Toto

I only ask because your reaction to the idea appears to be based on an emotional rejection, not the strength of the evidence. This doesn't mean that you are wrong, just that I am not going to accept your arguments at face value. In particular, you say that the idea that Jesus did not exist is "absurd". Given the limits of historical evidence, you might say that it was highly unlikely, or improbable, but to say that it is "absurd" indicates to me that you are not here to discuss ideas, but to push your apologetics.

Lance

Nomad: There's a pretty strong suspicion out there (the docs on here on SecWeb) that Josephus has at least been compromised at some period in time. If this is true, his reliability goes way down.

Secondly, all the other sources are quite a few years (50-100 years) away from the actual event. There is nothing to indicate that these are indeed independent citations and not simply stating what Christians knew. Put bluntly, we don't know.

We also don't know if these sources have been played with. Given the vile history of Christianity, this is an absolute real possability.

What is funny is that you are bucking the entire academic community with your fidelity to the uncredentialed Doherty, but you are describing my rejection of his idea as emotional, although I am in agreement with the academic community.

The belief that the Jesus-Myth idea is "absurd" finds support among even skeptical historians. While not using that exact languag I have, Michael Grant pulls no punches and describes the idea as "annihilated." He also rejects your notion that we have little evidence and flatly stated that we have "abundant evidence" for the existence of Jesus. He doesn't say improbable, or unlikely, but "annihilated."

Perhaps you could like to accuse Mr. Grant of having a purely emotional reaction to the idea, despite his own skepticism?

Mr. Grant's quote in full:

Hi Lance

Thanks for the thoughts. Now...

Was Julius Caesar assassinated?

Nomad

Nomad:

It seems to me that you have shot yourself in the foot with this thread.

One of your standard arguments for Christianity is that the Resurrection is so well documented that it is more reasonable to believe in it than not to. Thus, in the Unfairness Of Divine Revelation thread some time back, you said [see page 2]:
The main justification for this statement was your earlier one on the same thread [page 1]:
As I pointed out at the time [page 2]:
You responded rather sarcastically, dismissing my point with:
Now you are arguing (quite correctly) that the assassination of Caesar is not all that well documented, that the contemporary accounts are not to be trusted, and that perhaps we should treat it a bit skeptically. Dead on.

Now later you say:
Quite so. But we should not overestimate just how high that level of confidence is. In view of the points on your originating post for this thread, the probability that Julius Caesar was assassinated are probably not better than 99.9% . And they are that high only because we have overwhelming evidence (in the form of the subsequent course of Roman history, which would obviously not have been the same had he lived) that he did in fact die right around that time, and no reason to believe that he died in some other way. If we had nothing to go on but the reports of his assassination themselves (e.g., if he had been an obscure individual living in a backwater such as Palestine) the probability that they were true would have to be placed much lower.

You go on to say:
Even if the evidence were such that the probability that Caesar was assassinated were only, say 95%, we would not expect to have serious historians saying that it didn’t happen unless they had some concrete evidence to back them up.

In fact, by demonstrating how relatively flimsy the evidence is even for historical events such as Caesar’s assassination, you have cast doubt on some of your own arguments. For example, once we understand that historians are willing (by necessity) to believe that events occurred based on less-than-overwhelming evidence, the fact that practically all competent historians believe that Jesus existed is now seen as far less significant than we might have supposed.

You say that this level of evidence should be quite sufficient to produce rational belief that Jesus actually lived. Perhaps so. But it is not even remotely sufficient to produce rational belief in a miracle, or even in an extremely unusual type of non-miraculous event. No competent historian (other than Christian historians examining alleged Christian miracles) would in fact conclude that such an event had occurred based on such evidence. If the evidence for the Resurrection is no better (or even if it is somewhat, but not dramatically, better) than the evidence for Caesar’s assassination, it is totally irrational to believe in it.

While the Resurrection was not the subject of this thread, it is reasonable to evaluate the arguments you make on one thread on the basis of the arguments that you make on other threads. When you next argue that the evidence for the Resurrection is sufficient to justify rational belief, the arguments you have made here are going to undercut that claim.


[This message has been edited by bd-from-kg (edited May 03, 2001).]

