arnoldo

Good examples. The argument that the only people who *existed* in the past are those persons whom we have historical records of is absurd.

Malachi151

You guys are all still missing the point.

The point isn't that we don't have much information or a reliable historical account to go on. That alone would never be enough to argue AGAINST historicity.

The point is that every account of Jesus that we do have is based purely on scriptures, or on other writings that are based on scritpures.

Everything that Paul said about Jesus came from scritpures.

Everything that the Gospel of Mark says about Jesus comes from scriptures.

Just about everything that the other gospels say about Jesus comes from either Mark or scritpures.

The "details" of his life can almost all be traced back to specific quotes from other texts. This is not a quality that we find even among most other supposed mythical people.

aa5874

Who in this thread made such an absurd argument? But, how do you prove that an entity ever lived who had no natural father, was born when a fictitious star appeared, died during a day that NASA records cannot account for, and whose name, Jesus Christ, is considered to be forged in the writings of Josephus.

arnoldo

Wrong. in the 2nd century the Roman historian Tacticus (Annals, 15.44) reference both the emperor Nero, Pontius Pilate, Tiberius and a certain person he calls Christus
If you can prove Pontius Pilate never existed you have basically discredited Christianity. Good Luck. :wave:

Amaleq13

Except the part about being crucified.

Sheshbazzar

Did you happen to even notice that Tacticus was writing in the 2nd century arnoldo?
Has it even occurred to you that he was not personally present to be a witness to any of these stories and urban legends that he writes about?
(IF he even did actually "write" everything that has been attributed to him. Oh, that's right, its in IN A BOOK! so it just has to be true.:Cheeky: )

We have no reason to even want to "prove that Pontius Pilate never existed". As unlike most of the other characters to be found in your favorite book of fairy-tales, Pontius Pilate is a genuine historical figure ( not a "christian" or "christian" creation) who is documented by contemporary writings, and whose proof of existence doesn't need to depend totally upon repeated "urban myths" and those fourth and fifth hand "accounts" that the christians continued to fabricate for hundreds of years. Their crap still remains, even then it so embarrassed them, that they had to leave out dozens of their own books, written by their own writers.

aa5874

This is really interesting, you suggest that the recipe, formula, ingredients or parts that were used to manufacture Jesus was also included in the user manual, the Bible.

And it would appear so, indeed. Even during the crucifixion, the last words of Jesus, according to Luke came from Psalms 31.5, (Luke 23.46) but Mark got his ingredients from Psalms 22.1, (Mk 15.34) to construct parts of the same scene.

Doug Shaver

It certainly is. But I have never made that argument, and I have never heard anyone else make it, either.

The only argument I make is that, to justify belief in someone's existence, there must be some credible evidence for their existence and it must not be outweighed by any evidence, if any, against their existence.

For most people who are generally believed by historians to have existed, there is at least some evidence for their existence and little or none at all against their existence.

spin

Ummm, who's this Tacticus, boys? Aeneas Tacticus? Or someone else?


spin

Malachi151

Yeah, so what? There is no need to prove that Pilate didn't exist. Indeed he clearly did exist, and the Philo's commentary about him is a part of the major evidence against Jesus.

Tacitus was clearly passing on Christian lore in the 2nd century, so what?

The claim is not that people didn't believe that Jesus existed, it is that Jesus didn't exist. We all know that by the 2nd century many people believed him to have been a real person.