludicrous?

 

[maximara]

Ironic, isn't it?

Dejudge omitted information from an article he cited about Tacitus in an attempt to show that a scribal alteration of the word "Chrestians" to "Christians" in an 11th Century copy of Annals proved that Tacitus was actually talking about a completely different group of people. He quoted a bit about how a scholar noticed the seeming alteration in 1902 and that it was later confirmed by ultra-violet analysis. What he neglected to quote was the rather extensive explanation immediately following this passage that explains that "Chrestians" and "Christians" was used interchangeably during the early Christian era, and that the 4th Century Codex Sinaiticus uses the spelling "Chrestianoi" all three times that the name for Christians is mentioned in the New Testament.

He may not like Christianity, but he sure uses a lot of the same defense mechanisms for what he wants to believe.

Which if one version of the 134 CE Hadrian to Servianus letter is accurate would have lead to loads of confusion:

"Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about by every breath of fame. The worshipers of Serapis (here) are called Chrestians and those who are devoted to the god Serapis (I find), call themselves Bishops of Chrestus are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Chrestian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Chrestus. They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, and fruitful, and in it no one is idle."

Serapis for those who don't know is anther name of Osiris and under that name can be traced all the way back to 323 BCE (Reported from Arrian, Anabasis, VII. 26.) If followers of Serapis were called Chrestians then this would have lead to no end of confusion; it is sort of like turning on Great Chefs and expecting a show about Great Native American leaders ie Chiefs.

 

[Brainache]

Which if one version of the 134 CE Hadrian to Servianus letter is accurate would have lead to loads of confusion:

"Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about by every breath of fame. The worshipers of Serapis (here) are called Chrestians and those who are devoted to the god Serapis (I find), call themselves Bishops of Chrestus are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Chrestian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Chrestus. They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, and fruitful, and in it no one is idle."

Serapis for those who don't know is anther name of Osiris and under that name can be traced all the way back to 323 BCE (Reported from Arrian, Anabasis, VII. 26.) If followers of Serapis were called Chrestians then this would have lead to no end of confusion; it is sort of like turning on Great Chefs and expecting a show about Great Native American leaders ie Chiefs.

Except the problem for you is that the Emperor is just saying that they are all as bad as each other. Not confusing one with the other, really. Why would you think that was the case?

 

[maximara]

Except the problem for you is that the Emperor is just saying that they are all as bad as each other. Not confusing one with the other, really. Why would you think that was the case?

Because of the variant of the letter where Chrestians is rendered Christains and Chrestus is Christ:

"Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about by every breath of fame. The worshipers of Serapis (here) are called Christians, and those who are devoted to the god Serapis (I find), call themselves Bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ. They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, and fruitful, and in it no one is idle."



Now compare that version to the one that was often quoted over 100 years ago:


"Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about by every breath of fame. The worshipers of Serapis (here) are called Chrestians, and those who are devoted to the god Serapis (I find), call themselves Bishops of Chrestus are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Chrestian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Chrestus. They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury; but their city is prosperous, rich, and fruitful, and in it no one is idle." (Drews, Arthur (1912) The witnesses to the historicity of Jesus)


Somebody is being cute with the translation and given what happened with Josephus it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out who.

 

[IanS]

Gish gallop? Really? Furthermore where I said documents regarding Pilate, you ignored what I wrote and created a complete straw man that I had said he had documents that "showed Jesus was a real person." I did not say that.

It would appear that you are the one who is making this all up.

By the way, actual scholars know that Tacitus had access to substantial volumes of Roman records. You may wish to review the actual historical data.

Well despite your belief in Jesus, as is now obvious to everyone, you have absolutely no case at all.

You are claiming Tacitus as evidence of Jesus. But everyone here knows that if Tacitus was not even born until c.56AD then he could not possibly have ever been a witness to a messiah who was supposedly executed c.30AD.

That's what is called "hearsay" - when someone like Tacitus writes about things he did not know himself. Tacitus was not, and could not be, the source of his own stories of Jesus. The only thing Tacitus could ever write about Jesus, was what other people had told Tacitus.

But in that case it is the other people, those who told the stories to Tacitus, that were supposedly the source of the evidence. So who were those other sources? The answer to that is we have absolutely no idea. Because Tacitus fails ever to mention anyone who told him those stories.

 

[Brainache]

Well despite your belief in Jesus, as is now obvious to everyone, you have absolutely no case at all.

You are claiming Tacitus as evidence of Jesus. But everyone here knows that if Tacitus was not even born until c.56AD then he could not possibly have ever been a witness to a messiah who was supposedly executed c.30AD.

That's what is called "hearsay" - when someone like Tacitus writes about things he did not know himself. Tacitus was not, and could not be, the source of his own stories of Jesus. The only thing Tacitus could ever write about Jesus, was what other people had told Tacitus.

But in that case it is the other people, those who told the stories to Tacitus, that were supposedly the source of the evidence. So who were those other sources? The answer to that is we have absolutely no idea. Because Tacitus fails ever to mention anyone who told him those stories.

Are you saying that Tacitus invented the Christians living in Rome in the 60s?

