STOP! ALT! ARRETEZ! ALTO!
I have not said this. I have used the Thermopylae battle as an example of hearsay testimony in History because it refuted your claim that the standard for reliability in History must be the same than legal standards.
I have shown a lot of examples of anonymous writings that are studied by historians searching for valuable data. I suppose you know that many attributed texts of antiquity were really written by anonymous people. There are some apocryphal letters by Plato and the Pseudo-Xenophon, pseudo-Dionysius, etc. This refutes your claim that historians do not work with anonymous materials. (Have you glimpsed the Egyptian texts I have linked?). I have put these examples because they refuted your claim that the standard for reliability in History must be the same than legal standards.
I have put the example of the first philosophers because is more similar to the Jesus case than famous kings or generals in History. The first testimony of the Ionian philosophers is Aristotle. That is to say, three centuries after. We don’t know the Aristotelian sources for Ionian philosophers. But nobody doubts about the existence of Anaxagoras or Thales. And this refutes your claim that the standard for reliability in History must be the same than legal standards.
Sorry, I have not time to looking for more quotes and I needn’t to do so, because I have sufficiently documented my assertions. And I agree the Thermopylae case is not comparable of the Jesus’ existence case. I have already mentioned why. But it is clear to me that neither anonymity, nor second hand testimonies, nor unknown sources, etc., etc., are sufficient reasons to refuse analyzing critically the Gospels searching for some possible historical facts.
And let me write with emphasis the next paragraph:
All of this aside, my argument is not based on the problem of reliability of the Gospels. It would be acceptable although the Gospels had been invented by a second Century Christian. My argument is based on the intrinsic difficulty for a Christian to invent a humiliating and degrading punishment for his god and the inconsistency of alternative explanations. I need only the early Christians belief and no more.
Well I don't think I ever did say that
"your claim that the standard for reliability in History must be the same than legal standards." or that
" This refutes your claim that historians do not work with anonymous materials.".
What I said about it, is that we should follow that legal guideline here when we are presented with the gospels as evidence of Jesus.
That is - the gospels are not admissible as reliable evidence of what they say, for the same reasons that such anonymously written hearsay from anonymous sources, none of whom claimed to know the facts themselves and none of whom could be named let alone even produced to confirm anything, is NEVER allowed even to be put before a jury in any democratic legal system, because it's totally and completely unreliable and is not in fact, and cannot be, actual
"evidence" of what it says (it can at best only be evidence that the anonymous hearsay authors and anonymous hearsay sources believed that other unnamed people once had some evidence of what was said!). And I said we here should not accept the gospels as admissible as reliable or credible evidence for that same reason.
You introduced Thermopylae claiming that was an example of how historians do in fact rely upon that sort of anonymous chain of hearsay to conclude that such events really happened and should be believed as true, I disputed that and said that I do not believe that real historians claim that events like Thermopylae are true (
"certain" to be true in the analogy with bible scholars making the Jesus claim from the gospels) on that sort of anonymous hearsay alone and with no other credible or reliable external independent confirmation or supporting evidence at all (the Jesus story of the bible is not supported by any other credible external independent evidence at all).
I do not believe that real historians (not bible scholars!) claim that events such as Thermopylae are true, merely upon that sort of anonymous hearsay writing without any other credible form of supporting external independent evidence.
The existence or otherwise of very ancient Philosophers such as Pythagoras is a slightly different matter. Because as I have explained before - what is important to history in the case of individuals like Pythagoras, is not the absolute necessity for the person to have existed or to have done all the things claimed in his name. What is important to history is that we
do have good evidence that a philosophical movement did exist bearing his name, ie the Pythagorean school of philosophers, and espousing ideas said to have originated with Pythagoras himself. Its' the philosophical ideas that are important to history, and the evidence that we have for the existence of those ideas as a school of thought from a very early date that is important ... not whether or not an individual named Pythagoras really ever was the originator of any of it.
And as I have said here many times before, even apart from the above, there are various other problems in the case of using the gospels as evidence for Jesus.
Firstly - Jesus is a case of vast importance to everyone on the planet today. The worldwide influence of Christianity directly affects the daily lives for everyone on earth, inc. atheists and even people who have never heard of Jesus and Christianity. That makes Jesus vastly more important than anything like Thermopylae. And the point there, which some here do not want to accept, but which is inescapable, is that we really do need a much higher standard of evidence for the most important claims in history, whereas it is of almost no interest to anyone at all if totally unimportant events such as Thermopylae are claimed on weak or inadmissible evidence … nobody can be bothered arguing about the fact that Thermopylae is claimed on poor or non-existing evidence, because it’s 100% irrelevant to almost everyone on the planet today. But if you are going to make the claim that Jesus existed and that Christianity is therefore well founded, then you really do need very good quality evidence to show that a vastly important claim like that is actually true.
Secondly - the fact that some historians may believe in events like Thermopylae upon very poor or non-existent evidence such as pure anonymous hearsay alone, cannot be an honest or logical or educated reason why anyone should adopt such a ludicrously weak standard to claim that is also good enough to conclude that Jesus existed. Just because there is hopelessly bad evidential practice in historical studies, that would be no justification at all for saying we should therefore also accept such terrible practice to believe in Jesus.
Thirdly - in the case of the anonymous hearsay of the gospels, what that hearsay claimed as certainly true, and what it claimed as it’s entire proof of Jesus as the messiah who should be believed by all, has turned out to be a string of impossible claims that are certainly untrue miracles. So in the case of the gospels, this is anonymous hearsay claiming as it’s central and essential
“fact” the certainty of impossible miracles on every page! But that is not comparable with other events like Thermopylae which you say historians believe on similarly weak anonymous hearsay either, is it! Thermopylae and the other events you are thinking of, do not consist only of anonymous hearsay claiming repeated impossible untrue fiction, do they? But the gospel hearsay is composed of that, isn’t it!
So unlike Thermopylae, in the case of the gospel writing, it is not merely anonymous hearsay, which would on it’s own be more than enough to rule it out of all consideration in any legal jury trial, but it is also anonymous hearsay which claims demonstrable untruths in virtually every relevant mention that it makes of Jesus!
