dejudge said:
Your argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE evidence.
You have nothing to contribute.
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Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
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Your argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE evidence.
You have nothing to contribute.
dejudge,
I have written simply
I have written simply
You have replied:
I am utterly at a loss to understand how any of these statements addresses, far less refutes, the point I make. Tacitus, for example, was writing many decades later, and simply tells us that Jesus was executed by Pilate and by later times had become the object of a cult. We know that is true, but it doesn't tell us how well known Jesus was in his lifetime, does it? And what does the fact that the last verses of Mark are interpolated have to do with this question? I'm baffled, as I usually am by your various statements.
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Everyone can see what you have contributed to this debate dejudge, and it isn't pretty.
If you got yourself an education, before you started pontificating about this stuff, you wouldn't be making so many foolish statements.
That is your choice, no one is forcing you to come here and humiliate yourself.
You have NOTHING to contribute and your posts are void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE evidence.
You are wasting time. You have NO idea of the evidence from antiquity.
Now, there is NO known evidence whatsoever in all antiquity from the 1st century pre 70 CE of Jesus of Nazareth, the disciples and Paul.
Even so-called Christians could NOT establish who their Jesus was, and could not establish how he was born, and when he lived and died.
From the earliest recovered manuscripts since the 2nd century or later there are multiple irreconcilable versions of Jesus which is PROOF that there was never ever any known established evidence for Jesus of Nazareth for at least1800 years.
The Jesus character is a complete invention.
Justin's Dialogue with Trypho, Irenaeus' Against Heresies, Tertullian's Prescription Against the Heretics and Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies demonstrate that there were multiple versions of the Jesus story among Christians.
1. The Naasseni call the first principle of the universe a Man, and that the same also is a Son of Man; and they divide this man into three portions.
2. ...the Peratic affirms that there came down, in the times of Herod, a certain man with a threefold nature, and a threefold body, and a threefold power, named Christ, and that He possesses from the three parts of the world in Himself all the concretions and capacities of the world.
3. [ The Sethians]......... affirm that the Son, on beholding the perfect Logos of the supernal light, underwent a transformation, and in the shape of a serpent entered into a womb, in order that he might be able to recover that Mind which is the scintillation from the light.
4. [Valentinus].........(he asserts) that Christ came down from within the Pleroma for the salvation of the spirit who had erred.
5. And the Basilidians affirm that upon Jesus, who was born of Mary, came the power of the Gospel, which descended and illuminated the Son both of the Ogdoad and of the Hebdomad.
6. And (Justinus asserts) that Edem plotted against this (Jesus), but could not deceive him; and for this reason, that she caused him to be crucified. And the spirit of Jesus, (says Justinus,) ascended to the Good Being.
7 And (the Docetae maintain) that Jesus arrayed Himself in that only-begotten power, and that for this reason He could not be seen by any, on account of the excessive magnitude of His glory.
8. But the followers of Monoïmus the Arabian assert that the originating principle of the universe is a primal man and son of man; and that, as Moses states, the things that have been produced were produced not by the primal man, but by the Son of that primal man, yet not by the entire Son, but by part of Him.
9. [Marcion]...... (he says) that Christ is the Son of the good Being, and was sent for the salvation of souls by him whom he styles the inner than. And he asserts that he appeared as a man though not being a man, and as incarnate though not being incarnate.
10. [Apelles]......And the first of these he alleges to be the “Good Being,” whom the proph[/b]ets did not know, and Christ to be His Son.
11. And Cerinthus maintains that, after Jesus' baptism, Christ came down in the form of a dove upon Him from the sovereignty that is above the whole circle of existence, and that then He proceeded to preach the unknown Father, and to work miracles.
12. And Theodotus affirms that Christ is a man of a kindred nature with all men, but that He surpasses them in this respect, that, according to the counsel of God, He had been born of a virgin, and the Holy Ghost had overshadowed His mother.
13.[ The Phrygians]...... they assert that He is Son and Father, visible and invisible, begotten and unbegotten, mortal and immortal.
14. [Noetus].....And this heretic also alleges that the Father is unbegotten when He is not generated, but begotten when He is born of a virgin; as also that He is not subject to suffering, and is immortal when He does not suffer or die.
15.[The Elchasaites ].....these heretics maintain that at one time Christ was begotten of God, and at another time became the Spirit, and at another time was born of a virgin, and at another time not so.
There is simply no evidence that any story of Jesus is an historical account or could be an historical account.