 

[DC]

Are you saying that Tacitus invented the Christians living in Rome in the 60s?

are you saying tacitus story is evidence for a historical jesus having existed? and that is accepted by historians? his story is evidence that Christians existed, but not for HJ himself.

 

[The Big Dog]

Well despite your belief in Jesus, as is now obvious to everyone, you have absolutely no case at all.

You are claiming Tacitus as evidence of Jesus. But everyone here knows that if Tacitus was not even born until c.56AD then he could not possibly have ever been a witness to a messiah who was supposedly executed c.30AD.

That's what is called "hearsay" - when someone like Tacitus writes about things he did not know himself. Tacitus was not, and could not be, the source of his own stories of Jesus. The only thing Tacitus could ever write about Jesus, was what other people had told Tacitus.

But in that case it is the other people, those who told the stories to Tacitus, that were supposedly the source of the evidence. So who were those other sources? The answer to that is we have absolutely no idea. Because Tacitus fails ever to mention anyone who told him those stories.

Why does Pointing out the logical flaws in the Mythticians' arguments shed light on what I do or do not believe.

First of all, hearsay is evidence, of course, and is admissible in a court of law where there are sufficient indicia of reliability. A perfect example of that is based of government records and activities, such as Pilate's existence and activities.

Further, Tactius clearly corroborates much of the Jesus story and the existence of Christianity in Rome within a generation after his death, and appears to have been such common knowledge that no citation was necessary.

 

[IanS]

Why does Pointing out the logical flaws in the Mythticians' arguments shed light on what I do or do not believe.

First of all, hearsay is evidence, of course, and is admissible in a court of law where there are sufficient indicia of reliability. A perfect example of that is based of government records and activities, such as Pilate's existence and activities.

Further, Tactius clearly corroborates much of the Jesus story and the existence of Christianity in Rome within a generation after his death, and appears to have been such common knowledge that no citation was necessary.

Anonymous hearsay is never allowed in a jury trial (i.e. where a jury is required to hear witness testimony and consider whether or not they think it its truly evidence of a real event).

In the writing of Tacitus, the source of the evidence is anonymous.

That is not testimony legally fit to put before a jury, because it has long since been ruled in law as far too unreliable, and with no possibility of the unknown unnamed witness being available to confirm what was said on his/her behalf.

And before you say we are not in a court of law, nobody is saying we are in a court of law. What I am saying in that respect is simply that legal courts have highlighted why such evidence is too unreliable even to be considered by any objective persons seeking a reliable conclusion.

But the bottom line here is that Tacitus himself cannot be presenting any evidence of whatever happened to Jesus, because it was physically impossible for him personally ever to know any such evidence. What Tacitus is presenting is not his own evidence of Jesus ... all Tacitus is presenting, all he can possibly present, is what he believed to have once been said by unknown anonymous hearsay sources who apparently thought there was certain items of evidence ... albeit we have no idea why those sources thought any of this "evidence" was true (because we have no idea who those sources were, or how trustworthy they were, or whether any of them even claimed to have ever themselves witnessed anything at all about Jesus). That's really why anonymous hearsay like is never fit to put before the consideration of jury, i.e. because it's not actually evidence at all, it's merely a claim that some other unknown unavailable persons once claimed to know the evidence.

It’s not evidence of Jesus.

 

[The Big Dog]

Anonymous hearsay is never allowed in a jury trial (i.e. where a jury is required to hear witness testimony and consider whether or not they think it its truly evidence of a real event).

In the writing of Tacitus, the source of the evidence is anonymous.

That is not testimony legally fit to put before a jury, because it has long since been ruled in law as far too unreliable, and with no possibility of the unknown unnamed witness being available to confirm what was said on his/her behalf.

And before you say we are not in a court of law, nobody is saying we are in a court of law. What I am saying in that respect is simply that legal courts have highlighted why such evidence is too unreliable even to be considered by any objective persons seeking a reliable conclusion.

But the bottom line here is that Tacitus himself cannot be presenting any evidence of whatever happened to Jesus, because it was physically impossible for him personally ever to know any such evidence. What Tacitus is presenting is not his own evidence of Jesus ... all Tacitus is presenting, all he can possibly present, is what he believed to have once been said by unknown anonymous hearsay sources who apparently thought there was certain items of evidence ... albeit we have no idea why those sources thought any of this "evidence" was true (because we have no idea who those sources were, or how trustworthy they were, or whether any of them even claimed to have ever themselves witnessed anything at all about Jesus). That's really why anonymous hearsay like is never fit to put before the consideration of jury, i.e. because it's not actually evidence at all, it's merely a claim that some other unknown unavailable persons once claimed to know the evidence.

It’s not evidence of Jesus.

Your entire speculation rests on the claim that it was anonymous. There is absolutely no support for your proposition that the source(s) of the evidence were anonymous to Tacitus. This is quite like the "missing" text argument that I destroyed a few days ago.

Further, the history of Pilate was of course neither anonymous nor unreliable.

Tacitus is almost universally accepted as perhaps the earliest third party source of corroboration of followers of Christus in Rome a generation after he suffered the ultimate penalty under Pilate.