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Post by dmundt on Sept 12, 2008 8:49:28 GMT -4
So clearly I shouldn't participate here when I'm drinking. My apologies for being a jackass.
But --
The difference is that "all those associated with Jesus" only appear within stories about Jesus. Using the Apostles as witnesses to Jesus is like using Tom Sawyer as a witness to the existence of Huckleberry Finn. Outside of these stories about Jesus, we have no information about these supposed witnesses.
The witnesses to Socrates do not only appear in stories about Socrates, but their works span many subjects and also serve as reference to each other. Other biographical information about Socrates and his witnesses exists.
Xenophon was a contemporary of Socrates. Xenophon wrote of Socrates. Xenophon also wrote histories of the world he lived in.
Aristophanes also wrote of Socrates. There are a dozen or so other plays written by Aristophanes.
Plato wrote of Socrates. Plato also wrote lots of other things.
So on one side of this debate, we have major players on the stage of history. On the other side, we have characters in stories about Jesus.
I fail to see how the evidence is equal.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 12, 2008 11:28:15 GMT -4
What is the oldest surviving fragment of the Gospel of Matthew that has Matthew's name included? What are the oldest surviving fragments of any of the gospels that have Matthew, Mark, Luke or John's names included? As you probably know, none of the gospels have the name of their author in the text itself. These guys weren't writing for personal recognition. The authors are identified via tradition, and the earliest fragments with the names attached are also the earliest complete manuscripts. Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis is the earliest mention of a text written by Matthew, which may or may not be the gospel, and dates to AD 120-130. Many of Paul's epistles do identify him as the author in the text. MY reasoning is that we need these things? You are the one who has been arguing that because these things don't exist for Jesus that he didn't exist. I have been arguing all along that I can accept that historical personages exist without things like photographs, fingerprints, and manuscripts and that the evidence we have is perfectly reasonable to accept the existence of historical personages like Jesus, Socrates, Plato, and Alexander the Great. You are the one who has taken the counter position, at least up until now. Are you going to agree with me, then, that we don't need fingerprints, manuscripts, and photos to accept the historical existence of Jesus? For the apostles to all be fictional characters there has to have been no Christian church established in the 1st Century, no Church fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Ploycarp, and Irenaeus in just the 1st century - all of which spoke of the apostles), no non-Christian historians who noted the presence of the church in the 1st or 2nd century (Tacitus, Josephus, Seutonius) - in short it is even more unlikely for the apostles to have been complete fiction than Plato or Socrates, because there are more authors and writings that support their existence from closer to the actual period of their life.
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Post by dmundt on Sept 12, 2008 12:00:39 GMT -4
In absence of those things, we have to look at what does exist. For Jesus and the apostles, we have nothing but a collection of tall tales. You can say you know who wrote them, but you can't begin to show it. All you can show is that somebody attached names to tales of Jesus a hundred years later. You can claim "they weren't writing for personal recognition" but you have no way of justifying that statement.
The evidence for Socrates and his contemporaries is nothing like this. I've already detailed why it is a different kind of evidence. Your line of reasoning would allow just about anything to stand as evidence of Jesus.
Believing in a thing is not proof that the thing exists. By that reasoning, there really was a spaceship following the comet claimed by the suicide cult a few years ago.
Josephus is a forgery. We've been here before. Suetonius, writing nearly a hundred years later, speaks of Chrestus not Christ or Christus and certainly not JESUS or a variation of that name. Tacitus was writing nearly a hundred years later and does say Christus -- but says that is a name and does not say "Jesus" or a variation of that name.
So all of your second century historians are bunk as far as providing support for the existence of Jesus.
That there were Christians a hundred years later is not in doubt. But the existence of followers does not prove the existence of the one they are following. If that were the case, then we would have proof of the existence of every deity ever invented.
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Post by dmundt on Sept 12, 2008 12:08:37 GMT -4
I'm out of here for the weekend.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Sept 12, 2008 12:23:17 GMT -4
In absence of those things, we have to look at what does exist. For Jesus and the apostles, we have nothing but a collection of tall tales. I suppose Plato's writings on Atlantis were NOT tall tales? Socrates really said all the things and made all the arguments that Plato wrote that he said? Socrates really was a bum who had pretensions of being a philosopher and taught his students to bilk the populace likewise (which is Aristophanes' portrayal of Socrates in his plays)? Which applies equally well to Plato, only the surviving manuscripts of his supposed writings are 900 years more distant from Plato's actual life span than the preserved writings of the Apostles. 900 more years for the legend of Plato to have been manufactured and for his name to be attached to writings that he never even thought of. And the number of surviving manuscripts dating even to that time is a tiny fraction of the manuscripts of the New Testament. Sure I do. They were writing a religious story that prizes humility and self-sacrifice above almost everything else. You're right - it's not like this - it is in fact much, much weaker. Which was my point in bringing them up again. They can provide support for the existence of Jesus, though it is tennuous, but they provide very strong support that there was a real group called Christians at the time. But if you accept that there were Christians then someone created the group. And created it in living memory of those who joined it as well. If they created an absolute fiction there would be people decrying it as fiction. The critics decry the miracle of the resurrection as fiction, not the existence of Jesus and the Apostles.
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Post by gillianren on Sept 12, 2008 12:52:35 GMT -4
So clearly I shouldn't participate here when I'm drinking. Were that such a thing were against forum rules!
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raven
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Post by raven on Sept 12, 2008 16:19:25 GMT -4
Which was my point in bringing them up again. They can provide support for the existence of Jesus, though it is tennuous, but they provide very strong support that there was a real group called Christians at the time. . According to the Bible, we were originally known as the "Followers of the Way", which only adds to my theory that cults are religions that havn't grown up yet. ;D
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 12, 2008 17:33:32 GMT -4
I've often said that all the term "cult" really means these days is "a religion I want you to be scared of."
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Post by dmundt on Sept 15, 2008 12:39:26 GMT -4
Sure -- and it a really stupid version of the world, the only way we would have to judge knowledge of the past would be to have original copies of the original texts. We don't have those for either side of this argument. So the question is, does that single fact render all evidence equal? The answer is, of course, no. We don't have to have original manuscripts to learn about history. It makes it more challenging, but not impossible. Historical evidence for Socrates is not rendered exactly the same as historical evidence for Jesus just by the plain fact of not having original manuscripts.
Repeating a thing does not an argument make.
We'll see about that.
The existence of Christians in the second century does not prove Jesus lived in the first.
I don't know how many different ways to explain it to you -- but the existence of Christians does not prove the existence of Jesus. The existence of Scientologists does not prove the existence of Xenu. Someone did not have to create the group.
Between the middle of the first century and the end of the second century, dozens of non-canonical gospels appeared on the scene. Most of them claimed to be written by one apostle or the other. At one time or another, many of these gospels were considered to be true by groups of Christians. All that is required is that people believe a thing. Believing does not require truth to the text. ALL of those other gospels have been shown to be forgeries. Some of the texts that made it into the New Testament are also known to be forgeries.
The only reason Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are not considered to be forgeries is that the texts themselves do not contain claims to their own authorship.; they do not identify themselves within the works. If we take the names of the supposed authors from the gospels, we have no other way of identifying the authors.
The authors of the gospels do not tell their stories in the first person. Do they tell eyewitness stories at all? For a good deal of the time, we can say definitively that the answer to this question is NO.
As an example, the birth narrative is not an eyewitness account. Matthew does not mention Luke being present at the birth of Jesus and Luke does not mention Matthew. Neither was present, but both relate this part of the story just as they relate the rest of the story -- in the third person.
Nowhere do we have an explanation from the authors as to what is an eyewitness account and what is not. Nowhere is there any sense at all of the person relating the story. And, in fact, they do not appear to be eyewitness accounts. They appear to be telling a fanciful story similar to other tales of deities of the day. Where their facts can be checked against known history -- they almost always fail to deliver.
Now, I'm no expert on Socrates and Plato and Xenophon and Aristophanes (and in fact I'm no expert on anything), but the bulk of what we have concerning them would and does squash the few pages of the gospels. We have an enormous number of works to compare and contrast among these men. They all wrote of Socrates -- and other contemporaries wrote of them.
If your only argument is that we don't have original texts, then you can make a case. But history is not forced to make those kinds of judgments. The gospels are reed-thin next to the weight of history concerning the men who knew Socrates.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 15, 2008 13:20:58 GMT -4
Sure -- and it a really stupid version of the world, the only way we would have to judge knowledge of the past would be to have original copies of the original texts. We don't have those for either side of this argument. Which is a similarity between the two. Again, this has been my position all along. No, but it does prove there were people in the second century who believed he did. I believe what you meant to say was "the person who created the group is not necessarily the person claimed to have created the group", because it seems self-evident that any group must have founders of some kind. I am well aware of this. Doesn't the fact that apocryphal writings were making the rounds provide some support that the supposed authors they were claiming gave them legitimacy were real authors? Or at least that the communities of the time believed them to have been real individuals? I very much doubt that is the case. You might say that enough evidence has appeared to consider the authorship of many apocryphal works doubtful, but not that they have been positively shown to be forgeries. Some experts believe that portions of the New Testament are forgeries but others believe they are not. The case can be made for either side. That is not the only reason. They are considered reliable primarily because they were the texts thought most reliable by the early church fathers. That is not entirely accurate. John contains textual hints that the author is the apostle John, and Luke has enough clues in it to determine that its author was also the author of Acts. That is too broad a statement. If John was the author of the gospel then he was an eye-witness to many of the events described, despite his identification of himself as "the apostle Jesus loved" instead of in the first person. The book of Acts does contain eye-witness first-person accounts, and the author of Acts was probably the author of Luke. True of the gospels. Should there be? That is incorrect. Much of the person relating the story can be garnished from the text. I disagree. Have you compared them to the fanciful tales of deities of the day? Known history has very little to say that contradicts the New Testament account. We can only say that we haven't found supporting accounts in some instances, not that we have found contradictory accounts. If you're no expert than on what do you base that claim? We have two plays of Aristophanes that mention Socrates, out of a total of 11 surviving plays - not exactly "an enormous number". We have 14 total works of Xenophon that have been preserved, and those vary in length. 5 of those are Socratic dialogues. For Plato we have 35 dialogues and 13 letters, though the authenticity of many of these is in doubt. 10 of the dialogues are written with Socrates giving them, but scholars universally believe they are not transcriptions of actual arguments Socrates made, but Plato using Socrates as an interlocutor. They may well accurately represent Socrates' typical teachings without being actual writings. We have 27 seperate writings in the New Testament, though some are qutie short, and the writings of the early Church Fathers beside them, and then the preserved writings of early anti-Chrsitians which do not question the historicity of Jesus beside them. There is a greater weight of authentic ancient texts that consider Jesus and the apostles to be historical personages than similar texts that consider Socrates to be historical.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 15, 2008 14:27:29 GMT -4
I take it you have never heard of L. Ron. Hubbard then wdmundt?
