Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 15:30:52 GMT -4
Does that mean I won the old one?
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Post by wdmundt on Feb 8, 2008 15:35:42 GMT -4
If it makes you feel better to remember it that way, then you should.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Feb 8, 2008 15:50:00 GMT -4
I can tell this thread going to go real good... ;D Okay, enoughs enough. This was already argued over in the other thread. Both of you know that Al has already wib this debate, so lets all just congratulate him. Congratulations Al ! Thankyou ;D I feel the scale of this victory amply repays the effort I put in to achieving it
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 16:17:32 GMT -4
*sigh* All right, if you insist, here's where you were being unreasonable with the evidence you cited, although I still say we're not going to get anywhere until you decide to be a little more forthcoming with what you would accept. 1. Josephus was a Jew and it is highly unlikely that he would name the Messiah and then just drop the subject. How can you determine what Josephus, a Jew living in the First Century, would and wouldn't say in connection to the Messiah? Especially in a text that wasn't about the Messiah or the religious views accompanying him, but was intended as a historical text? What evidence do we have of what Josephus' attitude was towards the Messiah, and whether he would have written more about him? Well the Jews probably would view the execution of the Messiah by the Romans as a "sad calamity". You may have a point here if you can show these apologists you speak of quoting from Josephus but not from that particular passage. It's my understanding that the focus of most apologist works from that early that have survived to the present is not the historicity of Jesus, but the more spiritual aspects of his life - whether he really performed miracles, whether he was really the son of God, and whether he really was resurrected. Josephus would not be an authority on those issues and therefore would not be a likely subject for a quote in works that focused on them. That it must be a second-hand account concerning Jesus himself does not automatically disqualify the text as evidence. We have evidence for many historical figures only from second-hand accounts. Again you can't argue on the basis of what these people should have written, or who they should have referred to. The absence of a quote from Tacitus doesn't prove anything. So because Tacitus used the wrong title this indicates what, exactly? That this is another forgery? That Tacitus made a mistake? Aren't we working from translations of translations here - perhaps some copyist or translator made the mistake? This is a nit-pick. But it shows that Tacitus considered him to be real, and Tacitus was possibly in a better position to judge his historicity than we are today. Spellings were much less regularlized then than they are now. Chrestus could indeed be a form of "Christus". And "Christus" is a name as well as a title. Considering how many times Jesus is referred to as just "Christ" in the New Testament itself, the lack of the name "Jesus" beside it is meaningless, especially when one considers that the Christians werent' called "Jesusites" or something smilar - they derived their name from "Christ". You are more or less correct here too - the author could not have met Jesus himself. However the text is evidence that the author considered "Chrestus" to be a real person. Again meaningless. "Christ" could refer to someone else thought to be the Messiah, but could just as well be Jesus. You're right, this is more evidence of the practices of early Christians than it is the existence of Jesus himself, since the context doesn't appear to indicate that this author thought he was a real person. That's all of it? How can you be sure?
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Post by wdmundt on Feb 8, 2008 16:30:42 GMT -4
Yes, **sigh**
We certainly can't say that it is a "second-hand" account. If Josephus wrote the passage, then it could be a third or fourth or tenth generation story that was written by someone who believed it was true.
As it is, Christian apologists who attack Josephus fail to mention the passage until many years later. It is clearly a later Christian forgery.
And the rest of the examples don't mention a person named Jesus. I'm sorry, Jason, but I am not going to accept evidence of the existence of Jesus if it does not mention his name. That, plus the fact that most of these passages were written 60-100 years later makes them nothing like reliable sources.
If you have something else, then show me.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 16:35:22 GMT -4
And the rest of the examples don't mention a person named Jesus. I'm sorry, Jason, but I am not going to accept evidence of the existence of Jesus if it does not mention his name. That, plus the fact that most of these passages were written 60-100 years later makes them nothing like reliable sources. Aha! So your standard for written evidence is that it must have been written during the person's life time, the writer must be someone who knew the person personally, and it must contain the full name of the person with no miss-spellings. Is this correct? Is this your standard for any historical account of a person, or only for accounts concerning Jesus?
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Post by Halcyon Dayz, FCD on Feb 8, 2008 17:00:12 GMT -4
Does it really matter?
Even if The Life and Works of Jesus of Nazareth had been broadcast live on NKTV Galilee (as a reality show), including execution, resurrection, and ascension, it still wouldn't proof any theological claims.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 17:05:46 GMT -4
Well no, not really. If Jesus wasn't in fact divine then no, it doesn't much matter if he really existed or not.
