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Post by Ginnie on Aug 29, 2007 19:40:25 GMT -4
(Ginnie )Pliny was a Jewish contemporary of Jesus
If by contemporary you mean "someone who was born 30+ years after Jesus was supposed to have died," then I guess they were contemporary.
Boy, did I screw up. I meant Philo (20 BC - 50 AD), the Jewish philosopher. Thanks for pointing that out. ;D
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 29, 2007 19:44:45 GMT -4
An honest mistake.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Aug 29, 2007 23:05:47 GMT -4
wdmundt, a couple of questions here. Do you know of any first century writings that deny the existence of Jesus? Do you believe that the apostles never existed?
If you acknowledge the existence of the apostles, wouldn't that mean that in reality you just don't believe their accounts?
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 30, 2007 9:56:45 GMT -4
That is an odd question. Why would anyone write that he didn't exist if he in fact did not exist?
What does it matter what I believe about the apostles? I'm not arguing from belief. You show me why, beyond your faith, there is any reason to believe any of it.
What I do firmly believe is that history is replete with ordinary humans who claimed to be or were claimed by others to be divine. All of the others turned out to be just ordinary human beings, so why should Jesus be any different? It is not up to me to prove that he was not divine.
Now, so you don't think I'm just brushing off the "evidence" you provided in the earlier link, let's take a look at the writers mentioned there and at what they wrote.
Josephus (A.D. 37 - c. A.D. 100) wrote the "Testimonium Flavianum," which goes something like this: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
Looks like pretty good evidence, right? Except:
1. Josephus was a Jew and it is highly unlikely that he would name the Messiah and then just drop the subject. 2. The passage is placed awkwardly in the text, in that it comes in the middle of a section of "sad calamities" that happened to the Jews. 3. Christian apologists who were aware of the works of Josephus do not begin to quote this passage until hundreds of years later. 4. If, in the slim chance that the passage actually was in his works, Josephus can only be relating something that was told to him by some other unknown person. This was written around 90 CE.
This passage is likely a forgery. We have good reason to doubt the authenticity of the "evidence" claimed within the works of Josephus.
Tacitus (c. A.D. 55 - c. A.D. 117) wrote this: "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. 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, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired."
(There are several different versions of this passage, with somewhat different language.)
Not as good as Josephus at first glance, but pretty good -- right? Except:
1. Augustine of Hippo, Eusebius, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus andTertullian, do not refer to Tacitus on the topic of the persecution of Christian by Nero. 2. Pontius Pilate was not a "procurator." But most importantly: 3. Tacitus was writing in 115 CE. It is not disputed that at this time there were Christians who followed a Christ. This can only be considered as evidence that there were Christians, not that Jesus was a real person. To argue otherwise would be to claim that any deity who has followers is therefore real.
Suetonius (c. A.D. 69 - c. A.D. 140) wrote this: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Emperor Claudius) expelled them from Rome."
Well, hmm. Just reading it, that doesn't seem like great evidence. And it's not:
1. "Chrestus" is an actual name. Christians want it to be a misspelling of "Christus," but it appears to be used as a name here. 2. The name "Jesus" is not used here, so the passage can't prove anything about whether Jesus was an actual person. 3. This was written around 120 CE. It is not disputed that at this time there were Christians who followed a Christ. This can only be considered as evidence that there were Christians, not that Jesus was a real person. To argue otherwise would be to claim that any deity who has followers is therefore real.
Pliny the Younger (c. 62 - c. 113) wrote this: "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food--but food of an ordinary and innocent kind."
and
"They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up."
Again, there are a few different versions of this, but they do not differ significantly for our purposes.
1. No reference to a person called Jesus. 2. This was written around 100 CE. It is not disputed that at this time there were Christians who followed a Christ. This can only be considered as evidence that there were Christians, not that Jesus was a real person. To argue otherwise would be to claim that any deity who has followers is therefore real.
The writings of Julius Africanus and Origen come so long after the supposed events that I am not going to go into them, unless you require it of me.
So there is your evidence outside of the Bible. If you accept this as evidence of the existence of Jesus, then I argue that you must also accept that any deity who ever had followers was also real.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 10:46:11 GMT -4
Actually, it was Phantomwolf who said you were moving the goal posts, not me.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Aug 30, 2007 10:49:05 GMT -4
It matters because they were eyewitnesses.
What about Pilate's letters that mention Jesus? I just found a bunch I hadn't previously read. Why do you think he was not procurator? Wikipedia?
Sorry ginnie, we're on a runaway train.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 10:49:55 GMT -4
Again I ask, why should any historian who was not also a believer make any big deal about Jesus until there was a sizeable following over a decent period of time? Pointing to the lack of writings about Jesus during his lifetime is not evidence unless there is some solid reason we should expect to find mention of him. He only had a ministry of three years, and it coverd a very small geographical area, in a backwater of the Roman Empire. The Jews were known as a xenophobic and superstitious people who always had strange ideas about religion and new would-be messiahs were rising all the time. Why should any historian of the time take note of another messiah until he had a sizeable and long-lasting following?
