Lógos Sokratikós

Even if the gospel accounts matched Roman historical dates (I'm not saying they are or aren't), why would getting dates right demonstrate the historicity of Christ?

Wouldn't such a criterion demonstrate the historicity of the deeds and existence of the charcters in Tom Clancy's books, for instance (say, in 1000 years after some sort of [another] middle ages)? Doesn't historicity mean a certain personage or event is supported by the science of history, versus just merely existing, albeit without record like the proverbial tree falling in the middle of the forest or Julius Cæsar's maternal great grandfather (who, BTW had to exist)?

Vampyroteuthis

It wouldn't to me but I'm sure it would to the believers!

I wish they would find proof of Medusa, that would be awesome!

spin

This would fundamentally be an argument based on plausibility, which is certainly an insufficient criterion to say anything. However, the contrary is more enlightening. If something isn't plausible in the particular observed characteristic, then that should be sufficient to reduce its merit.

If plausibility were sufficient.

Yes. So if someone doesn't make it into history, it doesn't mean the person didn't exist. Once again there are three categories:

1. historical,
2. unreal, and
3. those than cannot be placed in either of the above.

spin

Larsguy47

It may not be possible to get the Roman dates "right" in the first Century since certain contrdictions with the gospel dates and in Josephus suggest revisionism. For instance, an eclipse is often cited when there has been some revisionism since they can only be checked astronomically. The eclipse mentioned by Josephus just before Herod's death on Shebat 2 is best linked to Tebet 14, 1 BCE. The 4 BCE eclipse is totally out, and Josephus is the only reference for that eclipse.

Also the timing for Paul and the death of Herod Agrippa(?) don't line up. It seems as though, therefore, that perhaps 3 years were taken from Herod the Great and perhaps a year or two from other Caesars and added to the rule of Flavius. It's not that these rulers themselves want to extend their rule as much as their staff trying to impress the ruler with the ability/option to do so.

That leaves us with accepting the gospel chronology as the best reference or not. Sometimes that is all we have; two conflicting records.

LG47

Lógos Sokratikós

Sounds like a post hoc relation of Christ's life. If his followers had an intellectual leaning of some sort (and supposing the accounts are legit, of course), they would have written a diary and would have gotten the dates right.

On the other hand, no one writes in his/her diary "January 16th, in the second year of Bush the younger's presidency...". Nevertheless, if you did live the events you are writing about, you can hardly get the dates wrong, especially knowing that the Imperatores didn't have the U.S.'s four-year limit to their reign. It would be like an Englishman getting his Edwardian versus Victorian time wrong having lived at the time, and knowing he was twenty-something when his teacher cured his mother-in-law, which wouldn't be an unimpressive memoir BTW.

Larsguy47

Political figures and their court officials loved changed "history" because part of the truth is also "propaganda." Today the biggest and best lying organization in the world is the CIA. But we don't care because it is done in the interest of "national security"; we not only don't mind the lying, we hope they do it well and support it with as much fake documentation as needed. Similar has always gone on. Kings wanted a more glorious reputation and longer reigns.

This is capsulized in the movie "1984" where it quotes (I'm paraphrasing) "He who controls the past, controls the present. He who controls the present, controls the future. But he who controls the present, also controls the past!"

So what we inherit is a combination of what was revised and what was not revised. So as soon as you find a credible contradiction we just assume automatically there was been a revision and we try and find clues to the correct chronology. The gospel writers are great historians, but koine Greek nuances, especially for common dating expressions is not always responsibly translated, which is part of the problem. The other is that there were apparent revisions during the Roman Period, if only a few years here and there. Lacking confidence in which account is more correct, all we can do is just compare and analyze sometimes.

LG47

3DJay

Yeah! She gets me hard, just looking at her.


Peace

mountainman

Historicity as far as I can determine is some form of
measure of the authenticity (perhaps integrity) of a
purported historical person and/or event -- and yes,
with respect to "the science of history".

The "science of history" I take to include study of
"evidentiary material" from the following "fields"....

* certain personages (authors or otherwise)
* the texts of (purported) authors.
* fragments of texts, and of papyrii
* inscriptions of various categories
* coins
* architecture and buildings
* art
* sculpture & statues
* weapons and tools
* technological innovations
* archeological relics
* carbon dating citations

[NB: Not intended to be comprehensive]
[Feel free to add via thread tangentiation]

Consequently IMO we are left examining a structure
which is multi-dimensional -- with a dimension for
each one of the above strands of scientific and/or
archeological evidence -- and one further dimension
formalised as time, or the chronology, which should
be logically common and consistent between strands.

In application of this (theory) my research has shown
that the only strand of evidence which presents some
evidence for the historicity of JC is the "christian
literary tradition", being a small subset of the available
texts of antiquity, for the appropriate chronology.

All other strands of evidence yield "null results" for
the first three centuries as far as I can determine.

This leaves open the possibility that the christian
literature is associated with a false chronology, and
was actually written in the fourth century.

spamandham

Eclipses are not nearly as relevant as historical markers as you seem to think. Partial eclipses happen often (about every 10 years or so for any given location), and were typically seen as omens. Ancient writers had a tendency to boost the importance of rulers and events by claiming eclipses, even when there were none. Ancient eclipse claims should be treated with the same skepticism we treat flying chariot claims, or claims of the dead rising.

Johann_Kaspar

The biggest and best lying organization today are the churches. They have an almost 2 millenium experience. It is enough to consider the number of people fooled by them.