Jeffrey Gibson

I'm not sure what this question has to do with the actual issue at hand -- which is whether Pat's claims about what we should expect to find in ancient authors if a given individual really existed, and why ancient authors are silent about someone's existence, are valid..

Are you saying that Cassius Dio did mention Simeon/Simon in his account of the Jewish revolt in his Historia Romana?

Jeffrey

JoeWallack

JW:
Boy did you pick a bad comparison. You may want to google contemporary evidence for Simon Bar Kochba in letters before you proceed.



Joseph

Jeffrey Gibson

The issue is not whether there is (recently discovered) Jewish epistolary evidence for Simon. It's why he is not mentioned by Roman historians who presumably should have done so since they deal with the causes and consequences of the revolt of 132-135, and whether the conclusion that person X did not exist because historians who we might expect to mention X do not do so, is sound and valid.

Jeffrey

aa5874

I am saying that that there is information about Simon Bar Kokhba and information about Jesus.

The information about Jesus of the NT is obvious fiction. Whether Simon Bar Kokhba existed or not, the information about Jesus of the NT is obviously false.

Simon Bar Kokchba's existence has no bearing whatsoever on the obvious false information supplied by the authors of the NT and the church writers about Jesus.

The authors of the NT wrote that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds, these obvious false written statements have no bearing whatsoever on whether Casius Dio mentioned the name Simon Bar Kokhba.

Simon bar Kokhba was described as the leader of a revolt around 133 CE, he was NOT described as the offspring of the Holy Ghost and when he died he did not resurrect and ascend through the clouds.

It is just absurd to think that there are books written about every single person who ever existed and equally absurd to consider that fictitious characters like Achilles, the offspring of the sea-goddess, and Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, were humans or blatant false statements as true.

spin

Out of which nostril did you pick this winner?

In an article on the subject by Ian Young I read once, he estimated a 5% literacy in Judea.


spin

patcleaver

I picked a spin!!!!

Imperialism and Jewish Society:200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.
Seth Schwartz, estimated that Jewish literacy was more than 10%

Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine By Catherine Hezser, estimated that Jewish literacy rates were 15%.

spin

Quote I have for Hezser is: "In recent years, however, a number of studies have questioned whether literacy was in fact as high among the Jews of antiquity as many have thought. Closer inspection of the evidence has convinced many scholars that the texts that have been used to argue for widespread Jewish literacy are in fact speaking about special sub-groups within the broader Jewish community (the elite peers of Josephus, the priest-centred Dead Sea Scrolls community) or developments that arose later than the first century (the Torah-centred rabbinic schools). Comparative studies of literate cultures suggest that ancient Palestine lacked virtually all of the social factors necessary for the development of widespread literacy. Catherine Hezser’s recent exhaustive review of the literary and inscriptional evidence for literacy in Roman Palestine concluded that less than 10% of the Jewish population would have been able to read simple texts and sign their names throughout the imperial era. Hezser describes Jewish literacy using the image of concentric circles: “At the centre one has to imagine a very small number of highly literate people who could read literary texts in both Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek. Then there was another, slightly broader circle of those who could read literary texts in either Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek only. They were surrounded by people who could not read literary texts but only short letters, lists and accounts. A broader proportion of the population may have been able merely to identify individual letters, names, and labels. They as well as the vast majority of their entirely illiterate contemporaries had access to texts through intermediates only”." from this pdf.

10%'s the best you'll get. That still makes your conjecture (based on 10%-50%) crap.


spin

patcleaver

You can never admit that your wrong - can you?

I claimed 10-50%,
You claimed it was 5% and that I just made up the 10-50% range.
So I provided one reference with 10% and one with 15%.
Then, you admitted that it was 10%.
Then you claim that 10% does not support a range that included 10%.

Wow - have you ever admitted that you were wrong about anything?

How can anyone trust what you say about anything if you can not even understand that you were wrong in this case?

BTW The same source you cited above also says:

“In his highly acclaimed study of ancient literacy, William Harris concluded that no more than 10-20% of the populace would have been able to read or write at any level during the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.”

Also,
http://www.restorationfoundation.org/volume_3/32_6.htm claims that observant male Jews who could attend bet midrash (lived near a Synagogue) learned to read the law.

Now, I will admit that all estimates of literacy in the Roman Empire especially around Judea are uncertain. They could have been anything from 5% to 50%. The point is that even if only 5% of the 9,000 witnesses of Jesus' magic tricks had written a letter or made journal entries there would have been 450 letters and journal entries. Also, those 9,000 would have told tens of thousands of others about the magic Jesus and some of those could have written letters or made a journal entry based on a trusted friend or family members story. There should have been hundreds (at least dozens) of letters about magical Jesus sent to family and friends to many places in the Empire.

No contemporaneous letter or journal entry has ever been found. Magical Jesus never existed.

There were no letters or journal entries by Jews about Simeon Bar Kokhba because: the Romans isolated Judea; killed all the Jews; and the burned the cities.

spin

I've read Young, but he's not cited on internet. You cited Hezser so I found a reference and used it. Don't bitch.

No, I demurred to the idea for argument's sake.

Poor misrepresentation. You eke out 10%-50% rather unscrupulously. For argument's sake I've give 10% and call your exaggerations crap.

I frequently admit I was wrong. I was wrong trying to point NoRobots to texts about historiography.

I often say, don't trust me: check it out. That's why I often cite my evidence.

So, where have you got in trying to justify the following flight of fancy?

Quote:

10% to 50% of the Judeans were literate. Many of them must have corresponded with Jewish relatives and business associates elsewhere in the Empire. Many of them must have kept journals. According to the gospels 10,000 people witnessed the miracles of Jesus. If the Gospels were true, than there should have been hundreds or even thousands of accounts of his miracles in journals and letters. The fact that we do not have a single letter or journal that mentions Jesus is a startling silence that indicates that Jesus never existed.

spin

No Robots

Well, you were wrong only in the sense that once you are engaged in an open discussion of historiography, your position's vulnerability becomes all too apparent.

Oh, and on the subject at hand (is this a private brawl, or can anyone join in?), this study puts literacy in Israel at the time of Christ at 3%.