Steven Carr

Not only were Roman writers not interested in Jesus, but you could also expect them to track down death certificates, arrest warrants and all sorts of documentation proving that Pilate really had crucified somebody called Jesus.

Roger Pearse

Be wary. The Remsburg list has often been debunked. It is the work of an ignorant and foolish man who had no idea what those people wrote, who they were, when they lived, etc. You should be able to find online blow by blow explanations of just why the list is hopelessly misleading. Read them and learn.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Carr

Gosh, are you talking about the list of books called 'Matthew', 'Mark', 'Luke', 'John' written by people who I have no idea what else they wrote, who they were or when they lived etc?

I had just no idea that if you didn't know who the author of a book was and when they lived, then that book was misleading, debunked and not worth taking seriously.

But don't worry, I have removed those pages from my Bible , which as a happy byproduct is now easier to carry around.

John Kesler

Here's an article which addresses the many-doesn't-mean-many argument. It reads in part:

Solo

I think you hit the nail on the head. I have long thought that this verse had a specific anti-Pauline function, in A) arguing for a physical resurrection (of the old body) as opposed to Paul's "changed" or "incorruptible" body (1 Cr 15:51-53), B) creating an event with a time and a locale that was "out of reach" to Paul, who had only "converted" after the alleged events, and thus talking "through his hat" when asserting a spiritual, or Greek-soul-immortality-inspired resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Best,
Jiri

John Kesler

So since Jesus never wrote anything, we should not expect Philo to write about him, using this criterion.

cornbread_r2

Roger:

I saw your online critique of Remsberg's list and didn't employ him. The whole question of why that event was never mentioned by anyone else was rendered moot by a whole slew rationalizations and assumptions that take advantage of the scant information available in the text of that passage. To wit:

-- Once out of the graveyard, with a restored body and a divinely-provided set of new duds, no one would have recognized these saints as formerly dead people except for the people who were divinely-inspired to recognize them as such. For anyone else, they could pass as tourists or be passed off as someone's long lost uncle Schlomo. The empty tombs? Damned grave robbers!

John:

That's very valuable information, but in view of the above it doesn't make any difference whether we're talking 10 or 1,000.

Solo:

As I was formulating an argument for why Paul, for whom resurrection -- Jesus's and ours -- is such a central theme, did not mention this event (even if he had just heard about it post-conversion from Peter, James and John), I realized that it completely refutes his/someone's view in 1Thes 4:16 that those who had died in Christ would rise to meet him in the clouds upon his return. If Paul/someone was right about that, then he'd have a lot of explaining to do as to why people who had never met Jesus would be rising from the dead and not meeting Jesus or anyone else in the clouds. Consequently, the rationalization for why he doesn't mention it is because he can't explain it, but not because it didn't happen.

My discussion partner is an orthodox Catholic for whom even the imprimatered NAB Catholic bible is a product of left-leaning intellectuals who have ridden higher criticism right up the welcome mat of Hell.

I've abandoned that discussion as it seems pretty pointless, but I'm very appreciative of the help I've received here. I also promise not to involve you all in such debates in the future -- unless it's to get you all to kick me in the ass for entering into them.

Kapyong

Gday,

This is MY list Roger,
although it was inspired by Remsburg.

Anyway -
how can a LIST be debunked?

Sure, the claims of "SHOULD HAVE" can be argued.

But the long list of COULD HAVEs can not be debunked,
unless you claim that they COULD NOT POSSIBLY have mentioned Jesus.

Is that your argument?


K.

Roger Pearse

Actually I didn't remember writing one (!), but glad it worked out OK.

I think what irritated me most about that list was that Juvenal appeared on it. Now Juvenal is one of my favourite authors, and I read and reread his Satires constantly. But to imagine that he would be troubled about the doings of some backwoods fakir, when his entire focus is the petty doings in The City, and nothing but The City -- it tells you that Remsburg never read a line of Juvenal, and cared less. And that didn't seem very honest to me.

I think we need to step back a bit. A lot of people think about events in Judaea from a Sunday School perspective of The Most Important Event In History. But it can hardly have seemed so at the time.

99% of all ancient literature is lost. Our main sources for *all* first century history are Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and, for Jewish affairs, Josephus. The first three are entirely focused on Rome and its affairs. Tacitus mentions Christ and the Christians; Suetonius seems aware of the Christians, but not very; and Cassius Dio, although living at a period when early Christian literature becomes significant in quantity, never mentions them at all. They just were not important. Josephus mentions Christ and (sort of) his followers in terms that suggest the group was about to become extinct. That's not bad testimony to a crucified nobody from the back-end of beyond. It's about what might be expected, and possibly more than might be expected.

It's worth remembering that the 2nd century cult of Glycon, invented by Alexander of Abuteichnos and described by Lucian, was important enough to be even patronised by the emperors (as coins show); yet we have only Lucian's account of it, and that very hostile. I would imagine that Glycon was much more "important" to Roman writers than Jesus.

We can never infer things from what is not said, when 99% of what was said is lost. Accident will be the primary controlling factor in such a case. An example: the fact that most surviving 2nd century Christian literature consists of apologies derives from just such an accident. In the 10th century, Archbishop Arethas of Caesarea was, by chance, interested in those apologies, and someone made up a copy of them -- still extant then -- for his pleasure. That copy happened to survive. Probably a lot of other literature existed at that time; but no Arethas came along to collect it. Yet there are people who will draw deductions about what Christianity was like in the 2nd century, based on the fact that most of the surviving texts are apologetics to pagans which do not talk much about Christ or the events of the gospels, and will then argue from that absence! And all the time, the factual basis for their theory is purely the result of a historical accident in the 10th century!

Never place much stock in arguments from silence. They're always fallacious, and they display a charming innocence towards the world, considering our own experience of it -- that sod's law governs everything, and the stuff you want is never there when it's needed.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Carr

PEARSE
That's not bad testimony to a crucified nobody from the back-end of beyond.

CARR
SO why was Jesus crucified if he was a nobody from the back-end of beyond?

And what did he do that in a couple of years, people like Paul were talking about him as the agent through whom God created the world and through whom all things were sustained?

It is great to see Christians explaining why there is such little evidence for what they believe.

The fanaticism with which they believe is matched only by their astonishment that people expect evidence when all they can offer is silence.