Toto

You can say that therefore it never happened.

You could apologize for posting this poorly digested unsourced list of references taken out of context. In particular, the so called darkness that covered the earth is discussed here

Huon

Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Epiphanes are christian authors of the second century or later. What do they bring?

If "the Acts of Pilate" had been authentic, no doubt that the christian monks would have preserved this book.

Huon

A good analysis of the TF can be found here :

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/josephus.html

I do not find useful to rehash this question on this thread.

Toto

Trying to make sense of this:

The background of this letter is here If authentic, it only shows that there were people known as Christians around 125 CE, which is not especially controversial. But we only know about this because Justin Martyr included it, and the only version we have is Eusebius' translation of the letter into Greek.

Again, this just shows that there were people known as Christians.



Just check the index for recent discussions of Tacitus. The passage is possibly a later interpolation, but even if Tacitus actually wrote it, again, it only shows that there were Christians who claimed that Jesus had been crucified under Pontius Pilate.

The word "superstitio" was the Roman term for unlawful religious groups.


It is highly unlikely that Josephus wrote anything that supports that.

Again, Lucian only supports the idea that there were Christians, and that they were gullible and easily convinced of things that were not true.

The reference does not mention Jesus. From here

In our modern age of enlightenment, the fact that no indisputable testimony to the life of Jesus can be found outside of the New Testament and apocryphal documents (all of which were penned by obviously biased writers) continues to trouble Christian apologists, possibly more so than at any time in church history. In their frustration, they have resorted to some rather imaginative efforts to find Jesus of Nazareth in ancient secular records. One such effort has focused on a letter that may have been written toward the end of the first century.

...

One could just as easily assume that Mara Bar-Serapion was referring to the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness," who was often mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls found at Qumran. The person in these documents called the teacher of righteousness was presented as a Messianic figure who suffered vicariously for the people. Since Essene teachings were widely circulated before and after the time Jesus allegedly lived, one could argue that this teacher "lived on in the teaching which he had given." The point is that Mara Bar-Serapion simply did not identify the "wise king" whom the Jews had "executed," and in the absence of that information, one can only guess who this was supposed to be.

Jesus_in_the_Talmud: "most modern scholarship views the passages as reaction to Christian proselytism rather than having any meaningful trace of a historical Jesus."



I've already dealt with Phlegon. Any source that would use this to claim that this is proof that Jesus' predictions came true is not a secular source.

Not especially controversial, but does nothing except show the existence of a group called Christians, who apparently worshiped the sunrise.

Hearsay upon hearsay


Christians or Chrestians?

There is nothing here.

Little Dot

I won't say it never happened and if I'm guilty of anything it is thinking that what I posted was legitimate and relevant to the issue. I thank you for the link it did prove that using those secular sources is iffy. :notworthy:

spin

You may assert "that using those secular sources is iffy", but it doesn't "prove" anything. You need reasoning to go with the assertion, otherwise it has no value to anyone but yourself.

Toto

And please stop calling them "secular" sources. The Catholic pamphlet may be using the term "secular" as Catholics do, to refer to the secular world, but the term has a more common meaning on this board of "non-religious." Josephus and the Talmud are Jewish, and the other sources might be better classified as pagan, or pagan filtered through Christian eyes.

Little Dot

O.K., I will concede to your description, but, I didn't get them from that site, I'm not in the habit of frequenting catholic web sites. I've had them so long, I don't really know where I got them. :blush:

aa5874

No such thing is shown in "Annals" attributed to Tacitus.

The name "Jesus" and the crucifixion of a character called "Jesus" is NOWHERE in ALL of Annals.

And further the name "Christian" is an ambiguous name given to those who even BLASPHEME the name of God and Even BEFORE the time of Nero people were called Christians who followed the teachings of Simon Magus a magician DURING the time of the Emperor Claudius according to Justin Martyr.

See "First Apology" XXVI The claim that Tacitus mentioned Jesus and that Jesus was crucified is a PERFECT example of "Chinese Whispers".

Little Dot

According to Origen before they were called Christians they called themselves Simonians. (Against Celsus, vi.11)

Since the name Simonian limited them to Simon Magus by the third century they abandoned their connection to Simon Magus and started calling themselves by more respectable names that people would accept. They preferred to be denominated by names of the chief pagan gods, but, they also wanted to be called Christians.