Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-05-2012, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

False. There have been any number of defenses for a Historical Jesus position which are totally unrelated to that and you don't need him baptized by John, ticking off the Romans or being executed in any manner. He doesn't need to be poor and I heard one description of it where he was actually a revolutionary leader and not any kind of teacher or healer.

Your post is like describing a Christian as someone who follows all the tenets of the Catholic Church and believes in the infallibility of the Pope and the word doesn't apply to anyone else.

False again.

id check your sources and stop using those asap, because they dont follow mainstrean scholarships with credibility

sources please

I think you're misunderstanding Tom here. What he's saying is that there are other hypothetical models for a historical Jesus which may not tick every item on the stock list. There are models in which he is rich, for instance or in which he escaped crucifixion.

outhouse · 04-05-2012, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

False again.

id check your sources and stop using those asap, because they dont follow mainstrean scholarships with credibility

sources please

So, you're saying that if somebody had a position that the Jesus stories in the Bible were based on a real person who was a travelling teacher that pissed off the Romans and got executed for it, but the baptism by John was a fictional event which was added into the tale a few decades later, then that person would have a Mythical Jesus position and not a Historical Jesus position?

no

and as far as I know, no reputable scholar makes that claim.

theres no reason at all for a fictional John.

again my statement stands as is bud, no worthy scholar questions john's existance or him baptising jesus

outhouse · 04-05-2012, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

False again.

id check your sources and stop using those asap, because they dont follow mainstrean scholarships with credibility

sources please

I think you're misunderstanding Tom here. What he's saying is that there are other hypothetical models for a historical Jesus which may not tick every item on the stock list. There are models in which he is rich, for instance or in which he escaped crucifixion.

No I understand him quite clearly

thank you.

these other models are not followed by mainstream scholarships nor do they carry a ounce of credibility. Not because they dont follow mainstream thought, but because they have more imagination then evidence.

Tom Sawyer · 04-05-2012, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

no

and as far as I know, no reputable scholar makes that claim.

theres no reason at all for a fictional John.

again my statement stands as is bud, no worthy scholar questions john's existance or him baptising jesus

There are plenty of reasons for a fictional John.

For instance, in order to pump up the divine credentials of Jesus while writing his story, an author decided have him meet up with another famous person who was also alive at the same time and have that person flag him as the saviour. If some early author did that but otherwise kept his account of Jesus's life as mundane and factual as possible, would the resulting story he created be one of a Historical Jesus or a Mythical Jesus?

Also, in reference to your claim that Jesus needs to have been executed to be historical, in The DaVinci Code, the author posited a Jesus who wasn't killed but escaped from the Romans and fled to Gaul with Mary Magdeline. If a real person had a similar view, would his view be an HJ view or an MJ view?

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-05-2012, 01:26 PM

JP Holding is simply not a credible source, and his arguments are non-sequiturs anyway. No one is contesting that Tacitus had access to official archives. What I'm saying is that those archives did not include detailed reports from the provinces on executed criminals. Parchment was expensive. MAILING things was expensive. There was no reason to send these reports.

Moreover, Tacitus gives Pilate an anachronistic title, which indicates that he wasn't consulting an archive. Tacitus gives Pilate a title which wasn't just technically incorrect, but was a position which didn't even exist when Pilate was Prefect (not Procurator).

Godfrey · 04-05-2012, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeat75

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

Don:

You make an interesting point. My sense is that we don't have enough information to know for sure what the Christian superstition was before the death of Jesus, but to speculate, it might have had to do with Jesus being the Messiah, the rightful ruler of Israel, which would have been enough to get him crucified. Allowing himself to be set up as a king would have been sedition, punishable by death.

From our vantage point it certainly appears that the superstition changed after Jesus died but Tacitus may not have known or cared about that.

It is unlikely in my mind that a Christian interpolator would have used the phrase a most mischievous superstition. Don't you think that odd?

Steve

The full passage is ""Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind".

"A class hated for their abominations...a most mischievous superstition..evil..hideous and shameful... convicted ...of hatred against mankind."

Of course that is not a Christian interpolation.

I also think that is unlikely, and for those reasons. Josephus' dubious (yet oft-cited) passage on Jesus shows a great example of obvious interpolation, especially when we keep in mind that it was written by a Jew:

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure."

Now that reeks of subsequent meddling by the flock.

However, it's still impossible to know whether Tacitus was using a credible source or whether he was taking the Christians' own origin story at face value. The scarcity of passages about Jesus and/or Christians in his work shows how marginal they were at the time, and suggests that he probably only considered them in passing.

So I'm not convinced that Tacitus (who of course lived and wrote well after Jesus' death) makes HJ an open-and-shut case.

outhouse · 04-05-2012, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

no

and as far as I know, no reputable scholar makes that claim.

theres no reason at all for a fictional John.

again my statement stands as is bud, no worthy scholar questions john's existance or him baptising jesus

There are plenty of reasons for a fictional John.

For instance, in order to pump up the divine credentials of Jesus while writing his story, an author decided have him meet up with another famous person who was also alive at the same time and have that person flag him as the saviour. If some early author did that but otherwise kept his account of Jesus's life as mundane and factual as possible, would the resulting story he created be one of a Historical Jesus or a Mythical Jesus?

Also, in reference to your claim that Jesus needs to have been executed to be historical, in The DaVinci Code, the author posited a Jesus who wasn't killed but escaped from the Romans and fled to Gaul with Mary Magdeline. If a real person had a similar view, would his view be an HJ view or an MJ view?

LOL you bring up my point, the author of the DVcode should be shot lol

igsfly:

again authors dont cut it.

Again most scholars do not find a mythical John or the need for a mythcal one.

Most scholars however do find more then enough evidence for a historical John

I know you know this.

Godfrey · 04-05-2012, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeat75

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

Don:

You make an interesting point. My sense is that we don't have enough information to know for sure what the Christian superstition was before the death of Jesus, but to speculate, it might have had to do with Jesus being the Messiah, the rightful ruler of Israel, which would have been enough to get him crucified. Allowing himself to be set up as a king would have been sedition, punishable by death.

From our vantage point it certainly appears that the superstition changed after Jesus died but Tacitus may not have known or cared about that.

It is unlikely in my mind that a Christian interpolator would have used the phrase a most mischievous superstition. Don't you think that odd?

Steve

The full passage is ""Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind".

"A class hated for their abominations...a most mischievous superstition..evil..hideous and shameful... convicted ...of hatred against mankind."

Of course that is not a Christian interpolation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

JP Holding is simply not a credible source, and his arguments are non-sequiturs anyway. No one is contesting that Tacitus had access to official archives. What I'm saying is that those archives did not include detailed reports from the provinces on executed criminals. Parchment was expensive. MAILING things was expensive. There was no reason to send these reports.

Moreover, Tacitus gives Pilate an anachronistic title, which indicates that he wasn't consulting an archive. Tacitus gives Pilate a title which wasn't just technically incorrect, but was a position which didn't even exist when Pilate was Prefect (not Procurator).

Regarding Pilate's title: I've heard it put forth that Tacitus might have intentionally altered the antiquated title to more accurately convey Pilate's status to contemporary readers.

outhouse · 04-05-2012, 01:56 PM

Quote:

in reference to your claim that Jesus needs to have been executed to be historical,

he didnt need to be, but i would thik that his martyr status elevated after death, after a death of standing up for poor hardworking jews.

We dont know all of what he really taught or really did, only that people remembered him enough that romans stole the movement away from jews due to its popularity, or possible for control. This I dont know.I just dont trust pauls motives

smeat75 · 04-05-2012, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

"JP Holding is simply not a credible source, and his arguments are non-sequiturs anyway. No one is contesting that Tacitus had access to official archives. What I'm saying is that those archives did not include detailed reports from the provinces on executed criminals. Parchment was expensive. MAILING things was expensive. There was no reason to send these reports."

Me:
"Provincial governors did make reports to the senate, at least from time to time. It is possible, who knows, that a report from Pilate's office included a brief summary of executions that took place. That's all it would have needed for that passage in Tacitus - had to have a troublemaker called Jesus executed. Unlikely, yet, but not impossible.

"Moreover, Tacitus gives Pilate an anachronistic title, which indicates that he wasn't consulting an archive. Tacitus gives Pilate a title which wasn't just technically incorrect, but was a position which didn't even exist when Pilate was Prefect (not Procurator).

Regarding Pilate's title: I've heard it put forth that Tacitus might have intentionally altered the antiquated title to more accurately convey Pilate's status to contemporary readers."

Yes, that is discussed in the wikipedia article, it doesn't mean a thing.
"Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans state that Tacitus apparently used the title "procurator" because it was more common at the time of his writing and that this variation in the use of the title should not be taken as evidence to doubt the correctness of the information Tacitus provides."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ

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04-05-2012, 01:26 PM	#55
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	JP Holding is simply not a credible source, and his arguments are non-sequiturs anyway. No one is contesting that Tacitus had access to official archives. What I'm saying is that those archives did not include detailed reports from the provinces on executed criminals. Parchment was expensive. MAILING things was expensive. There was no reason to send these reports. Moreover, Tacitus gives Pilate an anachronistic title, which indicates that he wasn't consulting an archive. Tacitus gives Pilate a title which wasn't just technically incorrect, but was a position which didn't even exist when Pilate was Prefect (not Procurator).

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