Vinnie

Why don't you name all the Roman historians from the time period. It will be of no use quoting all the Roman authors as mosto f these surviving works have nothing to do with historical reporting. That whole listing so common here is nonsense. Askying why a play or play-writer doesn't mention Jesus is just :banghead:

Once you get all the Roman historians down find out how many and how extensively they deal with treating individual rabble-rousing Jews. Write down how many of them mention John the Baptist? How about other Jewish figures mentioned by Josephus and others?

We expect Jewsl ike Jospehus to be more concerned with Jewish history and Jewish cult leaders like Jesus. Further, we expect Christians to be more converned with Jesus than non-Christians like Josephus. Josephus doesn't even mention Christians (aside from a passing reference in the TF which hasm ore to do with Pilate than Jesus anyways). He was not too concerned with this sect apparently. What room then, for its founder? He was a rabble rouser crucified by Roime for sedition for all the outside world cared and his followers were involved in a "pernicious superstition". No one cared.



There are no contemporaries but there is contemporary primary data on the followers of Jesus (Peter and co. and his brother James). Peter was a real historical Peter and Peter was a follower of Jesus. Plys we have Pauline corpus, Jospehus, Tacituys, Mark, Pre-Markan stuff, double tradition (Q stuff), GThomas, Papias, etc. We have parable, miracle and sayings collections embedded within the gospels. Lists of Jesus' sayings (many of which are double and triple indpeendently attested) are in the record.

There is no conspiracy of silence and all these positive evidences point in one direction.

Vinnie

Vinnie

The first half of this is correct for the "Jesus of the Gospels" which is an impossible chimera. The second half...well there is no clear historical record of Jesus' life but the historical record is clear in that there was a Jesus behind some of these sayings at some point. He had a follower named Peter and so on.

Jesus had no divinity and there are no amazing details. Miracles don't happen.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Read John 20:2 and note very carefully Mary's exact wording.

John obviously knows other accounts but is only including Mary M here for whatever reason (I think he prioritized the beloved disciple over Mary, Thomas and Peter here ala Crossan and others) but her dialogue assumes at least one more woman present than just her (the "we") unless its just an example of redactional fatique on John's part.

Its fiction either way though.

Vinnie

Avatar

The stories of Hercules took place in Greece. Greece is a real place. There are a number of locations in the stories that existed in real life. There are a couple of historical figures Hercules encountered who actually existed. Therefore the stories of Hercules must be true? :banghead:

Vinnie

Me?

Stratification of sources, attestation complexes and argument for ground zero????

Without this laid out for both figures the comparison is useless.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

But absolutely no good reason to do so. They were dismissed as gullible, superstitious bumpkins.

But the early Christians were ridiculed! By your reasoning, this requires you to conclude that their claims were denied by eyewitnesses or other convincing evidence. This should be sufficient for you to recognize that your reasoning is flawed. Nobody cared or knew enough about Christian claims to attempt a formal investigation.

Extrabiblical documentation requires requires substantiation just as much. What is more problematic is the absence of physical evidence supporting biblical claims and evidence that contradicts biblical claims. For example, excavations of Nain reveal that it never had a wall let alone a gate as is claimed in one of the Gospels.

If these alleged other historical documents (would you mind being more specific?) are independent accounts, they would certainly support the accuracy of the specific claim. This would be entirely irrelevant for other claims. They would need their own support.

You don't consider being called gullible, superstitious fools as "getting discredited"?

Vorkosigan

We have no contemporary primary data, as no one who knew Jesus wrote about him.

[Q does not exist, Papias could not find his asshole with a flashlight and a map, Thomas depends on Mark, the pre-Markan tradition is entirely an invention of scholars as everything in Mark is traceable to either Mark or a floating cultural source like Cynic/Stoic material or Jewish sayings. Tacitus is too late and Josephus has been worked over by Christians. In any case next year Hudson and Atwill are coming out with a completely new and completely devastating argument against the TF that will show the whole thing is an invention. More I will not say without permission.

All based on Cynic or other cultural sources, or apparently inventions of the Gospel authors. There are none that can be attributed to any person underlying the tradition.

Can we stop making this claim? There is no independent attestation of even a single saying. All the gospels depend on Mark, and Mark apparently depends on Paul. There's no "there" there.

Yes, to the fictional origin of the Gospel Jesus....

Vorkosigan

bfniii

i guess the difference here is that christianity purports that the oral traditions and first writings of the Bible were written during or shortly thereafter the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to many events in the Bible. can the same can be said of the I and the O?

Amaleq13

The faith-based beliefs of some Christians is not relevant to a discussion of claims that are supported by evidence. There is no compelling evidence of or reliable methodology to identify an alleged "oral tradition" so it is little more than wishful thinking. Likewise, there is no compelling evidence to support the tradition that Mark was written by Peter's secretary, Matthew by a former Disciple, Luke by Paul's companion, or John by the anonymous "Beloved Disciple". On the other hand, there are good reasons to doubt all of those claims.

If you feel that you can trust Christian scholars more than non, I suggest you read Meier and Brown.

Amaleq13

That certainly sounds convincing until you realize that nobody can agree on which direction!