Historical Jesus

[LW]

How many of the "contemporary historians" wrote about the Jewish Wars and the Jewish sects and they didn't mention Jesus?

One that we know of: Philo Judaeus [~25BC - ~AD41].

 

[LW]

you may also be interested in (Thomas Paine-The Age Of Reason)

Oh, no. I knew I shouldn't click on any link with "Historical Jesus" in the title, but I just had to confirm my psychic prediction that someone would once again post that idiotic list of first-second century authors.

I'm not in the mood to go into much details, but I'll just pick a few names from the list:

Paterculus --- he was apparently executed around AD31. Since some authors put the execution of Jesus to around AD32 I wouldn't be too surprised that he didn't write anything about him. Even the earliest commonly argued date of crucification puts it into AD28 that doesn't leave too much time for an active politician participating in a coup-in-attempt to familiarize himself with some insignificant events happening far from Rome.

Pausanias --- born AD 115, a geographer. If you are going to include a man born 85 years after crucification to the list of contemporary authors, then you'd better add gospel writers, too.

Phlegon --- none of his full works survive. Some old christian authors claim that he mentioned the solar eclipse that supposedly happened during crucification.

But please, do not post that list anymore.

 

[triadboy]

I don't understand why some people don't hesitate to make fool of themselves by dismissing the work of somebody who is an expert in a field.

But, of course, there are experts on both sides of the fence. Should I be forced to listen to an "expert" who has a definite bias toward xianity? I tend to trust secular experts over xian experts.

Why atheists are so much afraid of this Jesus?

Atheists are not afraid of Jesus. Jesus (if he existed) was one of many wandering sages. The myths and fabrications that arose after him proclaiming him a god don't frighten atheist either - because they are untrue.

 

[triadboy]

Oh, no. I knew I shouldn't click on any link with "Historical Jesus" in the title, but I just had to confirm my psychic prediction that someone would once again post that idiotic list of first-second century authors.

You got mad when I posted this list a year ago! Damn, you hate that list!

 

[triadboy]

That is a horribly weak and naive argument from absence. If one were to assume a partial interpolation, the only reason why one would expect to find it referenced would be if historicity was a debated issue prior to Eusubius. Do you have any reason to think that this was the case?

Late 2nd century church fathers were being attacked by pagans because their "Jesus" was the same dying god-man of the mystery religions. How could xians possibly believe their Jesus was a true historical story when there were so many similar stories? (i.e. Attis, Serapis, Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra, etc, etc)

Just think if one of the church fathers would have said, "Well Josephus writes about Jesus as a real person, so he was real". This would have been a wonderful argument for the church fathers - BUT NO ONE DID IT! Because the paragraph didn't exist.

 

[LW]

Just think if one of the church fathers would have said, "Well Josephus writes about Jesus as a real person, so he was real". This would have been a wonderful argument for the church fathers - BUT NO ONE DID IT! Because the paragraph didn't exist.

Origen mentioned the other paragraph that mentions Jesus.

[Edited to add: also, there exists an alternative pro-christian version of the TF paragraph that according to some experts that I'm too lazy to google up right now since last time when I did it no-one bothered to comment it is not a derivative nor a source to the more commonly known version. Apparently two different christian writers spontaneously and indepently decided to add a pro-christian paragraph at the exact same spot of text, if we are to believe those who say that the whole paragraph is forgery. ]

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The longevity of Christianity shows that that this particular theory gives satisfying answers to the majority of people whether you like it or not.

The majority of Christians, to be sure..

The majority of the world's population, past and present, is far from even being aware of the teachings of Christianity...

 

[kuroyume0161]

Kuroyume

I believe that you can't base your reasoning as to whether Jesus existed ot not on the premise that miracles cannot be performed, I think that this is what potato stew wanted to show.

The fact that miracles don't happen doesn't mean that a man named Jesus didn't exist.

I wasn't. I was pointing out flawed reasoning.

The fact that a story about some man named Jesus is at the root of one of the world's more persistent religions doesn't mean that he did exist.

It is reasonable to proffer that nothing about Jesus contained within the Synoptic gospels is based on truth, history, or reality. With that removed, there is no information about any real person, even with all of the supposed contemporary references (most of which are spurious, interpretive, and make no mention of any information about the person that could be used to sustain existence). There are no records of him, his family, or his Apostles until long after the time period.

BTW, Egyptian religion (in one related form or another) existed far, far longer than Christianity has - for over 3000 years. I'm still waiting for those animal headed deities to show up and pronounce their reality...

The number of years in which something is believed and number of people who believe it have no bearing on its factuality.

Jesus was the first dying-godman (to correct my omission in the previous message) who was mistaken for a living person.

Kuroyume

 

[triadboy]

Origen mentioned the other paragraph that mentions Jesus.

Who told you that?

 

[dingler44]

Originally posted by Cleopatra

All the above is dismissed as a typical example of ignorance exhibited by an atheist.

Why atheists are so much afraid of this Jesus?

What is this personal bias you have against atheists? I mean I can accept that perhaps from your personal experience, you have enough examples of atheist ignorance to back up the first claim... but to assume atheists fear the existence of a historical Jesus? Haha, that is just silly.

 

[triadboy]

You were faster than me I wanted to ask you how you exclude Josephus and Tacitus who make the only "external" references to the man that was called Jesus.

Could please expand on why you reject those sources?

Tacticus (115 CE):

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, ..."