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Post by Ginnie on Feb 8, 2008 17:16:58 GMT -4
Right now, I would put wdmundt ahead.
And if Jason accepts Josephus as credible evidence of Jesus's existence then you'll never win this one. Almost all of what I have read reiterates what wdmundt has said regarding Josephus. It is obviously a later addition to the text . Josephus is probably to most famous Jewish historian of ancient times. Jason, don't you think that if he thought Jesus was the Messiah it wouldn't garnered more attention in his works? Like, a lot more? Indeed, maybe a whole book just on that topic? And you don't have to put read his mind, it is just logical.
During Jesus's actual lifetime, there is nothing written that has been preserved about his life. All you can use basically as evidence is the effect that He had on people, and then examine who Paul and the Apostles were, what they wrote etc. And on that basis I would say he existed. You may remember the thread I started about the Jesus Myth? There is all this Jesus Myth stuff everyone on the net, but I couldn't find any reputable evidence linking their information regarding Jesus to the other cults and myths of ancient history - at least not as certain or concrete as they were espousing.
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Post by Ginnie on Feb 8, 2008 17:21:11 GMT -4
Well no, not really. If Jesus wasn't in fact divine then no, it doesn't much matter if he really existed or not. You've said that before. The statement is untrue. It just wouldn't matter to you. Let's leave divinity out of it.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 17:35:05 GMT -4
Almost all of what I have read reiterates what wdmundt has said regarding Josephus. It is obviously a later addition to the text. It might be or it might not. None of the texts of Josephus we have today are the original, so it's not like we can do handwriting analysis or look at the ink or anything. Abrupt changes in style or word choice might be good evidence for a seperate writer but are not conclusive. Not necessarily. If I'm busy writing a history I'm not likely to go into my personal theological beliefs, and Jesus' life didn't have a large secular historical impact in and of itself - it was what he taught and what his followers did later that changed the world. Who says he didn't write a whole book on the topic that didn't survive to today? In any case, the writings of Josephus are not my primary reason for believing in the historicity of Jesus. I was pointing out that claims that it's a forgery are not conclusive, not defending it as the definitive reason to believe in Jesus' historicity. Parts of the gospels may well have been written during his lifetime, especially if you consider the oral traditions that supposedly preceded the current gospels and formed a source for them to have been "written". That's because it's all part of the same idea - attempting to discredit Christianity by discrediting it's central figure. But it's impossible to prove Jesus didn't exist, or prove that the Gospels borrowed from other myths.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 17:43:00 GMT -4
Well no, not really. If Jesus wasn't in fact divine then no, it doesn't much matter if he really existed or not. You've said that before. The statement is untrue. It just wouldn't matter to you. Let's leave divinity out of it. Okay, I guess you're right that it might still matter to some people.
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Post by wdmundt on Feb 8, 2008 18:01:42 GMT -4
And the rest of the examples don't mention a person named Jesus. I'm sorry, Jason, but I am not going to accept evidence of the existence of Jesus if it does not mention his name. That, plus the fact that most of these passages were written 60-100 years later makes them nothing like reliable sources. Aha! So your standard for written evidence is that it must have been written during the person's life time, the writer must be someone who knew the person personally, and it must contain the full name of the person with no miss-spellings. Is this correct? Is this your standard for any historical account of a person, or only for accounts concerning Jesus? I would accept an account of the person named Jesus written by an eyewitness who lived within the supposed lifetime of Jesus or that account reported by a person known to the eyewitness. I would accept evidence showing the specific birthplace or place of death of a person named Jesus, assuming that the evidence was reliable. I would accept public records that spoke of a person Jesus crucified by order of Pontius Pilate. I would accept other evidence, as well. But there is no such evidence. At the very best, Josephus' passage would prove that Josephus heard a story from a person who believed that Jesus existed. Lots of people most likely believed that Jesus was a real person by that late in the century. Paul does not count as a witness, either in or out of the Bible. Paul did not meet Jesus.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2008 18:11:19 GMT -4
I would accept evidence showing the specific birthplace or place of death of a person named Jesus, assuming that the evidence was reliable. But what do you mean by reliable here? Like? He says he did. Not during Jesus' lifetime, but after it.
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Post by wdmundt on Feb 8, 2008 18:33:37 GMT -4
Reliable evidence would be evidence that could be shown to be accurate or can be shown to have a high likelyhood of being accurate.
What do you have?
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