Dear Nomad, why don't you just for once stop firing and come out of your trench for a moment? The purpose of the poll is simply to get an impression of how the people on this board estimate the likelihood of various historical persons being real. That's all. Not for a second would I claim that such an exercise is going to determine the 'truth'. But I find it interesting to see what people have to say, how they explain their estimates, and to see what kind of spread there may be in the results.
For Caesar, I tend to agree with other writers here that he forms an integral part of Roman history, and taking him out of it leaves one heck of a gap that needs to be filled. Considering him mythical has implications which go far beyond his individual person, and will lead to a host of other events and persons which will then become dubious as well. Where would it all end?
However, as you yourself have so eloquently put it, ancient history is nowhere nearly as well documented as many people believe. This will leave a residue of doubt about the most well-known events. Isn't that exactly your point of this thread? Besides, there is also still the (admittedly pretty slim )possibility that I am a brain-in-a-jar, and the entire world an illusion.
So, I would not give 100% to anyone's existence (except my own ?) - but I am not claiming that 98% is a hard a fast number. It could be 99.9% as far as I am concerned.

Hercules would appear a classical example of a mythical hero - but who is to say that there is not a core of truth in there somewhere, and that the stories of his deeds are not based on some long forgotten, real-life hero? If I remember correctly, there are historians who believe that there is a core of truth in some other famous Greeks myths, such as the story of Jason and the Argonauts. So, not 0% - but because we have really no clue, I would keep it pretty low - hence 5%.
That's where they come from. Do they hold value? To me they do, but probably not to many others. Truth? Will we ever know?

So, care to join us in this little exercise, as frivolous as it may appear to you?

fG

To better understand where I come from, I might add that we use a rather similar kind of exercise in my Real Life (TM) before deciding to drill an exploration well. A panel of experts looks at the data, and each decides individually on the probability of the various components of the subsurface model presented. Combining all these estimates leads to an overall view of the risks and rewards involved, and this will form the core of the decision to drill or not.

I know we are not experts here, but it still seemed like a jolly idea.

fG

Hi bd

I am glad that you drew this link between the Resurrection of Jesus, and the assassination of Julius, since I would agree that we do, in fact, have considerable more, and more reliable evidence for the former than the latter. At the same time, as you correctly point out, the Ressurection is a miraculous event, and therefore bears a higher burden of proof than does the non-miraculous killing of a tyrant.

The reason for this thread, however, was intended to show the sceptics here how the study of history works, and how many of the events (like Caesar's untimely demise) that they take as an historical given (and do so rightly I believe) are not nearly so well documented as they might have suspected. On this basis, if we were to apply the standards bandied about on these boards to the study of ancient history, we would end up throwing our hands in the air and confessing that we don't really know anything at all.

To me, this is utter nonsense. It may work for deconstructionists, but in the real world, as Akenson so ably noted, we admit that we can never be 100% sure about anything, then we go back to work. If all you want to be is sceptical, then anyone can do this. People can, and do argue about everything. But when they argue about the stuff that is mundane and ordinary (often doing so largely on the basis that they see it as some kind of trick to make them take the miraculous and extraordinary), they demonstrate that they have no real interest in debating seriously.

So I challenged the historicity of Julius Caesar's death, using the exact arguments I have read on these boards. The end result is very few sceptics are willing to admit that they accept the traditional story of his death, and a few have even admitted that maybe we can't know what happened. The alternative appears to frighten them too much, and this puzzles me. A great many first rate sceptics accept the historicity of Jesus. I actually enjoy reading their books, and listening to them. They challenge me to think hard about the really important things that I believe, and cannot prove as easily as mere historical existence of a Jesus of Nazareth c. 30AD.

But on these boards, where the most basic and elementary things in history are open to question, and mindless mantras about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence are thrown about (even as the chanters fail to realize we are not talking about the miracles and extraordinary) it has become very nearly impossible to engage in rational discussions about Jesus' life. I find this frustrating, and hope to help some of the sceptics here better understand that it is not only alright, but even rationally sound to trust the basic scholary consensus that Jesus lived, taught and died in ancient Palestine. They can believe this and remain committed sceptics and even atheists (or whatever). But if they cannot overcome this hurdle, and bury their heads in the sand in a commitment to know nothing at all about history, then discussion on this board will become virtually pointless.

It is my hope to break that impass.

Agreed.

Your comparison works only if we had no more evidence that Jesus actually lived than we do for the assassination of Julius Caesar. We have far more evidence for the life and death of Jesus than we have for the assassination of Julius, so it is perfectly reasonable and rational to agree that Jesus did, in fact, exist.