From various sources:

The Nero/xian conflict is a myth

"Christian" was not a common name in the 1st century

'Christus' or in others 'Chrestus' is not Jesus

Tacticus assumes the readers know who Pilate is and misidentifies him as 'procurator' when he was a 'prefect'

 

[pgwenthold]

If the "historical Jesus" is only mentioned in one document that most scholars take seriously, plus one probable forgery, and is mysteriously absent in every other contemporary account, isn't that incredibly strong evidence that any "historical Jesus" would have borne no meaningful resemblance to the mythical Jesus?

Moreover, if the supposed "historical Jesus" bears basically no resemblance to the character described in the bible, by what accounts do we consider them to be a "historical figure"?

Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz was inspired by Maude Gauge Baum's niece. Her name was Dorothy and she had an Aunt "M."

Is she a "historical Dorothy"?

 

[DangerousBeliefs]

How come no one wants to debate the "Moses Myth"?

Prince of Egypt? Woo woo!



Seriously, the biggest problem "Historical Jesus" has is that the best evidence for his existance is the gospels.

They support the view of a powerful figure, performing miracles in front of LARGE crowds.

Unfortunately, all sources in support of this occur at least one full generation after his death... and paint a somewhat different picture than the gospels.

They show a little-known figure with a small following which may or may not have been executed by the Romans (it's possible the Jews killed him).

This seems the most likely case, although it is entirely possible he was simply entirely made up based very loosely on an actual person(s) (ala the lumberjack Paul Bunyan).

 

[ReasonableDoubt]

Late 2nd century church fathers were being attacked by pagans because their "Jesus" was the same dying god-man of the mystery religions.

Sophomoric rubbish. You chatter a lot while religiously avoiding substantive answers to direct questions. Show me specific evidence of a 2nd century debate over historicity, or explain your failure to do so. And, while you're at it, perhaps you might share with us the reason(s) for your persistent refusal to address Antiquities 20.9.1..

 

[TheERK]

Thanks for the informative replies. Triadboy, you are aware that the abbreviation "xian" is considered rude, right?

 

[PotatoStew]

Rather than re-hash each element of the foregoing, I refer the reader back to this thread, especially the last couple of pages.

ceo-esq is right of course: the aforementioned thread is a near duplicate of this one in many ways, right down to the appearance of the list of "contemporary" authors who "should" have mentioned Jesus but didn't.

I think ceo's post in that thread from Jan 11 cuts right to the chase... the general consensus of scholars and experts in the appropriate field is that Jesus was a historical figure who actually existed. As he says, this is no guarantee that it's true, however, it should be a good indicator that the evidence points in that direction. Unless someone can present more recent research that points in the other direction, or rebut specific arguments by the scholarly consensus (Meier for instance... no one has bothered to address his criteria or his application of it to the gospels) then I personally see no reason to rehash the already existing thread.

kuro:

If a "miracle" has ever occurred, it, by definition, is a breach of the physical laws that drive and form the universe as we have uncovered them. And any event that contradicts a physical theory and the actual properties/phenomena on which they are modeled would cause that theory to be invalid.

So are you unwilling to admit that the theory *may* be invalid? You are 100% certain that our theories of the universe are 100% correct and 100% complete? That smacks of dogmatism, and is certainly not scientific. You are claiming perfect knowledge.

I can say without any reservation that there has never been a miracle

You can say that, but you can't logically support it. You are still claiming to be able to prove a negative, and to say that that doesn't apply here seems to be special pleading.

 

[triadboy]

Triadboy, you are aware that the abbreviation "xian" is considered rude, right?

is not.

 

[triadboy]

Show me specific evidence of a 2nd century debate over historicity, or explain your failure to do so.

Origen and Celsus

http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/1/celsus.htm

 

[triadboy]

Perhaps you might share with us the reason(s) for your persistent refusal to address Antiquities 20.9.1..

"So he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned..."

Forgery.

 

[kuroyume0161]

kuro:

So are you unwilling to admit that the theory *may* be invalid? You are 100% certain that our theories of the universe are 100% correct and 100% complete? That smacks of dogmatism, and is certainly not scientific. You are claiming perfect knowledge.

You can say that, but you can't logically support it. You are still claiming to be able to prove a negative, and to say that that doesn't apply here seems to be special pleading.

1. A scientific theory offers the best explanation of observable, repeatable phenomena, but is always tentative regarding the introduction of new evidence. For the most part though, a scientific theory is as close to "100% correct" as you can get. Modifications will occur; supercession will occur - but no proper scientific theory has been invalidated to date (in nearly 500 years!!) - but they all have been repeatedly (ad nauseum) validated. The idea of "falsifiable" has more to do with the framing of the theory (its logic) and not that it can be validated over and over and then one day it no longer valid. Newtonian laws of gravity are no longer correct in all situations, but are not invalid.

2. The definition of miracle is a contradiction all in itself. Let's start there. Any event that "deviates from the laws of nature" is supernatural. Can you show evidence for anything supernatural? I thought not. A miracle therefore contradicts the laws of nature and of scientific evidence which is how this universe and science operate. The universe operates as it does and science is a method that codifies our observations about this operation. If operations within the universe could be circumvented or temporarily anulled, then there would be no possible way to add them to any coherent model. As I stated already, there is no way to validate a "miracle", therefore it is special pleading to invoke the possibility of their existence. Unlike a "God" that exists external to the universe (and therefore has protection from existence determination), miracles act directly within the universe. Anything that does this can be observed and measured. That means that it is natural, not supernatural. Therefore, it cannot be a miracle (by definition). A contradiction has no asylum in "proving a negative".

Kuroyume