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 30, 2007 11:36:08 GMT -4
Sorry about that. I blame the martini. It is claimed that the apostles were eyewitnesses. Just because many people are Christians and Christians believe this to be true -- it does not follow that it is true. In fact, just checking now, I see that Wikipedia says that Pilate was Prefect, though it was traditionally believed that he was Procurator because Tacitus said he was. No, my source for that was not Wikipedia. I'll grant that Pilate's title is a small point and not worthy of much weight. Point 3 is all that really matters with regard to Tacitus. I know of no scholarship that considers the letters of Pilate to be authentic. In fact, having done more than a little looking into the historicity of Jesus, I'm sorry to say that this is the first I had heard them claimed to actually offer proof. A quick search of the internet did provide me with this quote attached to a "Letter of Pilate" -- "Note: This is not a genuine letter of Pontius Pilate; rather, it is an example of apocryphal Pilate literature." If you can point me to a letter of Pontius Pilate that scholarship shows reason to be considered authentic, I would very much like to read it. We keep coming back to that argument. All I can offer is that there is no evidence of the existence of Jesus. Your spin is that we shouldn't expect any. I'm not spinning the lack of evidence. I'm just saying that there isn't any. There is also a lack of evidence of the existence of Xenu. If you argue that I should not expect any evidence of Xenu, is then the case for Xenu's existence somehow bolstered?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 11:59:49 GMT -4
There is also a lack of evidence of the existence of Xenu. If you argue that I should not expect any evidence of Xenu, is then the case for Xenu's existence somehow bolstered? It is if your primary argument for disregarding the evidence in favor of Xenu was a lack of contemporary accounts of his existence in the first place. The argument has been: 1. The accounts of Jesus' life in the Bible are not contemporary with those events. 2. If Jesus had been as remarkable as the Biblical accounts state then the historians of the time would have mentioned him in contemporary accounts. 3. None of the historians of the time mention him. 4. Therefore Jesus was not as remarkable as the Biblical accounts state. 5. Therefore the Biblical accounts are not credible. If you eliminate 2 by showing good reasons why other histories of the time would not have mentioned Jesus then the conclusions do not follow, and a barrier to the credibility of the Biblical accounts is removed, thus bolstering their credibility in some degree.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 30, 2007 12:07:47 GMT -4
I am not disregarding evidence in favor of Jesus. Nothing has been offered here that can be considered evidence in favor of the existence of Jesus.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 12:16:37 GMT -4
The Biblical accounts have been offered several times as evidence for his existence.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 30, 2007 12:42:23 GMT -4
Yes, they have. Now those accounts have to be shown to have some value as evidence. Again -- they are not evidence because you claim they are evidence. The writers above were all claimed to offer evidence and they do not. Claiming a thing to be evidence because it agrees with the answer you want is not to offer actual evidence.
Did any of you (Dead Hoosiers, PhantomWolf, Ginnie and Jason) actually consider the implications of the writers listed above being held up as proof of the existence of Jesus? Were you critical in your examination of them and their works, or did you so want them to provide proof of your faith that you overlooked the evidence that stands against them?
Prove to me that the Bible offers evidence that Jesus existed. But don't say I am moving the goal posts if I offer evidence against it.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 13:04:09 GMT -4
Yes, they have. Now those accounts have to be shown to have some value as evidence. Again -- they are not evidence because you claim they are evidence. The writers above were all claimed to offer evidence and they do not. Claiming a thing to be evidence because it agrees with the answer you want is not to offer actual evidence. The historians listed above, despite their less-than-complementary opinions of Christianity, do seem to accept that Jesus was a real person. How is this not evidence? Or do you really mean that they are not credible? So what you're really asking is "why should I accept the Biblical account?" What are your objections to it?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 30, 2007 13:16:35 GMT -4
Shall I make a guess? It's because the Bible speaks of miracles, right?
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 30, 2007 13:21:11 GMT -4
Did any of you (Dead Hoosiers, PhantomWolf, Ginnie and Jason) actually consider the implications of the writers listed above being held up as proof of the existence of Jesus? Were you critical in your examination of them and their works, or did you so want them to provide proof of your faith that you overlooked the evidence that stands against them?Basically what wdmundt is saying is well represented here: nobeliefs.com/exist.htmhere's a thread on another board: www.worthyboards.com/lofiversion/index.php/t34056.htmlwdmundt, I'm not a Christian and I'm not looking for evidence that Jesus existed, but we keep coming back to this issue on this thread. If you feel that firsthand, eyewitness accounts found on original documents is the only evidence that can verify someone's existence then a lot of people in history didn't exist. If that's the way you read history then fine, I don't care one way or another. But maybe you can point me in the direction of some old Egyptian, Sumerian or Greek documents that contain myths that parallel Jesus' life? EDIT- Pilate's letters? You mean that book
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