Occams_Razor

There's lack of evidence and then there's evidence that contradicts that Jesus was divine or even existed. True, we can't "prove" a negative, but we can show that the belief in jesus' divinity is absurd. Expanding on the OP and on Columbus and DaninGraniteCity's statements:

Those historians who were active contemporaneously with Jesus' alleged existence failed to leave a record of him or the fantastical events which would go some small way toward at least evidencing his fame and divinity.

For instance, "Philo Judaeus, who lived from about 25 BCE to 50 CE. A well-known historian and philosopher, he was living in or near Jerusalem and writing a history of the Jews during his lifetime at the time Jesus would have arrived there to preach" does not mention him.

"Justus of Tiberius, a native of Galilee who wrote a history covering the time Jesus supposedly lived, does not mention him. Nor does Seneca, a Roman historian who was born about the same time Jesus would have been and lived until around 60 CE. Nor does Pliny the Elder, a historian who was born in the 20s and died about 80 CE."

"If Jesus Christ had been an actual, historical person, we would expect to have first-hand, contemporary documentation: records of his words and deeds written by people who actually saw him, or who at least were alive during his lifetime. We would expect the record of his life to be plentiful from the very beginning. On the other hand, if he was only a legend later turned into a real person, we would expect not to have any first-hand witness to his life. We would expect the historical record to be scanty and details elusive or non-existent at first, these details appearing only later as the stories about him grew in the telling. We would expect clear references to him not to appear until long after his supposed death. And of course, in reality, the latter scenario is exactly what we do find."

Quoted from: http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel1.html

Yet the first mention of Jesus is two brief passages from Josephus, written around 90 CE.

If Jesus and the events surrounding his life were significant during his lifetime, I find it very hard to believe that the contemporaneous historical record would be devoid of his mention.

adnauseum

It depends on your standard of certainty. If you want logical certainty, then I would point you to Wittgenstein's Tractatus:

1.11 "Die Welt ist durch die Tatsachen bestimmt und dadurch, das es alle Tatsachen sind."

The world [reality] is fixed by the facts, and by their being all the facts.

This means that if you require absolute certainty as to something's not being the case, you would need (1) the enumeration of all facts in the world, plus (2) an additional [metaphysical] fact, which is the fact that your enumeration contains all the facts.

These conditions are obviously not met with respect to the existence of Jesus Christ.

However, if you are willing to lower the bar of certainty, then sure you could take the lack of facts to date as establishing with some probability that he did not exist.

Unfortunately, no one to my knowledge has worked out a decent account of certainty with respect to inductive logic. I understand Carnap tried and failed.

Ceverante

Pervy, thanks.

The rest, thanks for the replies. I was just reading up on the discussion regarding the passage in question in Flavius Josephus TF... sad to say, I'm lost :banghead:

Toto

Don't take it personally. You walked into the middle of a long standing debate. To follow it, you might want to read Peer Kirby's summary of the debate and other resources from here.

Vinnie

In history it is a form of evidence. Arguments from silence carry some reservations with them but they are certainly helpful in a number of instances. Arguments from silence usually determine then on-historicity of something but in doing that they often have history as well.

For example, failure of all other sources to quote Marks definitive food nullification parable that he put on the lips of Jesus in any other source. Paul and James and others fought fiercely over food issues, the issue was not neatly settled by Jesus in the beginning. The silence of all these sources on this is a form of evidence.

Vinnie

Vinnie

The same can be said of Paul, James, Mary, Peter, John the Baptist and a number of other figures. We have writings of Paul, but noi originals and lots of forgeries.


There is no need for anyone to mention Jesus. Josephus doesn't mention Christians but they certainly existed and were growing by the time he wrote. How embarrassing for the Jesus skeptic appealing to Josephan silence. But Josephus does mention Jesus and his brother James. Tacitus mentions him as well.

It was really small and uniportant. As was asked in the Gospel of John: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

There are pre-Bible sources and extra-Bilbical ones. Not to mention that many of these "Bible sources" are indedpendent and can be mined, minimally for historicity using hte proper critical tools. Plus we should placem ore value on Xian sources.

Jesus was unimportant to the outside world. We would expect the memory of him to be preserved largely by his followers and not by others. As E.P. Sanders wrote:

"Jesus became such an important man in world history that it is sometimes hard to believe how unimportant he was during his lifetime, especially outside Palestine. Most of the first-century literature that survives was written by members of the very small elite class of the Roman empire. To them, Jesus (if they heard of him at all) was merely a troublesome rabble-rouser and magician in a small, backward part of the world. . . . When he was executed, Jesus was no more important to the outside world than the two brigands or insurgents executed with him -- whose names we do not know." -- The Historical Figure of Jesus, p.49.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Appealing to the silence of any Roman historians is COMPLETELY useless. Its a non sequitur.

Also, does Philo or Justus mention John the Baptist? I don't think they do but virtually nobody denies JBap's historicity. Thus, we have a bad argument from silence here.

Though I agree the Jesus of the Gospels is a myth. If everything happened as literally recorded in the Gospels history would have turned out a little different.

But there is a Jesus behind the gospels. This saying spitting, parable popping, rabble-rousing flouter of convention was not all that important to the world at large during his life, however. More like a pesky fly. Rome swatted him, then later on all hell broke lose.

Vinnie

Magdlyn

but I thought the Josephus mentions have been debunked as later interpolations? I guess you do not agree.

Nazareth:

Matthew mentions Jesus comes from Nazareth to "prove" the prophecy, "He shall be called a Nazorean." Which I take to be wrong as isn't this ref to Nazorean meaning nazirite, one who is under a vow? Nothing to do with a town of origin? Then we have the discrepancy, is he from Nazareth or Bethlehem? The evangelists want it both ways, (and Mat and Lk "prove" it in different ways) which makes both towns suspect.

OK, I deny John's historicity. There you go. He was a literary character modeled after Elijah.

I believe! Hallelujah!

post tenebras lux

Vinnie,

are you claiming that much of the gospels are invented, or do you hold that things like Herod's massacre of the innocents and the tombs opening to allow the dead to walk around Jerusalem during the crucifixion actually happened?

If the latter, then that sort of event should have been recorded by many common people nevermind historians. Heck, even the star of Bethlehem managed to pass unnoticed by all the world's astronomers of the time except for those 'three wise men'. How lucky we are that they, at least, spotted it. If it stood still over Bethlehem then it stood still over Bethlehem - it's not hard to spot something like that.

Luxie

bfniii

why believe otherwise without equal and opposite contemporary documents?