Juststeve

avi:

1. There was no one who was the focus of attention for every living person at the time of Jesus.

2. That Jesus was not better known is evidence for the proposition that he didn't do miracles, didn't raise the dead and didn't feed multitudes. It is not evidence against the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth existed and that legendary material latter became associated with him.

Steve

mountainman

Hi avi,

You might also want to ask the question why did the comparison between Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus have to wait for "Hierocles" in the 4th century. I think the answer you provide above also suffices for this question.



Best wishes,


Pete

avi

Thanks Steve. One imagines, perhaps in error, that there were several messianic figures in early history, two three millenia before the present day.

Mani apparently drew huge throngs. The Chinese rushed down to Afghanistan, to worship/study Buddhism. Zarathustra was described as charismatic.....

But, none of these figures can hold a candle to the legends of Jesus. Problem is, Steve, once we acknowledge that one of the legends is nonsensical, then, where do we draw the line?

What if Babe was not really blue? If the ox was still Paul's partner, companion, and dependable ally, why shouldn't he be revered by us, today, even if his mantle was only an ordinary brown color, instead of regal blue?

You wish to cite Tacitus as evidence in support of an historical Jesus, but the evidence, the actual data itself, is completely unconvincing.

Perhaps I overlooked your description in this thread, explaining WHY you found the manuscript data for Tacitus persuasive, AS EVIDENCE.

avi

Kapyong

Gday,

FYI :
I compared Mani with Jesus in terms of how and when he was referred to after his alleged life :

http://members.iinet.net.au/~dal.sah...aniVJesus.html

Many spoke of Mani.
Jesus much less so.


Kapyong

hjalti

Roger Pearse, why don't you consider spin's blog post and his critique of Voorst's points to be an useful contribution to this discussion?

Juststeve

Avi:

I tend to agree with Chaucer in saying the case for an historical Jesus is a cumulative one. As is almost always so with a cumulative case one can quibble with each piece of evidence individually but cumulatively they become convincing.

Consider a famous/infamous court case, that of O.J. Simpson. 2 trials, one criminal, one civil, one finding of not guilty for O.J., one finding that O.J.was responsible for the deaths. Such a thing happens because in real life we depend on the accumulation of evidence to support conclusions. In the case of Simpson there was no piece of slam dunk evidence, no video tape, no eyewitness, there was just an accumulation of circumstances that led one jury to say that he did it, another to say they had reasonable doubt. Defense lawyers were able to pick at every piece of evidence but after a while the accumulated evidence becomes dispositive, at least in the mind of some jurors. So it is with HJ. Some of us find the cumulative case dispositive. Others don't.

As to your other point, I draw a bright line at the naturally impossible. I don't believe any story about anyone performing miracles. That includes Jesus or anyone else. If the story says someone walked on the water, I consider the story to untrue. There is a lot in the Jesus story that fails this test, but not everything.

Steve

Toto

There was a bit more to the OJ case. In the criminal case, the prosecution had to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt; in the civil case, there was a lower standard.

In the criminal case, one of the prosecution's witnesses, policeman Mark Fuhrman, was shown to have committed perjury on the stand on the issue of his use of a racial epithet. There is an unspoken rule that when the police are shown to have lied, the accused is more likely to be acquitted. This is particularly true when there was evidence tying OJ to the crime, but his attorneys argued that it was planted or manufactured.

All that said, there was more than a cumulative case of evidence connecting OJ to the murders.

The so called cumulative case for the historical Jesus does not include any eyewitnesses, forensic evidence, or other similar items, but, like the OJ case, there are allegations of manufactured or planted evidence.

Chaucer

Once and for BLOODY all, the Jesus that skeptics like JustSteve and myself and the other regular HJers here are referencing is the entirely human Jesus of Palestine who was nailed by the Romans AND DULY DESCRIBED AS SUCH IN EXTRA-BIBLICAL SOURCES LIKE TACITUS AND ANTIQ. 20 AND SUETONIUS. It is NOT the magic man as embellished in the N.T. People like JustSteve and myself have now made that point so BLOODY often that I can't help wondering if this straw man of the N.T. is being routinely trotted out by mythers purely for the express purpose of blurring the argument.