I'd also point out that the language and writting style of the Gospel of John is very similar to the three letters of John and Revelation, in which the Authour does Identify himself, but them it really doesn't matter to wdmundt because Paul identified himself in every single one of his letters, including writting personal greetings at the end of each (the main part of the letter was often scribed by one of his companions) and that still isn't enough evidence for wdmundt that even Paul really existed.
You mean like this part?
1Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke 1:1-4
vs
1In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. Acts 1:1-2
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 15, 2008 15:07:35 GMT -4
I'd also point out that the language and writting style of the Gospel of John is very similar to the three letters of John and Revelation, in which the Authour does Identify himself, but them it really doesn't matter to wdmundt because Paul identified himself in every single one of his letters, including writting personal greetings at the end of each (the main part of the letter was often scribed by one of his companions) and that still isn't enough evidence for wdmundt that even Paul really existed. Paul is probably the apostle that we have the best evidence for, simply because we have more of his writings than of any other Apostles'. Actually I meant that aside from the dedication at the beginning that is obviously meant to tie the two together (and might have been a forgery - as several apocryphal works use similiar techniques) that there are many more similarities in style and word choice between the two works which make an even stronger case that they share the same author.
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Post by dmundt on Sept 15, 2008 15:56:45 GMT -4
I take it you have never heard of L. Ron. Hubbard then wdmundt? In a discussion of whether or not there is evidence to show that Jesus existed or whether he was a fictional creation, this is a very good point. Jesus could very well be a fictional creation of that day's L. Ron Hubbard. My point was that the existence of Christians does not point to the existence of Jesus -- Christianity did not have to start with Jesus. So yes, I have heard of L. Ron Hubbard and you make my point very clear by bringing him up. Right, John of revelation really is the writer of the Gospel of John. Nobody believes that, and even people much closer to that time didn't believe that John was the author of the gospel. I really like it when you say things like this. It makes me realize how I'm not the only jackass here. In fact, I have never said that I doubt that Paul existed. It is fairly plain that Paul did exist. One could make an argument that he is that day's L. Ron Hubbard. WTF does it matter if Paul existed? He never met Jesus and anything he brings to the table is hearsay, not evidence.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 15, 2008 17:15:07 GMT -4
In a discussion of whether or not there is evidence to show that Jesus existed or whether he was a fictional creation, this is a very good point. Jesus could very well be a fictional creation of that day's L. Ron Hubbard. My point was that the existence of Christians does not point to the existence of Jesus -- Christianity did not have to start with Jesus. So yes, I have heard of L. Ron Hubbard and you make my point very clear by bringing him up. But if Christianity is shown to have begun very near to the lifetime of the claimed founder then that is evidence supporting the historicity of the founder. If we had no evidence that Christianity dated before the fourth century and its adoption as a state religion that would be a different matter. I believe that John the Revelator is the same person as John the Apostle, and so do many other people today. An essential portion of Paul's biography, however, is that he was a persecutor of Christians before he was converted. Again, if there was a historical Paul that is also possible evidence that there was also a historical Jesus. All of our historical evidence is from second-hand sources. The manuscripts we have of the writings of Paul or Plato are all copies of an original, not the original. So it might all be called hearsay - we are relying on copyists that we cannot verify the veracity of.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 15, 2008 18:41:29 GMT -4
Actually he brings more than that. Paul's writtings, and the writting of his companion, make it quite clear that Peter existed, one of the Disciples of Jesus. Of course it also opens the doors to other contemories of Peter, such as James, no, not the Disciple James, but rather James who was the head of the Church in Jerulsalm, and also wrote the Book of James, Then we have Jude, who calls himself James' brother. Of course Peter himself wrote two letters and ID'ed himself in them, and he was an eye wittness. Oh, did I mention that James and Jude were not only brothers, but they were Jesus' half brothers? See letting in Paul suddenly makes a rather large difference.
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