To doubt it is to require one to reject less well documented events and people from antiquity, and while we may at some point be able to do this (for example, we find out that actually the name of the guy that invaded Italy in the Punic War was named Hal, not Hannibal, and the people who wrote about it got the name wrong), it is not rational to question such things merely because we can question them.

We can question anything we want, but once we are in the high levels of probability, doing so looks dogmatic, if not totally dense.

I agree.

Perhaps that is the position that some will take here. I believe that this is, in fact, going to happen, and find it quite sad. At the same time, since I care about the study of history, I want to be consistent in what I believe, and in the levels of evidenciary supports I will demand for those beliefs. I have elected to trust the historian, and have no problem admitting as much. Others will choose not to do this. And when they do admit it, then I will help them learn what other events and people in history they must now doubt or challenge or reject, as we go through the list of events and people that are not well documented or known from our past.

In either case, I believe that it will prove enlightening.

If I may, do you personally find the evidence for either the assassination of Julius Caesar or the existence of Jesus of Nazareth to be insufficient to draw a conclusion on the matter?

I would tend to agree with this (I am unsure what you mean by the expression "extremely unusual non-miraculous event". Lots of events in history are extremely unusual). What I would add to this is that it is not, in my opinion, rational for a well informed and educated individual to question the existence of Jesus at this point in time. Perhaps one day someone will build such a positive case that He was an entirely mythical construct, but to date, no one has come even close.

I am curious about this one bd. Do you know a Christian historian that actually says that the evidence for the miraculous events in the Bible is sufficient to prove that they happened? Most that I have read (like Brown, Meier, Chilton, Griffith-Jones, ect) do not do this. Some have even rejected some of the miracle stories completely (Chilton for example rejects the virgin birth and other miracles).

Do not disparage an historian merely because he or she is a Christian. The willingness of such individuals to question and challenge many of the things Christians believe (often with the support of the Church itself) is not viewed as necessarily being a bad thing. At the same time, I recognize that I reject the arguments of these individuals in these cases, but usually, if the evidence is insufficient, I simply say so, and move on.

In the case of the Resurrection, I stand by my claim that it is the best documented event in antiquity. Is that enough to form belief that it happened? I doubt it. Faith does not appear to happen like that. At the same time, it does allow the Christian apologist to show that his or her faith is formed not against the evidence, but in accordance with it, and that we do have reasons to believe.

No, totally irrational would mean that we have no evidence at all. To reject a miracle only because the evidence is insufficient to believe it with 100% certainty may be rational, but may also be wrong. Other elements come into play when forming beliefs in such things, and very often those other elements suppliment our rational thoughts, and allow us to understand the evidence more clearly.

My experience with those that reject miracles like the Resurrection is that this rejection is not based on the lack of evidence, but on an a priori assumption that such things do not happen. To me, this is not totally irrational, but it presents a serious obstacle to exploring and knowing the world of the possible. After all, how many people failed to believe even in natural things merely because they began by declaring such things to be impossible?

I have not claimed that the evidence is sufficient in and of itself to form belief, and have told you this in the past bd. That evidence went a very long ways towards making me, personally, a believer, but the final and most crucial element to establish my faith firmly was much different in nature.

If we can extend the arguments on this thread from natural events to the supernatural, it is to inform the reader that there is a great deal of evidence for the Resurrection, far more than many people appear to realize, and when it is compared objectively to the evidence we have to other events in antiquity, it is actually an extraordinary amount of evidence. But for the purposes of this thread, I am content if the readers agree that the evidence for the actual earthly existence of Jesus is sufficient for them to agree that He did actually live.

In other words, I only ask to have others agree that Jesus LIVED. I will not ask them to go the final step and agree that He LIVES. That step is too big to ask on a discussion board, and far beyond my ability, or even my ambition.

Peace,

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 03, 2001).]

Lance

Nomad: You getting going around in circles saying we have all this wonderful documentation as the life of Jesus. WE DO NOT. We have 5 vague references in documents that are not close in time and that may have been compromised by people with an agenda. And the further away you move, the more compromised you get. Do you not understand your religion's ugly history?

So where is all this wonderful documentation? It is not there.

I also agree with you that history is rather vague. The further back you go, the murkier it gets and about all you can do is make educated guesses in some spots.

I do think you are over-simplifying the Caesar argument as well. I think there are far more sources there that at least agree with the majority of facts.

What are these "far more" sources?