GenesisNemesis

I was wondering if this was true?

Amaleq13

The search engine can be your friend :

Extra Biblical Evidence For Jesus

Evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ

Asha'man

I think the most accurate response is that the secular historical evidence is very weak, at best. There is no strong evidence, and there are very good reasons to doubt the remainder.

The strongest piece of evidence, the Testimonium Flavium written by the historian Josephus, has clearly been tampered with from it's original form (if it existed at all), and therefore has either little or no value left. There are strong scholarly arguments that it's a 4th century insertion, rather than simply an edit, meaning that it really can't be counted as evidence at all. (And yes, that really is the strongest piece of evidence Christians can produce.)

There are quite a few early pieces of evidence that Christians existed, but their existance clearly does not demonstrate the existance of Jesus himself.

fromdownunder

GenesisNemesis, are you aware that the SecWeb is not just a BB, but has thousands of articles on the questions you ask, and it has a search engine as well to help you read and find answers. This is a discussion forum, not 20 Questions.

Norm

Malachi151

Here are the four main pieces of "evidence" for Jesus outside of the Bible:

• Josephus – Antiquities of the Jews, 94 CE (Authenticity of quotes disputed)
• Tacitus – Annals, 109 CE (Quote discusses beliefs, it does not provide evidence)
• Pliny the Younger – Letter to Trajan, 112 CE (Quote discuses Christian beliefs)
• Suetonius - The Lives of the Caesars, 120 CE (Quote is vague but seems to refer to a slave)

I'm not including Pliny's letter here, simply because its not my source that I'm cutting and pasting from, but PLiny's letter only talks about what Christian's believe. All it does is verify that Christians said that they lved for Jesus Christ, which is nothing.

This is the absolute best of the best in terms of the "evidence for Jesus", and all of it is easily refuted as being "evidence".

All of the other quotes that are claimed by apologists to be "evidence for Jesus" the 1st and second century are even more vague or questionable.

To top it off, there are plenty of writers who we would expect to have written about Jesus if he did exist and his life was anything at all like that described in the gospels, such as Philo, and certianly Josephus himself, since the quotes from Josephus are not authentic, it then has to be remembered that in that case he didn't write about Jesus at all.

andrewcriddle

Philo tells us very little abuot early 1st century CE Palestine.
Eg he does not mention John the Baptist.
I would not expect him to mention Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

ynquirer

What the hell do you call "evidence"? A pair of Jesus' nails with blood remains to proceed to a standard DNA test? Tacitus is a contemporary source on the history of Rome, who 1) was not a Christian, 2) has not been charged of interpolation, and 3) relates Jesus' death to Pilate's rule - a safe historical mark. That, for serious historians, is evidence.

Camio

I was wondering: is any of you familiar with the work of Serge Bardet on the subject?

Amazon Link (or via: amazon.co.uk)

jakejonesiv

Question: What does the history of Tacitus Annals 15:44 most resemble?
a. The Da Vinci Code
b. Secret Mark

What manuscript evidence to we have for Tacitus Annals 15:44?

A solitary manuscript from the eleventh century, the Second Medicean manuscript (M. II), presumably written at Monte Cassino. It is important to keep in mind this is a separate manuscript from Annals, 1-6 (the "first Medicean" manuscript), because some scholars conflate the two.

It is theorized that it was copied from a lost older manuscript, but even if that were true, there is no evidence that Annals 15.44 was in the older manuscript. The scribe, being a devout Christian monk, could have copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus.

There is a lot of funny business about how this alleged manuscript ended up where it is today, or even if it was the same one. If it was indeed written at Monte Cassino, no one can say how it was taken away.

Supposedly, Boccaccio aquired it by illicit means, and upon his death left it to a monstary in Florence. The elusive document then turns up in the hands of Niccolo Niccoli, who allegedly sends it to Poggio Bracciolini for inspection Bracciolini then gave a document back to Niccolo, who subsequently died in 1437, and the mysterious document passed to the Medici's where it is
today, in the Laurentian library in Florence, where it is number 68.2.

There are more twists and turns here than in a Dan Brown novel, and it does not inspire confidence in the veracity of one of the main proofs of the existence of Jesus.

Roger Pearse has a defense of the authenticity of the passage at http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/index.htm. But even then, we find such arguments as the Bishop of Puzzuoli must have seen it between 1331 and 1344, i.e. before Poggio Bracciolini could have gotten his mitts on it.

You know, the more I study this the more I am reminded more of Secret Mark!

A forgery or an interpolation doesn't have to be proven. Just the fact that the sole evidence is an eleventh century Catholic manuscript surrounded by funny circumstances should be reason enough for caution in placing too much weight on Tacitus Annals 15:44.

Jake Jones

ynquirer

No, an eleventh century manuscript is not the sole evidence. You have at least three pieces of evidence that Annals 15:44 is authentic:

1. The 11th-century manuscript.
   
2. A quotatition of the paragraph by Sulpicius Severus of Aquitaine c. 400 CE.
   
3. A number of quotations and comments of the whole Annals from the 2nd to the 6th century.

Now, to conclude that the paragraph is a suspect forgery, you need to suppose that might be ready Sulpicius to forge it, that in the event no contemporary reader of Tacitus did ever notice the forgery,and that the monk could have possibly copied the paragraph forged by Sulpicius adding the apocryphal text to an original that did not contained it.

What plot! :notworthy: