lpetrich

I don't see how that follows.

(lots of trinities...) One can play that game with other small numbers also.

(other such irrelevance snipped)

Back to the main subject, for there to be convincing outside evidence one way or the other would require some almost-miraculous preservation of lots of records that have not survived, if they were made at all.

Evidence like Jerusalem court records during Pontius Pilate's reign, if they had existed. If they could be shown to be reasonably comprehensive over the appropriate timespan, then they would decisively settle the question of how he met his end, if he was historical.

If Jesus Christ was tried under Pontius Pilate, it would be interesting to find out what that trial had looked like to some court clerk there. How would his account of that trial compare to what the Gospel writers' had said about it?

mountainman

Well we do have the Acts of Pilate which describes
far more than the trial of our man Jay Cee in graphic detail.
This document is suspected to be a late forgery.
Have you read it? It states that it was written by
two court clerks.

lpetrich

That I'd like to see. Where do the supposed authors of Acts of Pilate claim that about themselves?

In any case, there would be serious questions about the authenticity of such a document, questions that may need radiocarbon dating and other such techniques to resolve.

But even that might not be enough, as the case of the Shroud of Turin has shown. Radiocarbon dating of it ought to have settled the question of its origin once and for all; its radiocarbon age is the right age for it to be a medieval forgery. However, Shroud believers have responded by turning hyperskeptical of radiocarbon dating, claiming that biofilms and the like have caused false results.

mountainman

Its part of the text -- as I said, one needs to read the text.


Precisely the same might be said about every single
book in the new testament.


Well, yes, of course - this alas does continue.

lpetrich

Where in the text? Please quote it for me.

(the authenticity of the manuscripts...)
True, there aren't any complete manuscripts much before the Codex Sinaiticus (about 330 - 360 CE).

But given the history of forgery of Xian-related relics like the Shroud of Turin, one would have to be very careful about authenticity.

Huon

When a relic like the Shroud of Turin is acknowledged as a forgery, it becomes an icon.... and can nevertheless be visited, money asked.

Doug Shaver

I followed your link and did a text search for "clerk." I got nothing.

show_no_mercy

Christianity is unfalsifiable. That's why it's religion and not science (props to Popper). People aren't Christians because of evidence. They are Christians because they have an emotional investment in being a Christian.

DCHindley

Doug,

He might be referring to the second Greek form of the prologue:

A narrative about the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His holy resurrection.

Written by a Jew, Æneas by name, and translated out of the Hebrew tongue into the Romaic language by Nicodemus, a Roman toparch.

After the dissolution of the kingdom of the Hebrews, four hundred years having run their course, and the Hebrews also coming at last under the kingdom of the Romans, and the king of the Romans appointing them a king; when Tiberius Cæsar at last swayed the Roman sceptre, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he appointed as king of Judæa, Herod, the son of the Herod who had formerly slaughtered the infants in Bethlehem, and he made Pilate procurator in Jerusalem; when Annas and Caiaphas held the high-priesthood of Jerusalem, Nicodemus, a Roman toparch, having summoned a Jew, Æneas by name, asked him to write an account of the things done in Jerusalem about Christ in the times of Annas and Caiaphas. The Jew accordingly did this, and delivered it to Nicodemus; and he, again, translated it from the Hebrew writing into the Romaic language. And the account is as follows ...

Here the Jew Aenas writes the account in Hebrew, and Nicodemus, a Roman Toparch, translated it into "Romaic" (probably meaning the Greek koine commonly used in the Eastern Roman empire).

On the other hand, several of the accounts of the martyrdoms of 2nd century saints have details that seem to be derived directly from Roman court records. I vaguely seem to recall one of the apocryphal gospels having an account of Jesus' trial supposedly taken from direct court transcripts, but I do not think it was this one.

DCH

mountainman

Sorry I missed these questions earlier and thanks Dave, you have presented part of the answer. I was perhaps speaking a little loosely when I said "two court clerks". However the notion that a transcript exists is derived from the contents of the combined text of the gNicodemus, in which the Acts of Pilate is often referred to a separate text. When we examine the text we find that the records which were ultimately delivered to the authorities according to this expanded (descent, etc) text were authored by two scribes who are named in the text as Leucius and Karinus.

They were resurrected in Jerusalem in the JC Resurrection Event and
were then rounded up by the authorities for questioning. This I imagine
may have been a standard procedure for mass resurrections in antiquity.

And just to formalise the story
in the Roman way .... "Pilate himself wrote ....."


Here are some extracts from the text....



What a whopping story !!!!

The two "court clerks" are the two mass-resurrectees
who are named by the author as Leucius and Karinus,
and who disappear in a blinding flash!

According to the text, we are reading
the words of these two authors.


If the story is not a true story then I'd
tend to suspect that it was authored perhaps
as a clever and outrageous greek satire
of the new testament gospel story.

All "experts" are fully aware that this text has a document tradition from the fourth
century and no earlier - the irrefutable implication being that we are reading an author
who was writing after the Council of Nicaea (and state religion) 325 CE.