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eight bits
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Craig B
What Micah says in chapter 6 and what Josephus attributes to John the Baptist fit together very nicely, IMO. Matthew 21: 13 is Jeremiah 7:11 played against Isaiah 56:7. As such, there is no blanket rejection of animal sacrifice. However, to claim fulfillment of the Jeremiah does sharply criticize current administration, and maybe the monopoly concept, especially if Matthew is correct in other passages that Jesus had some sympathy for Dunker John's ideas (and didn't much care if his own teaching didn't square with scripture in every respect.)
max
Drawing a big crowd with free eats is not the same as persuading anybody. If Josephus is the standard, then "ten thousand" means more than three. Jesus only drew four or five thousand.
Yes, but that's good writing. Micah takes his opponents' position, staring from actual examples and building to an extreme, revealing a deep logical flaw in the opponents' thinking. The opponent must agree that the costliness of the sacrifice is not a reliable indicator of its pleasingness to YHWH, since nobody does massive animal sacrifice and YHWH forbids child sacrifice. So what does YHWH want? Not sacrifice (which today is no longer possible under the old law anyway), but a good life on earth, informed by a decent regard for one's fellows.
Craig B
No, there was that, too. Judaism was never ideologically monolithic. The Temple monopoly is a feature only of Second Temple Judaism, so there's plenty of Hebraic thought from before that about other ways to be a YHWH worshipper. And, over time, dissidents grew up in reaction to the monopoly, and were able to find support in some earlier pre-monopoly views. The dissidents' case could only be improved as the big hats' corruption became blatant (I suppose like the Vatican or some TV evangelists), and the legitimacy of priestly appointments was shaky.
What Micah says in chapter 6 and what Josephus attributes to John the Baptist fit together very nicely, IMO. Matthew 21: 13 is Jeremiah 7:11 played against Isaiah 56:7. As such, there is no blanket rejection of animal sacrifice. However, to claim fulfillment of the Jeremiah does sharply criticize current administration, and maybe the monopoly concept, especially if Matthew is correct in other passages that Jesus had some sympathy for Dunker John's ideas (and didn't much care if his own teaching didn't square with scripture in every respect.)
max
Of course the argument applies to those matters. They're all contingent questions. All evidence is questionnable. Occasionally a question is answered with a high degree of justified confidence, other times not. Even when not, evidence may allow some ranking among uncertain hypotheses. Whether you estimate that that kind of guidance is valuable or not is entirely your affair.
Acts doesn't depict Jesus spreading his messge, successfully or otherwise. The canonical Gospels depict Jesus barely making a dent in his disciples' thinking, and encouintering determined and unswayed opposition from others. The Gospels acknowledge that the Romans and the Jews don't agree about much else, but they can agree to work together for a few hours to kill Jesus.
Drawing a big crowd with free eats is not the same as persuading anybody. If Josephus is the standard, then "ten thousand" means more than three. Jesus only drew four or five thousand.
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Indeed I am a big liar and you have caught me out. For big lying I will have to wash my mouth out with soap and I will go to the bad fire.
Tacitus wrote about "Christ", or Christus or Chrestus. These are a title, and I think it's pretty safe to state that Jesus was the Christ to whom he referred. If you think otherwise, that's fine. But my opinion in this matter us not a "lie".
Tacitus also wrote about Chrestians which seems to also be the name of group of Osiris worshipers so there is little to connect who ever he was writing about to Jesus. Also given Josephus and Pliny the Elder were both in Rome c64 CE and neither make any mention of Chrestians/Christians is seems logical to conclude Tacitus at best was repeating an urban myth.
Then he was repeating it at Annals 15.44. Nothing I have said indicates that this passage is a "forgery" as dejudge contends, or that my opinion in the matter is a "big lie". I think your stuff about Osiris is nonsensical drivel, but that is very far from implying that I don't think you sincerely believe what you say about it.
Whatever Tacitus may have believed about Jesus, and whatever he may or may not have written about Jesus, he could not have known who Jesus was except from what other unknown people at the time had said about their own beliefs.
But if all we have under the name "Tacitus" is a couple of very brief scant mentions of someone called Chrestus or similar name, written by copyists 1000 years after Tacitus had died, then that time lapse is far far too late to consider such ultra brief writing by hearsay authors to be reliable evidence of anyone ever knowing a human Jesus.
As evidence for a human Jesus, Tacitus is a total non-starter. Effectively worthless.
Bible scholars, theologians and Christians may say they have nothing better and that they therefore choose to rely on such late copyist hearsay sources as Tacitus and Josephus etc., but information like that could never in a million years be considered reliable evidence in any properly objective academic subject (e.g. if we relied upon “evidence” like that in science, then we’d still be insisting the world was flat and that people died not from old age or illness but always from possession by demonic spirits).
Indeed I am a big liar and you have caught me out. For big lying I will have to wash my mouth out with soap and I will go to the bad fire.
Tacitus wrote about "Christ", or Christus or Chrestus. These are a title, and I think it's pretty safe to state that Jesus was the Christ to whom he referred. If you think otherwise, that's fine. But my opinion in this matter us not a "lie".
What a big lie.
You argue that Jesus was a little known preacher and that he was crucified after he created a disturbance at the Jewish Temple.
Stop the Lies.
It is claimed in the NT itself that MANY persons would be called Christ and that there was another person called CHRIST in the time of Jesus.
Mark 13:6 KJV
Mark 9:38 KJV
Stop the Lies.
Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not mention Jesus and does NOT mention that Jesus was a little known preacher who was CRUCIFIED after he created a disturbance at the Jewish Temple.
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That is not the point I am addressing. I am disputing dejudge's assertion that Tacitus' reference is a "forgery". Now, if you are stating that it was inserted by falsifiers in 1000 AD, you believe it to be a forgery. But I think it is original to the work, whether it is valid evidence for the existence of Jesus or not.
The reason it's not valid, is because that gap of a 1000 years is far too long a time lapse between whatever may have originally been written, and what was eventually produced 1000 years later.
The time lapse alone renders it hopelessly unreliable.
And particularly so when it only makes the very briefest of mention for someone called Chrestus, about whom the original author could only have been writing uncorroborated hearsay anyway.
We've been through this before! Not necessarily. We read many or most ancient texts in copies separated from their originals by that order of distance.
Sorry, I forgot to comment on your "hearsay" comment, which you've repeated for the millionth time. I'll leave that to Perry Mason.
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Again, stop the Lies.
1. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not name any person called Jesus.
2. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state any person called Jesus was crucified.
3. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state any person called Jesus was from Nazareth.
4. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state any person called Jesus caused a disturbance at the Jewish Temple.
5. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state any person called Jesus was a little known preacher.
6. The existing Tacitus Annals is NOT even from the 2nd century.
Your HJ argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE evidence.
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And we have been through that sort of reply zillions of times before as well. And apart from numerous other objections, it cannot ever be a defence of using utterly hopeless evidence in the case of Jesus, to say that some of these academics also use appallingly poor evidence for other historical figures/events.
The claimed evidence for Jesus is simply ... utterly hopeless (if it is even "evidence" of the person at all). And that fact is not made any better by saying that people use similarly hopeless evidence for other ancient figures/events.
Well it certainly is "hearsay". In fact in the case of the gospels it's even entirely anonymous hearsay. And in the case of Tacitus and Josephus and any other such non-Christian writers, it's hearsay written 1000 years later by people who were also anonymous and who of course could not have the faintest idea of whether a single word they were copying was ever true.
As evidence, that does not merely “stink”, it rotted away to nothing long long ago.
Are you ever going to tell us what makes you so much more informed about this than all of the History Professors in the world?
Why aren't they all listening to you?
Oh that's right, you haven't studied this subject at all. That's probably why the experts don't take your opinion seriously.
Tacitus Annals 15:44 is probably not an interpolation. I believe that it is authentic to Tacitus. Even if I am wrong about that I am not lying about it. What is this insane list of things Tacitus didn't say? Of course he didn't say them. What "lies" am I to stop?
At last! An acknowledgement that evidence has been provided. You don't like it. Very well. But it has been produced.
Your belief is irrelevant. Your belief is illogical and un-evidenced.
You don't know the difference between "authenticity" and "history".
Stop the Lies.
Craig B said:
1. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not name any character called Jesus.
2. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state Jesus was executed.
3.Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state Jesus was executed by Pilate.
4. Tacitus Annals 15.44 does not state Jesus had become the object of a cult.
5. Up to the 4th century or later Eusebius in "Church History" did NOT use Tacitus Annals 15.44 to argue that Jesus existed.
6. Up to the 5th century or later Sulpitius Severus in "Sacred History" did NOT use Tacitus Annals 15.44 to argue that Jesus existed.
7. The existing copy of Tacitus Annals is NOT even from the time of Tacitus.
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