Chaucer

avi

@Chaucer and Juststeve:

Apologies, I did not realize that you regard JC as an historical figure based upon Tacitus, but not the New Testament.

May I again, humbly ask that you point me in the direction of a post of either one of you, which addresses the manuscript evidence of Tacitus?

I am wholly disinterested in the evidence for the existence of Paul Bunyan, or the criminal acts of OJ Simpson.

I am very keen to learn, since you both reject the gospels and Paul's epistles, how the corrupted manuscript data, supposedly from Tacitus, convinces you of anything.....

Cumulative evidence can only come in to play, if the "evidence" is indeed regarded as legitimate. Before it can accumulate, it must first be admitted as evidence, rather than wishful thinking...

If the evidence, on the contrary, is forged, corrupted, interpolated, mutilated, and unintelligible, then, it is not evidence, at all. One who values continued existence here on planet earth may not throw the rotting, putrid carcass of a wild boar, killed two weeks earlier, (and not "dressed", i.e. gutted,) but simply abandoned, into the boiling pot, and call it Cassoulet. Each piece of cumulative evidence must still be valid evidence, not manure.

Where is your analysis of the extant manuscript attributed to Tacitus? What method do you employ to establish its veracity?

avi

spin

This guy for all his hysteria just doesn't understand the important notion of cultural hegemony. It can be seen today with American journalists who don't publish certain topics or question certain issues because of editorial policy or because they accept their role as organs under the control of the state. We've seen cultural hegemony in the representation of gay people, of black people, of women in popular entertainment.

Cultural hegemony affects the presentation of ideas within a society. Think of democracy as presented in the Soviet Union, of history as presented in Hitler's Germany, of sexuality in Victoria's Britain. The effects of cultural hegemony are the exclusion of information and viewpoints, the presentation of culturally acceptable information and images, the reduction of intellectual avenues of thought, the manipulation of information so as to conform to the cultural norms, through both bias and fraudulent means.

Christianity maintained a cultural hegemony from the time of Theodosius (and to a lesser extent from the time of Constantine) until the ascendancy of science, though there is still the vestiges of that hegemony active today (eg in the toadying by presidents to the christian lobby).

Acts that reflect christian hegemony include:

1. the placement of Jesus as an established fact;

2. the production of materials that give information about Jesus;

3. the augmentation of works to deal with matters relating to Jesus, both religious and classical works;

4. the dissemination of apologetic materials to deal with any roughnesses;

5. the suppression of any contrary views, heresies, trials, book burnings;

It was in the christian hegemonic interest to doctor sources. We see this certainly with the TF and with the works of Julian.

The naivety of non-religious views which blithely accept christian maintained materials that refer to Jesus as veracious can only be condemned with the utmost rigor. One cannot be a skeptic and make facile statements like this:

Once and for BLOODY all, the Jesus that skeptics like JustSteve and myself and the other regular HJers here are referencing is the entirely human Jesus of Palestine who was nailed by the Romans AND DULY DESCRIBED AS SUCH IN EXTRA-BIBLICAL SOURCES LIKE TACITUS AND ANTIQ. 20 AND SUETONIUS.

Someone saying stuff like this has already given up their critical facilities and may as well believe whatever rubbish christian literature provides them. But ironically they can't, for they have bought into aspects of the current scientific hegemony, so they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They can neither be skeptics nor believers, so they vacillate between the two.

Given the opportunity to deal with a criticism of what Chaucer claims was "duly described.. in.. Tacitus", he couldn't muster a sausage. He was dumb. He stayed silent as a lamb, unable to bring his analytical skills to bear. Four times in the thread ironically called "The overwhelming case for a historical Jesus (was A surpising find!) " I posted specific criticisms of his naive use of source materials and received just one quibble, but no substantial analysis. Yet here's Chaucer once again flogging the same rubbish, unable to deal with the criticism of such material, but continuing to assume the divine rightness of his use of the material.

Consilience requires us to question all sources maintained under the christian hegemony when they talk of christian issues. The vested interest is too strong to treat them as though they were merely ancient sources. Where are all those sources not maintained by christians that deal with christ? Oh, that's right, there aren't any... until Babylonian Jews were forced to respond to christians.